In programmatic advertising, traffic is valued differently depending upon a myriad of factors. One of those factors is the zone or area where an ad appears along with its visibility or how long it will be in the view of a user on the site.
Revenue is tracked for Ad Zones and Ad Units daily. You can change the timeframe displayed with the Date Range on the top right corner of the Console.
Click on ‘Desktop’ or ‘Mobile’ to switch between modes. Click on ‘Zone’ and ‘Unit’ to switch between data metrics.
Ad Zones
Anchor – This zone is an overlay at the bottom or top of a page and anchors in place or stays visible as a user scrolls on the page. The ads that fill in the zone are the Mobile Header In-Screen and the Footer In-Screen or Footer Anchor. It is typically the most profitable zone because it doesn’t interrupt user experience and stays in view 100% of the time.
Footer – This zone is at the bottom or footer of the page as a part of the page. Its viewability is typically very low because users do not often scroll to the very bottom of a page or if they do, they do not stay there long.
Header – This zone is at the top or header of the page as a part of the page. Its viewability is higher than the Footer, but still not very high because it often gets scrolled past.
Repeatable: This zone often appears in content and performs well on Desktop and Mobile.
Flight: This zone appears in content and performs well on Desktop and Mobile.
In Post: This zone often appears in content and performs well on Desktop and Mobile.
Dynamic Zone: The revenue in this zone is attributed to ad units that are in dynamic zones where the size and viewability can change due to user behavior and/or content length.
SideBar: This zone appears on the left or right side of a website’s content depending on the theme. There can be multiple ads placed in this zone that are often separated by site-specific widgets. The last sidebar ad should be a sticky ad which will increase viewability and stay in place as the user scrolls.
Interstitial: This zone is a full takeover that appears in between pageviews of a user’s session. When a user clicks a link on the site, the ad will take over the screen. The user will click a close button and be directed to the link they selected. This ad will only appear once an hour per user so as not to impact UX.
Ad Units
For the unit list, you will be able to view the Earnings, RPM, CPM, and Ads/PV for each ad tag on your site. For a comprehensive list, including the ad id, export the list to CSV by clicking on the three dots in the top right corner of the graph.
Revenue by Ad Zone FAQ
Q: Why did a zone disappear on the graph?
A: When an ad or ads are removed from a specific zone by publisher request the revenue from that zone will stop and not be tracked.
Q: Why is the Footer Zone performing so low?
A: It’s important not to confuse the Footer Zone with the Footer In-Screen ad. The Footer zone is the area at the bottom of a page and is not in view very often and therefore does not perform well. In contrast the Anchor Zone is the area that contains the Mobile Header In-Screen and the Footer In-Screen, which are ads that are always in view and therefore are top performers.
Q: What is the difference between an Ad Zone and an Ad Unit
A: The Ad Zone is the area where an ad appears. The naming convention for the zone can be different than the actual ad. The names of the zones are designed to describe where on a page the ad units themselves will fill.