SiteScout Questions (22)
Question about SiteScout... I just signed up and checking it out.
1. When it says "X" amount of auctions per day... what is that? What does that mean? Like when you go to this tool they have: https://rtb.sitescout.com/apps/offers/
2. When you look at their main inventory portal... and it says Daily Impressions 5 million or whatever for a particular site... what exactly does that mean... some of these sites get just 10K people per month to their site and have 1 million daily Impressions?
3. Using the inventory page they have... how can I find low cost high volume opportunities?
4. How is Sitescout for mobile?
5. Any tips or helpful tidbits with using SiteScout successfully? Anything to avoid, watch out for or not do?
6. What is another site/traffic source similar to SiteScout that is high quality and a good thing to have?
7. How is the quality from SiteScout?
Thanks
1. Impressions. It's and RTB platform so every impression involves multiple advertisers bidding in an auction to win the impression.
2. The 10K/month user stat is likely wrong. Where did you get that stat from? Impression data from an ad server is likely much more accurate.
3. Sort by CPM then just manually go through the list...
4. There are friendlier DSPs out there for mobile that offer more granular targeting parameters as well. Not sure what exchanges SiteScout plug into.
5. Start with low CPMs and bids and make sure to not fat finger extra zeroes into budgets, watch like a hawk, cull placements that perform poorly very quickly, etc. Easy to burn money with the high volumes so keep your stuff locked down tight when starting out.
6. Bonadza, Adperium, can't advise well on RTB display platforms. Someone else will have a better list.
7. N/A. Depends on placements. SiteScout approval times are crap IIRC and there's always gonna be bot traffic in an open marketplace, hence why you should watch your data carefully.
That 10K user stat was from similiarweb.com... I checked the site... and then checked sitescout for the impressions. I can't remember the domain though...
When it says 1smillion daily impressions... is that what is available to buy or what the domain can do? Is a big number a good sign or not?
Couple of other quick questions based on SiteScout:
Some sites I pull up in SiteScout will have 3 different exchanges with 3 different CPM prices for that same domain... do I simply pick the least priced Avg CPM? Is it that simple or is there more to it?
Also, when I look at the Site rules for a particular domain... Rubicon may not list Skincare as a denied vertical for that domain but AdTech or another one may list it as a denied vertical... so is SkinCare allowed or not?
Lastly... when I checkout say cosmopolitan.com on sitescout for example... the CPM prices are a lot cheaper than when I go to Google Display planner... and look at the Historic CPM. Any reason why? Are google placements better? And where it says 15M-20M under Impressions/Week is that how much volume is available?
Oh, one more thing... and if you don't want to let me know as it will reveal your "secret sauce" I completely understand... but are any of your own sources for media buying good for people starting out in those traffic sources? If so, which ones would you recommend yourself? I have seen various opinions on here but curious what you use... it seems that you probably don't use RTB display platforms with how you answered question #6.
Hey, mind if I chime in with a related question myself?
What is the best way to find targets for your offer on SiteScout/RTBs ? They have contextual, demographic and website targeting. A lot of sites are not categorized so you have to sift through a lot of inventory to find relevant sites which can be very time consuming?
Then, most of the sites do not deliver me any impressions. A rep told me that it can be because 1) low bid and 2) denied ad/landing page by the publisher. That sucks because you really can't create site specific campaigns cuz you never know if they run your ads?
Is it better to create a contextual or demographic campaign first & then select placements based on the data? I lost a couple of moneys that way though and had never really good placements :/
I struggle atm to find relevant placements for the mole trap offer I posted here couple of days ago. I want to start some new campaigns but don't know really how to find relevant sites.
I'm also busting my head on their platform.
I made 3 campaigns:
1. Hand picked placements based on offer demo and Alexa, Similarweb stats (very time consuming).
2. Contextual.
3. Demographic.
So far almost no impression. And all of the clicks I got acts very non human. 0% LP CTR and I made 6 different LP's out of almost 200 clicks.
I asked their support for Case studies and guides.
They sent me those:
http://www.sitescout.com/support/
http://www.sitescout.com/case-studies/
http://www.sitescout.com/blog/
Been through everything, seems Iv'e done everything good but still no traffic even with $2.00 CPM Bid.
Almost about to give up and ask for my money back, but still want to see what I can do with it.
With that said I do know that people ARE making money with Sitescout and it is more than possible and competition on such a big ad platform with so many exchanges is not that bad with the right angle and offer, so if anyone do know or can tip us guys on using Sitescout or even someone having success and can vouch for this platform, please join in.
P.S Sorry for taking the post, I was just heading to write a post about this and saw your post! Hope I helped a bit.
Thanks for the input. I wasn't hammering them as I haven't used them... I was just asking about some of the terminology and such.
I do like how you can chose which sites you can go on and such with SiteScout. I noticed with Adblade you cannot select which domains your ads show up on and for 50onRed, for CPM DISPLAY, you gotta use their managed services... I like to do things myself.
I wonder if there is another site/company that has the interface and access like how SiteScout has it, where you can self-serve and pick your own sites you want your ads on but are closer to the source... ie. it seems that SiteScout just has "left over" inventory from the exchanges and direct buy people and from what the site's ad execs couldn't sell... I wonder if there is a service with such control as SiteScout but you get better inventory and do it at good low cost?
I checked out BuySellAds and the prices are a lot higher than SiteScout and they want you to commit to many more impressions... anyone have thoughts on that?
At the end of the day... I am looking for a solid and proven display ad network/exchange/service that works with desktop and mobile... where I have a lot of targeting control, to include identifying actual sites to show my ads on. If anyone has any suggestions... you will win the "Internet post of the day" award!
Originally Posted by webworx
The site rules will come from communication of the exchange with the publisher. If it's disallowed on one and not on the other, usually I'd say it's just disallowed and they forgot to list it.
Publishers will sell their inventory to multiple exchanges. They will do this for different ad spots, countries and certain exchanges will get the premium (first view) traffic. So, the CPMs vary because of what advertisers are paying via those exchanges... high CPMs often indicates higher performance traffic and/or higher competition.
There's no magic to it all, it's just a competitive marketplace so the prices reflect what advertisers are willing to pay for those spots and whatever impressions they end up getting.
15-20 M impressions = volume.
Other platforms... SiteScout, Bonadza, BuySellAds are all pretty friendly entry points. If you want other sites... just follow the exchanges listed on SiteScout. Adperium is OK but it's all remnant. In the end there isn't any ideal platform that will make it any easier to make money with the same placements - that is dictated more by pricing and your competition than anything (unless the platform offers really awesome targeting that lets you optimise tightly, but SiteScout offers that pretty well already...).
Originally Posted by luther88
If you don't get traffic you can be 99% sure it's a low bid man... Display CPMs can be massive. Don't be surprised if SS says the average bid is $1.20 but you need to bid $5 to get traffic on the day.
For denied ads... you really just need to look at the publisher rules so that you don't waste time making campaigns for them. Or, just blanket add all the sites your interested in and see which ones run.
For mole traps... try using Google's tools (and your own searches...) to find the sites that come up when people are searching for solutions to moles in their lawn... then go from there.
I wouldn't focus much on demogrpahic/contextual targeting at first. Focus on placements. You will stifle your volume with any of that categorical targeting and you don't even know if it's accurate, useful or will increase conversion rates.
Originally Posted by omrikos
Again, bid higher. Not sure what country/sites you're targeting but the solution for no traffic is almost always bid higher. If you don't know what your ad CTRs are you have no idea what CPCs will be and without traffic no idea of EPC... so really you just need to budget low and bid aggressively to feel your way around.
Originally Posted by webworx
Most RTB platforms will deal with a large % remnant and "non-premium" inventory. That's just the way it is. No platform can compete with direct buys if they pay more than auctioneers will.
You won't really get RTB inventory at a lower cost - again, the entire ecosystem is competitive and works on auctioning. No matter what platform/exchange you go through, if you are bidding on the same placement and impressions, all else being equal the platform won't matter (assume their markups on CPM are the same). It's just a conduit to the auction event.
The way you will get things cheaper, and get higher quality traffic, is with direct buys where you give the publisher a flat rate for a set number of impressions. In many situations publishers will take the upfront payment over a volatile RTB monetisation where they get only a % of what you pay at the RTB end.
Thanks... are we able to signup with say OpenX or some of the other exchanges/networks? I don't see a signup button or anything?
Some of those exchanges won't work directly with affiliates and small advertisers, rather high volume publishers and DSPs.
For others you could sign up for their self-serve system but they may have hefty minimums, just gotta put your foot in the door and see what they say.
I think my gameplan is going to be to use SiteScout for Display and Decisive for Mobile... get some volume built-up and develop a "resume" so to speak in those traffic sources and then go from there. I am sure once I get experience and first-hand knowledge and also a monthly budget in mind that I can give them, they would be more receptive and my decisions more informed.
In the past, I always did AM via emails, building a community, through my sites and SEO. I am new to this "media buying" and PPC process that many of you guys use. Thank goodness for STM!
I feel ya mate.
Originally Posted by zeno
Bot traffic comes from publishers (and sometimes the traffic source) using automated tools, scripts etc. to appear as having more traffic than they actually do.
Bots will view and click ads, then click through on landers, but they provide zero value and may actually cost you money if you pay per click. They always are of negative value because they dirty your stats and waste your time as you look through their data.
Many publishers get paid on a CPM/CPC basis so they use the bots to simulate traffic and get paid more. Similarly, a nefarious traffic source may use bots to buff their traffic and charge more to advertisers while absorbing virtually no extra costs.
Ah okay that's what I figured although I wasn't sure. Any guidelines to tell up front whether a site may be likely to have high bot traffic?
Caurmen did a good thread on actually detecting bot traffic.
Bots often don't process javascript so are easy to identify with some crafty coding.
Otherwise, lots of clicks from the same IP/ISP (in mobile you get a lot of this anyway, so excessive is like 50+) and usually very high clickthrough rates - or zero.
Basically stuff that lies well outside the norm for real user traffic.
Ah ok I see, I hadn't thought of measuring it on my landing page- I was originally wondering about knowing before you even place the bid for a certain site- like maybe cross reference alexa data with sitescout figures and look for huge discrepancies (since I believe alexa data is culled from real users browsing on toolbars) or if there were certain other red flags.
I've written several bots before and you do have to use something special or proprietary, that has a JS engine but I have no idea what the blackhatters are using. When I do sitescout stuff (after I start with pof) I'll write some code to attempt to test these things and then share it here
What about trapping the bots. Have your main CTA working throgh JS (no link) and then have a link that is not visible for normal users in the code.
For detecting if the bot utilizes JS I just use: $.post('inc/tracking.php', {ip: ip, action : 0}); on page load. Inhouse tracking but can be transferred to other means of tracking.
the php file writes the data into a db (action default value is -1). If the "hidden" link is clicked by an ip you can change the 'action' of the ip to smth else or whatever to mark the ip as a bot.
Originally Posted by zeno
Right now I'm running my first RTB experiment on SiteScout on a specific piece of inventory and suspect something's afoot for the particular placement. The ad has 0 clicks on 18k impressions and $60 spend - dayparting to business hours and region locked to the U.S. The per-CPM price is right, and even though that's a tiny sample, 0 clicks just seems wrong. Especially when is for an established brand that's yielded 0.2%-0.8% CTR for retargeting with the exact same creative.
Originally Posted by northcutt
As far as mobile dsp's are concerned, I'd recommend checking out PocketMath. They have a pretty good user interface and will accept small affiliates as long as you have a corporate entity that you are buying from.
I had a big problem with bot traffic on Sitescout. I was running a zip submit there (I actually did a follow along here detailing it).
The traffic didnt convert for the advertiser so I got kicked off the offer. Then a few days later I got kicked out of the affiliate network. I dont understand how but the bots were filling out the zip submits.
I appealed to the affiliate network and sent them everything - screen shots etc. They sounded sympathetic but now they havent replied to my mails or skype for a month.
So be very careful with sitescout.
Originally Posted by zeno
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