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NEW way of doing natives (4)

10-19-2021 08:45 AM #1 affiliated4 (Member)
NEW way of doing natives

Hey everyone,

I've been running natives for a while, mainly via Voluum dsp - and it's been profitable!

Anyway, due to restrictions and expensive cpm pricing - i've decided to go direct to the networks.

I usually like to use some kind of whitelist to start with (even if it's unreliable from a spy tool) - just to make my spend more focussed at the start - before upscaling to a ron campaign, once everything is optimized.

However, i'm noticing that most of the networks do not allow you to upload whitelists or blacklists. Instead prefer you to use their inbuilt optimization tools.

Which I totally get but I'm just wondering how you approach this without going bust during testing.

How is it possible to fairly test on such a large scale, when each widget will only get a couple of clicks for every $300 spent.

interested to hear anyone's thoughts,

Thanks

10-20-2021 11:51 AM #2 affiliated4 (Member)

Any native people have any input on this?

Is it just a case of setting fairly strict optimizer rules, hitting RON and hoping you don't go bust?

10-20-2021 12:05 PM #3 jack_l (Veteran Member)

Quote Originally Posted by affiliated4 View Post
Hey everyone,

I've been running natives for a while, mainly via Voluum dsp - and it's been profitable!

Anyway, due to restrictions and expensive cpm pricing - i've decided to go direct to the networks.

I usually like to use some kind of whitelist to start with (even if it's unreliable from a spy tool) - just to make my spend more focussed at the start - before upscaling to a ron campaign, once everything is optimized.

However, i'm noticing that most of the networks do not allow you to upload whitelists or blacklists. Instead prefer you to use their inbuilt optimization tools.

Which I totally get but I'm just wondering how you approach this without going bust during testing.

How is it possible to fairly test on such a large scale, when each widget will only get a couple of clicks for every $300 spent.

interested to hear anyone's thoughts,

Thanks
Hey @affiliated4 - great topic!

First of all, if you've made Voluum DSP work that is AWESOME. We've often had folks ask about it here on STM but have never had anyone on here who has really mastered it, so would be amazing to get some firsthand info from you on it... the best practices... tips and tricks... etc...

As far as the actual native networks go and your question... I'd say it really depends on the network...

You're right they all seem to have largely done away with whitelisting... but as far as what to do in its place I think it depends which one you're running on.

-Revcontent I believe most folks now are essentially just using tools like TheOptimizer to really purposefully 'prune' their run of network campaigns... so create a blacklist you apply to each campaign... bid up on the best widgets... etc... so I would guess it is the most similar to Voluum DSP in that regard...
-MGID I have no idea... I've heard that the folks who make it work get blacklists+whitelists from the MGID reps, but I have never had success on MGID nor do I know anyone personally who has either, at least in the last few years..
-Yahoo Gemini is its beast... could write a book on it...
-Taboola and Outbrain - these are the two 'gold standard' native networks right now I'd say, and each have about 10x the volume Revcontent does. I believe they're both at about 1.3 billion ad spend per year, but could be off on that... They might kind of still allow whitelisting a little, but I at least (and most folks I talk to regularly who run on them) just use their SmartBid feature...

In that regard I personally think the two networks (Taboola and Outbrain I mean) are almost more akin to Facebook at this point then they are to what natives were like 5 years ago... because the SmartBid algo's are so good now that they can manage pubs better than any human could...

So yeah, basically you just do run of network campaigns, and then let the SmartBid do its thing... and then if you want to you can block really bad widgets...

I don't tend to block any pubs on Taboola at all because their SmartBid is so skittish... but on Outbrain I will, and mostly on the Account Level.

So yeah, basically you either find a campaign that can work run of network or keep searching... much different than how I started on natives with Revcontent where I would just test offers on the same 2-3 big sites all the time...

It took me a LONG time to get used to not focusing on the individual pubs when I started running on Taboola and Outbrain... and it was @thedudeabides who finally convinced me to just ignore them for the most part... but now I actually really like it because it means that the only real variable is your creativity... which is nice... although obviously there's still lots of stuff to learn as far as bids/budgets/etc though too of course...

10-20-2021 02:20 PM #4 affiliated4 (Member)

Thank you Jack- I appreciate your points and they make total sense.

re:volum dsp - I heard bad things about but I've managed to make it work very well. I think it's actually a good training ground due to the cpm model. Because it forces you to make sure your creatives get super high ctr - and your learn to kill things fast. Because if you leave a low ctr creative up for too long, you could be paying $5 a click.

Where as I think with the cpc model, it's safer and cheaper but does not encourage people to optimize creatives as much.

Plus the fact you can still upload whitelists & blacklist was massive help, as you can test on a much smaller scale. Then once you have optimized you funnel & campaign, you can run on a wider network.


Anyway, i'm testing mgid and revcontent direct now using the Optimizer - and already going quite well. So I'll keep you updated.

Thanks again for your reply

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