Which Ad Network is the best…
This is very normal question as publisher point of view but finding of answer is not so easy, publisher have to cover more perspective before making any opinion so first figure out some points:
1. Which type of publisher you are (Big, medium or small).
2. What kind of traffic your website is getting means who are your audience?
3. From where you are getting maximum traffic?
4. What kind of advertising solution you want like CPC, CPA or CPM?
5. What kind of vertical you are looking means any special vertical or any kind of ads you will show on your site?
6. What kind of payment mode and terms you want?
7. Is network provide color optimization or not?
8. Is network providing your default handling of blank ads on your site?
And many more question…..
So now let’s begin finding your answer…….
As you know every ad network pay using ecpm and publisher cannot expect high ecpm each time from single ad network so normally publisher use different ad network by judging and doing research on ecpm
Normally for big publisher ecpm are low but due to huge traffic they can get good revenue so they have facility and chance to test and implement different ad networks time to time.
But for medium and small publisher has high ecpm but less user so they don’t change multiple ad network so they have to chose an ad network which provides more ads without blank and so either they have to choose any vertical specific ad network or ad network which done not show blanks like google adsence.
Use Ad Price Index of Q4 by PubMatic for more analysis of ecpm http://www.pubmatic.com/adpriceindex/AdPriceIndex_Quarterly_Q4_08.pdf
Now study contextual behavior of website audience like what is age group, Sex, education etc .. question and then choose ad network which show same kind of ads so you will get high CTR means high ecpm
Use Vizi sense Service provided by Komli Media http://www.vizisense.com
Publisher have to figure out geo location of traffic means if publisher gets traffic from USA and he implement a UK base ad network which has very high ecpm then it is useless for him because most of time ad network show you blank ads or irrelevant ads that means you have to select ad network very carefully with GEO location.
You have to also choose advertising solution which fit on your site people like CPM model but CPC is also one of choice.
Vertical is also big deal means suppose you are owner of a gamming portal and you chose an ad network which is on travel vertical then there is good change for loss of revenue so publisher cannot avoid this point .
What kind of payment mode and terms you want? Suppose any ad network will pay when publisher will earn $1000 that means for small publisher have to wait long time and in between publisher don’t have any choice to migrate there ad network.
Choose those ad networks which provides color optimization so if you will get best color optimize ads then CTR will high so ecpm is also high.
Select those ad networks which provide facility to maintain blanks using default so you can publish ads of other ad network in case if primary ad network will show blank ads.
So there are lot of complexity so there are couple of services which are free or take minimum cut of your earnings and will solve all problems you can also try all solutions according to your needs I will suggest a service name http://www.PubMatic.com
PubMatic is a meta ad server that sits between online publishers and online ad networks like Google AdSense, Yahoo Publisher Network and Value Click. PubMatic measure ecpm of all network for your sites and show ads of those ad network which pay you high ecpm so you don’t need to check always ecpm of ad networks and don’t need to change your ad tag multiple times just put pubmatic ad tag.
PubMatic provide default management http://www.pubmatic.com/PubMatic_Defaulting_White_Paper.pdf
Pumatic also provides color optimization for ads and may more feature like geo handling vertical selection etc
I am suggesting you PubMatic not only because I am one of part but 5000 publisher already using this service and getting benefits.
At last all point you can consider before judging any ad network, please incorporate your suggestion in the same if I forgot to cover anything.