OpenX Blog

Jason Barnard
Country:	Mauritius
Website:	UpToTen - a reassuring, friendly world of unique games, songs and activities for children aged up to ten!
Audience:	Used by more than 3,000,000 in over 220 countries. Serving over 70 million page views each month to a niche market - kids aged up to ten.

Jason from UpToTen shares with us his 5 step plan for successful online advertising.

Jason’s website has a global readership. He uses OpenX to manage localized partner advertising and optimize his inventory to beat the basic ad network eCPM’s.

OA: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us. Could you start by giving us a little background about your website and the online advertising you do.

Jason: Thanks for giving me the opportunity!

I manage UpToTen, a recognized global leader in early-learning multimedia. Since 1999, we have developed over a thousand educational games and activities that are used regularly by more than 3,000,000 users in homes and schools in over 220 countries. We currently serve over 70 million pageviews each month to a niche market - kids aged up to ten.

OA: Given your target audience is an age group rather than a country it’s no surprise to see that your readership is from all over the world. That must make it more complicated to manage your inventory to optimize your returns.

Jason: Yes it does! It wouldn’t be practical for me to sell my inventory directly in each country. In order to get the best results we’ve had to form relationships with specialized agencies in as many countries as possible.

OpenX let’s me manage my inventory. I can geotarget and prioritize delivery for each partner and keep a close eye on how each one is doing. For the rest, I evaluate impressions -> clicks -> revenues for our in-house ads and compare it to Google revenue.

OpenX let’s me do all the juggling and fine tuning. I only spend around 1 hour each week to manage all of this!

OA: So what advice would you give other online advertisers with a global readership? How can they make the most from online advertising on their site?

Jason: If you have significant readerships in many countries then I would encourage the use of specialist ad agencies.

Here’s my five step program to getting started…

1. Put Google and Yahoo! ads in place for a few days. See how much you get eCPM. This will give you a “minimum acceptable eCPM”.
2. Get a specialist ad agency in any countries you can. A good agency is well worth the % they take. Tell them what “minimum acceptable eCPM” you expect from them. Make it well above your Google eCPM. Suggest that you will not hesitate to switch the inventory back to Google if the ad agency income falls below the “minimum acceptable eCPM” you set for them.
3. If you have something to sell yourself, deliver your own ads until the eCPM for those (ie sales profit per 1000 ad impressions) is lower than the eCPM you are getting from Google.
4. Keep an eye on the figures above and tweak regularly.
5. Always leave a little with Google so as to always have a realistic “minimum acceptable eCPM”.

OA: Thanks Jason. I think lots of people in the OpenX Community members will be interested to read this.

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