Best Practices: CPM

The Quantcast Platform allows advertisers to manage campaigns, view performance, and understand insights in performance through reports. When gauging campaign performance, cost-per-thousand impressions (CPMs) measure how much Quantcast's model is spending on bids in the exchange to win high-value impressions. In this article, we will dive into understanding:

High CPMs

The Quantcast Platform runs on a dynamic cost-per-thousand impressions (dCPM) model, meaning bids fluctuate depending on the estimated value of a cookie. You may see high CPMs:

• When high-value cookies are assigned a higher bid to  drive performance.

• When there is a change in overall demand and seasonality at the exchange level.

• During the holidays, especially at the end of the year, followed by lower CPMs in January at the start of a new year.

Having a high CPM does not always mean you should try to lower it. It is more important to understand how the CPM relates to the relative performance; the Quantcast Platform is always aiming for best performance which sometimes means a higher CPM. Still, if you need to make changes because the CPMs are too high, read on.

How Campaign Settings Affect CPMs

Many changes to the ad set can influence how our model bids on cookies, but more importantly it can change the number of available bids. Some changes, such as additional layers of restrictions, will reduce the overall bid opportunities which could potentially limit high-value cookies. The following campaign/ad set settings may affect overall CPMs include:

• Seeking specific creative types and sizes

• Large blockists or small allowlists

• High viewability settings or strict frequency caps

• Integral Ad Science (IAS)/DoubleVerify (DV) pre-bid configurations

Some of the campaign/ad set settings have added fees which will increase the CPM. 

How to Troubleshoot High CPMs

Checklist:

• Campaign Objective: Found on the campaign level. Hover over your campaign, click Insights, and then select the Details tab.  

  

  • What is the campaign type? This will give a better understanding of your campaign's overall objective and goal.

• Targeting: Found on the ad set level. Hover over your ad set, click Insights, and then select the Details tab.

  

  
  

  • Is the strategy Full Performance (both prospecting and retargeting), Prospecting (Lookalike), or Retargeting?

    • Typically, we see higher CPM levels for retargeting when compared to prospecting.

    • Full-performance ad sets that experience higher CPMs are normally due to retargeting. Pull reporting to identify whether this is true or not.

    • It’s not uncommon to see higher CPMs when retargeting due to the value of the cookie. This range can vary greatly depending on additional ad settings.

• Audience: Found on the ad set level. Hover over your ad set, click Insights, and then select the Details tab.

  

  
  

  • If applicable: Does the lookalike model include the conversion event and/or any suppression audiences?

    • Changes to the Lookalike or Retargeting model will temporarily cause our model to relearn and adjust, also changing the value of cookies.

Note: There is no guarantee that changing the models back will result in previous CPM levels.

• Suppression events will limit the amount of inventory our model can target. If retargeting is a better performer but the inventory is restricted due to suppression events, the system may increase bids to win the impression.

• If retargeting is the cause of high CPM, lookalike and retargeting may need to be broken out into separate ad sets to control spend. This will also allow specific budget levels between the two ad sets.

• Are there any geo-targeting restrictions?

  • Geo-targeting settings are filters that limit your potential audience, which can have a significant impact on available bid opportunities and can increase CPM levels. Try broadening your location if your audience is too small (the broadest location you can target is country-level).

• Any demographic or interest-based layering?

  • Strictly speaking, any layers you add can reduce the potential audience and inventory we can bid on and thus naturally drive up costs, however, Demographics, Keywords, and Predefined Categories are goals, not filters, so their inclusion will have a far smaller impact on costs than filter-based constraints (goals are soft boundaries while filters are hard boundaries). Still, the fewer constraints you add, the more opportunity you give your ad to reach its intended audience so you might take a look here as well.

• Selection of Creatives: Found at the creative level under the ad set level within the campaigns section Quantcast Platform.

  

  • What type of creatives are being used? Native, Video, Display?

    • Native, Video, and larger display creative sizes, such as 300x600 and 970x250, will typically run at higher CPMs due to the limited inventory, real estate it takes up on a site, and bidding competition at the exchange.

• Advanced Options: Found on the ad set level. Hover over your ad set, click Insights, and then select the Details tab.

  

  • What is the viewability set to?

    • Increasing viewability will progressively increase restricted inventory, which can cause bids to increase. We recommend starting with 55% viewability for ad sets on Conversion objective campaigns.

  • Are there any frequency caps implemented?

    • If strict frequency caps are added, it may reduce the number of times we’re able to bid on high-valued   cookies, thus increasing the need to bid higher to ensure that cookie is won.

  • What devices are you seeking to reach?

    • Targeting specific devices will reduce overall bid opportunities and may have potential to increase CPMs. This typically won’t have a major effect but definitely is something worth monitoring post-campaign launch.

  • Is there a custom blocklist or allowlist that has been added? Are any brand safety segments from IAS/DV being added?

    • Custom allowlists and blocklists, depending on how restrictive, may heavily impact available bid opportunities. Consider opening up available bid opportunities by adding more sites to your custom allowlist or removing sites on your custom blocklist.

    • IAS/DV Pre-Bid Segments, which come at an additional fee, cause an increase in CPMs. Adding IAS/DV Pre-Bid segments will also limit bid opportunities and may block our model from bidding on high-value opportunities.