Your site is attracting more eyes, and you are ready to start monetizing that traffic through ads. To make the most of your ad spaces, you want ad providers to pay top dollar for impressions.
At Monumetric, we ensure the best returns by driving up the competition. We create this competition by backing your site with multiple potential advertisers. When multiple advertisers want space on your site, your ad revenue increases.
Before we heat up the competition with better revenue, your site must be screened to see if it meets ad providers’ criteria. This approval process is the first step in working with us.
Ad Providers are the key to monetizing your site. Our connections with providers will get you the most money for each ad placement. When you sign up with us, top-notch providers decide whether or not it’s worth advertising on your site.
In the approval process, Ad Providers look at your site and essentially say “yes” or “no.” That “yes” opens the door to monetization, while a “no” puts you in a sticky situation.
We want to help you get approved the first time around and start making money immediately. The more Ad Providers approve your site, the more people will be willing to spend their money placing ads.
To do that, we spoke with approval experts Chris Hallenbeck, the Director of Traffic for OpenX, and Morrie Hudiburg of Sovrn. Both Chris and Morrie spend hours approving and disapproving sites. Here are their inside tips for getting a site approved right away.
What are the main things you look for when you approve a site? What are the red flags that will quickly get a site disapproved?
Morrie: We are looking for quality sites with quality content. Sites will get quickly disapproved if they have copied content, fraudulent traffic, and ad clutter, among other things.
Chris: We’re looking for general adherence to industry best practices: ensuring advertisers get value for filling the ad positions on any given site. The review includes but isn’t limited to, a review of ad density, documentation of significant, verifiable levels of organic traffic and social media following, and a site’s recent history/reputation for NHT (non-human traffic).
Tell us the process for you when you’re approving a site.
Morrie: Each site is reviewed by two pairs of eyes and has to pass a few tests and all of our third-party traffic quality tools. We also look at user interaction on the site and social media. We have high standards at Sovrn to connect quality demand with quality publishers.
Chris: We use a combination of both quantitative measurements as well as qualitative judgments to determine overall inventory quality.
Tell us the process for you when you’re approving a site.
Morrie: The most common misconception is that the site will get approved if it goes through the approval process. We’ll look at every site, but there’s no guarantee it will pass all the standards and be approved for our network!
Chris: The most common misconception is that we’re only concerned with fraud. We are indeed interested in preventing fraudulent inventory from reaching the exchange. Still, we are focused on ensuring the inventory we accept for the exchange will be perceived as good quality. In other words, some sites have great content but place all their ads in locations where they are rarely seen or refresh ad tags regardless of whether they are in view or not.
What is the number one thing publishers should know and factor in when trying to get approved?
Morrie: Be familiar with the standards of each of your partners, but for Sovrn, quality is our number one priority. Each site in our network was approved because they have high-quality, unique content on a quality site.
Chris: Brand new sites that haven’t developed a reputation via 3rd party tools and a social media following are the most commonly rejected. We recommend publishers submit sites with an established following and organic audience for the best chances of acceptance.
My site was denied. Does that mean I could never be approved in the future?
Morrie: If your site is denied, it could be approved with some changes depending on the denial reason. A site that was already on our blacklist would not have a chance of being approved in the future, but a site that was denied for ad clutter could be approved if the extra ads are taken down.
Chris: We are willing to re-evaluate rejected sites when the reasons for rejection are mitigated. For example, a site with ten ads per page was rejected — but upon reducing the number of ad units per page to 5, we revised that decision and allowed the site in the exchange.
What is your number one tip for publishers?
Both: Make quality content your focus!
Quality: Here are some things included in that definition:
- Original, frequent content
- Organic and direct traffic
- No inappropriate content (NSFW, alcohol, drugs, hate speech, etc.)
Besides having engaging new content, your site should have excellent user engagement. What that means is that you have comments on your posts as well as social media engagement. If you don’t have comments enabled on your posts, now’s the time to get those up!
On the other hand, there are a lot of red flags that will quickly get your site disapproved.
Here are a few of them*:
- Insufficient user engagement
- This can be anything from low comments to low social media engagement
- High ad density (ad clutter)
- Too many ads
- Broken or inactive site
- Your site is down when advertisers are reviewing it
- Inappropriate content
- Nudity, sheer clothing, overtly suggestive themes, or anything illegal
- You haven’t been updating your site or adding new content
- Stolen content
- You posted someone else’s work without permission
- Not original content
- You took an idea or content that has already been published
- Suspicious or fake traffic
*Ad Providers may not approve your site for other reasons specific to your site.
To make sure you have the best shot at approval before sending your site in, go through these pro tips and make sure your site fits with what providers are looking for, and you’ll be on your way to monetizing your site!
We hope this has shined a light on your questions and you join us at Monumetric. Reach out to our team for a free audit. Optimize your monetization today! Join Monumetric Today!
