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Google Killing Pops? What the Insiders Think (Data Inside!) (14)

03-09-2018 02:53 PM #1 vortex (Senior Moderator)
Google Killing Pops? What the Insiders Think (Data Inside!)

In April 2017, WSJ reported that in an upcoming update of the Google Chrome browser, ad blocking would be included by default.

The pop-up ad was one of the ad types being targeted. The concern was that this browser update may have negative effects on pop traffic ad campaigns. Various speculations from the STM community can be seen in at least several threads, for example the following:

Chrome ad blocking live in early 2018

Feb 15 is coming: How Google's Adblocker will work

Running annoying ads? ... Chrome will BLOCK them automatically!

The update was released on February 15th, 2018. It has now been several weeks since, but surprisingly there has been little feedback on this forum or beyond, as to whether or not the update has had any impact on active pop campaigns.

I've interviewed representatives from some of the largest pop traffic networks, as well as affiliates that run pop traffic in volume, to get an idea on the impact of this chrome update. Below are their replies.

You are encouraged to add your observations in the posts below! I will select the most insightful ones and add them to the first post. We may also create a PDF of all the observations and comments and make them available to non-STM members via opt-in forms. If you'd be so kind as to share your experiences regarding the chrome update, please also include a brief description of yourself, mainly your affiliate marketing experience level, and the company name and title if you have one (please feel free to include a link to your website or company website).

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Dmitry Braun - STM Forum Moderator, AM Coach, and Veteran Affiliate

Intro: Known as mrbraun on the STM forums, Dmitry has numerous campaigns live in various verticals. In addition to managing his own advertising agency, Dmitry also has a coaching program that has coached many students over the past 2 years.

1)Since the chrome ad-blocker update of 15-Feb-18, have you noticed the following:

a)A difference in conversion rates compared to before the update?

The CR is still the same. For some campaigns (Sweepstakes) it became a bit better! From 0.5% to 0.65% for all geos.

b)A difference in traffic volume compared to before the update (with bid remaining the same)?

The amount of traffic is now more than before the New Year. I think as many affiliates left POP traffic (I know cause a have a lot of friends there), traffic became cheaper and I receive better volume.

c)If using a bot script - a difference in bot traffic levels?

I don’t use this script.

2)How has this update impacted on your business in general? And what are you doing to minimize the impact?

To be honest I didn’t see any negative things after this update. As I see 99% of sources were ready and optimised their scripts, so the volume is the same. For some GEOs I really see that some sites are not active anymore. I asked my sources and they told me that they are afraid of this update and decided to move to another type of advertisement. On the other hand, I see that some really big POP guys left this type of traffic, and the cost became cheaper for all geos. So for my campaigns I don’t see any negative effects, but in general the work became better, cause it’s not so big competition as I saw before.

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Andrew Payne, AM Coach and Veteran Affiliate

Self-intro:

I am an affiliate marketer that specializes in mobile traffic, with an emphasis on popunder traffic. Verticals that my team and I run most often are CPI, Sweepstakes, Mobile Content and CPL. Check out more of my insights at http://www.affiliatesuccess.com

1)Since the chrome ad-blocker update of 15-Feb-18, have you noticed the following:

a)A difference in conversion rates compared to before the update?

I have not experienced a big change in conversion rates that would be attributed to the chrome ad-blocker updates.

b)A difference in traffic volume compared to before the update (with bid remaining the same)?

I have noticed a small impact on traffic Voluum on a few sources but overall there is still a massive amount of traffic that has not be effected by the update.

c)If using a bot script - a difference in bot traffic levels?

I use a bot script periodically in some of the high volume geo's that we run but have not recently tested the specific influence of the chrome update to bot traffic.

2)How has this update impacted on your business in general? And what are you doing to minimize the impact?

Frankly, I have not experienced a major impact to our campaigns or workflow with pop traffic. However, I do expect a more noticeable impact as the new browser version is adopted or updated across consumers devices.

Traffic sources are taking steps to provide alternatives for pop traffic through the form of additional ad formats or how they serve pop traffic - this helps to lessen the impact as things progress.

That being said, I've noticed some less prepared sources have tried to pass off in-app traffic as pop traffic to its advertisers but I will refrain from calling them out publically.

Because it's better to be prepared vs. not prepared, I have taken the potential for future changes in the industry very seriously and have begun to diversify our traffic to balance our campaigns and not rely too much on any one type as we continue to grow. This refocus at the beginning of the year has already paid off very well for my business.

That being said, we have shifted alot of our pop traffic to be sure we can compete with compliant creatives and are still doing very strong and consistent revenue with pop traffic.

Other observations are that adult traffic seems to have a reduced CPM while mainstream seems to be the same or slightly more competitive than average.

Sources I've noticed an impact with:
PopAds
Exoclick
Adcash

Sources that I've experienced less of an impact:
PopCash
PropellerAds
Zeropark

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Neill David Burton, Head of Account Management, Zeropark

1)Since the chrome ad-blocker update of 15-Feb-18, has your network experienced or seen the following:

a)Any differences in inventory levels?

Initially we saw a drop in traffic of around 5 to 8 % but we recovered quickly as our sources adapted to the change. If anything it has currently improved the quality of the traffic as some of the lower quality placements have been blocked.

b)Any change in the level of ad-blocker traffic?

We have seen a growing rate in CPM rates from November as we made the conscious decision last year to take steps with the compliance team to improve the traffic quality and lower volumes by removing lower quality sources. We have also seen a boost in conversion rates. The Google Chrome update has not affected this trend. To see current CPM rates and volumes you can head over to www.zeropark.com/volume as this page is always up to date for the past 30 days.

c)Any change in average bids?

See above.

2)What has your network done in reaction to this update?

In preparation for the chrome update we firstly kept in close contact with our current sources and monitored the situation compiling data from there and our testing. We figured that only a handful of sources would be affected directly and the ones that were to be affected were well prepared. Secondly we branched out and tried to diversify our traffic sources more, adding Mobile in app and social browser traffic to our inventory. To insure the reliability and stability that affiliates expect from a traffic platform.

3)What advice do you have for your advertisers on how to best combat the changes that resulted from this update?

Zeropark’s advice for advertisers is to ask their account manager about the different sources of traffic available on the platform. You can diversify campaigns to include other browsers, if this is not possible you can drop the frequency filters to the lowest setting or turn it off. It is also possible now in Zeropark to switch the “Traffic Buying Model” (the option is seen next to the campaign budget box) the default is “smooth” which means that all Zeroparks smart traffic throttling features are turned on to prevent a campaign from overspending its budget. The second option is “all available” which disables these filters and lets you buy as much traffic as you can at a given time. And lastly as always the final option is to bid up to buy larger quantities.

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Arnis Augstmanis, Head of Marketing, PropellerAds

1)Since the chrome ad-blocker update of 15-Feb-18, has your network experienced or seen the following:

Any differences in inventory levels? Any change in the level of ad-blocker traffic? Any change in average bids?

Of course, this wasn’t a surprise for us, so we strengthened our policy team in advance and made some improvements in our technologies.

We got a little feedback from some sites that received warnings from Google, the prevailing audience on all these sites is Tier-1 traffic. But generally, there wasn’t any roll of appeals.

In other respects, we have not noticed any significant changes in traffic volume or bids since 15 February. We have a strong policy control in place that carefully monitors each case, this way, the ads that can be considered by Google as abusive simply can't get through.

2)What has your network done in reaction to this update?

First of all, we developed a guide for our publishers explaining how to check their site status with Google Ad Experience report and pass the review successfully.

To help our publishers and advertisers diversify their revenue streams, we released a new advertising format - Native Push Notifications (Subscriptions), and also updated the technology of our Interstitial ad format to make it compliant with new regulations.

All these formats meet all the requirements of the Chrome’s update and help our customers to protect their income. So we've done a very comprehensive job to make ad formats compliant with Better Ads Coalition standards.

We also want to thank our partners who followed our instructions. This helped all of us greatly not to be affected by these updates and to avoid any interruption in their monetization process.

3)What advice do you have for your advertisers on how to best combat the changes that resulted from this update?

Most importantly, do not be afraid to be more creative and try new things. Time does not stand still and our market is constantly changing. So we advise not to rely only on misleading ads and “social engineering” tricks.

Try new perspectives: test new formats and expand your skills in working with them.

By the way, we’re going to publish a pack of new educational materials and tutorials shortly. So our partners won’t be left out in the cold - we’ll help all of them to understand new trends and working on our platform will get easier.

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Radu Burcheci, CEO, PopCash

1)Since the chrome ad-blocker update of 15-Feb-18, has your network experienced or seen the following:

a)Any differences in inventory levels?

We’ve been constantly monitoring the traffic volumes and there were no significant discrepancies, only the regular variations (a few percents increase or decrease of the daily traffic volume).

b)Any change in the level of ad-blocker traffic?

We do not monitor the ad-blocker traffic separately, because, we do not have an advanced anti-ad-block solution for now, so there is no data to use for comparison.

c)Any change in average bids?

The value of the bids remained stable in most verticals, no drastic changes registered. However we see a small drop in mobile carrier traffic bids, but is not because of Google Chrome update, there are more and more regulations which come from the carrier operators.

2)What has your network done in reaction to this update?

We've made some updates to our popunder script and, until now, none of our publishers complained about any issues with Google, however it's very hard to comply with Google since, for popunders, they are blaming the entire ad behavior and not the content, as it happens with banners. Also, we are always improving our ads behavior, so we are ready to make changes to avoid any future issues.

3)What advice do you have for your advertisers on how to best combat the changes that resulted from this update?

Well, when it comes to the advertisers, there is not much to say, because everything depends on how we (the networks) display their ads. All they need to do is to make sure that their landing pages comply to our network’s Terms of Use and we will take care of everything else.

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A huge THANK YOU to all the individuals above, who have taken time out of their busy schedules to provide valuable input!

Again: You are encouraged to add your observations in the posts below!

Please try to answer the same questions as in the interviews above (noting that they're different for networks vs. affiliates so please select accordingly). I will select the most insightful ones and add them to the first post. We may also create a PDF of all the observations and comments and make them available to non-STM members via opt-in forms. If you'd be so kind as to share your experiences regarding the chrome update, please also include a brief description of yourself, mainly your affiliate marketing experience level, and the company name and title if you have one (please feel free to include a link to your website or company website).

Questions to answer if you are an affiliate/advertiser running pop traffic:

Brief self-introduction.

1)Since the chrome ad-blocker update of 15-Feb-18, have you noticed the following:
a)A difference in conversion rates compared to before the update?
b)A difference in traffic volume compared to before the update (with bid remaining the same)?
c)If using a bot script - a difference in bot traffic levels?

2)How has this update impacted on your business in general? And what are you doing to minimize the impact?

Questions to answer if you represent a pop traffic network:

Name and url of traffic network.

1)Since the chrome ad-blocker update of 15-Feb-18, has your network experienced or seen the following:
a)Any differences in inventory levels?
b)Any change in the level of ad-blocker traffic?
c)Any change in average bids?

2)What has your network done in reaction to this update?

3)What advice do you have for your advertisers on how to best combat the changes that resulted from this update?

Thank you in advance for sharing your experiences and observations!

Amy

03-09-2018 04:53 PM #2 platinum (Veteran Member)

Thank you Amy for taking the time and shed some light on this matter.

Considering the annual ad spend moved on Pop/Redirect traffic only, I hardly believe Google has enough power on their hand to take down this type of traffic. Sure it will continue to be a cat and mouse game, but traffic sources will almost always find a way to deliver ads to the visitors.

As we already know, the major part of Pop/Redirect traffic is coming from streaming, file sharing, torrent sites and so on. As such, it’s up to humans (visitors) to decide whether they would like to get rid of these sites or not - chances are THEY DON’T.

To sum it up, Pop/Redirect traffic isn’t going to die anytime soon.

03-11-2018 08:58 PM #3 matuloo (Legendary Moderator)

Great post Amy, thanks for putting this together

03-12-2018 03:32 AM #4 erikgyepes (Moderator)

Good stuff Amy!

03-13-2018 05:37 PM #5 optifyme (Member)

Wow, What a great post Amy. Definitely lots of good information and answers.

As mentioned in your post, I also believe that traffic quality will increase since some of the low quality sources would now be blocked.

Thanks for compiling this.

03-15-2018 08:23 AM #6 propellerads (Senior Member)

Amy, thank you for this opportunity! We're always happy to share info with you and with STM community

08-17-2018 12:00 PM #7 eurosen (AMC Alumnus)

A couple of months later, is pops still going strong?

08-17-2018 12:40 PM #8 twinaxe (Senior Moderator)

Originally Posted by eurosen

A couple of months later, is pops still going strong?

Yes.

08-17-2018 12:43 PM #9 eurosen (AMC Alumnus)

Great.

What types of offers are hot at the moment?

08-17-2018 12:50 PM #10 matuloo (Legendary Moderator)

Originally Posted by eurosen

Great.

What types of offers are hot at the moment?

Did you check the guide we've put together? https://stmforum.com/whats-working-2...&utm_campaign=

And then there is a survey conducted by Mr.Green on FB lately, link to that post : https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=3&theater

And the results in simple form :

08-17-2018 12:59 PM #11 twinaxe (Senior Moderator)

Originally Posted by eurosen

Great.

What types of offers are hot at the moment?

You can have success with low paying offers like $0.08 booster Apps in ID or with $500 CPA Crypto offers in Tier1 Geos.
Just test yourself what you get working best.

08-17-2018 04:52 PM #12 vortex (Senior Moderator)

Originally Posted by eurosen

Great.

What types of offers are hot at the moment?

Matuloo's suggestions are your best bet.

Also: If you have Adplexity mobile, that will provide a lot of insight.

Another way is to ask your AMs for offers that are doing well on pop right now.

Amy

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using STM Forums mobile app

10-02-2018 01:17 AM #13 elskafreya (AMC Alumnus)

Holy cow, thanks for this thread. I fell off the affiliate marketing earth around spring '17 and am just getting back (a change in receptor chemistry; cut to Ozzy singing "I'm going through changes..."). This thread is a helpful read for a couple of reasons. Zeropark, here I come (again).

10-03-2018 02:36 AM #14 vortex (Senior Moderator)

Originally Posted by elskafreya

OMG I've been wondering where you've gone off to! How are you?

I've been encouraging people to move away from pop - except newbies for which pop is still the cheapest and easiest way to learn paid traffic.

Why not try native? With your level of experience, you can likely make a lot of headway in a relatively short time.

Amy

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