How Advertisers Know They’ve Actually Found the Right Ad Network Partner
Finding an ad network is like dating. Countless networks are out there, each promising the world, but what truly shows that you’ve found a match? Unfortunately, the hard way. Many advertisers come to realize their ad network partner is terrible only after they’ve thrown away thousands of dollars on the false impression of an ad network that seemed legitimate.
But it’s important to understand that the right partner won’t have the best dashboard or amazing traffic to boast about. It’s all about margins, support and real partnership. When you get what you’re paying for, it’s easy to know this is a place to stay.
Reported Numbers Make Sense
The first way to know that you’ve found the right partner comes from your reporting – and not just any reporting – but the expected numbers that align with your business model. Many advertisers lose sight of results because they’re looking for vanity metrics that sound good but don’t do anything for the bottom line.
As time goes on, your cost per acquisition levels out in a reasonable range. Your return on ad spend becomes so predictable that it’s easy to set budgets without wondering whether the numbers are out of whack week to week for no reason.
Realized performance doesn’t mean every campaign is the best one ever. It means the partner can supply adequate traffic that converts at such a rate that you can deal with it, and if something doesn’t perform, you can usually justify why. The numbers make sense. The attribution feels on point. You aren’t confused as to where your money went.
Quality Control is Apparent
Where many networks fail is they overload your campaigns with as much traffic they think meets your criteria and none of it converts. Bot traffic, accidental clicks, people who bounce off in two seconds all account for “impressions delivered” on their side of the fence.
The right partner and what you’ll realize about quality from day one is that they mean it. You can tell by their fraud detection measures, how they approach their base of publishers and how transparent they are as to where your ads actually go. Many advertisers who work with the best ad network platforms notice that quality traffic improves from their previous vendor merely because this company built its reputation on delivering real users who execute real actions.
When quality control works, you see it in engagement metrics. Time on site increases. Bounce rates decrease. The people clicking through your ads behave like potential customers, not bots or click farmers.
Support Actually Solves Problems
Nothing showcases the goodness of a partnership better than when something goes wrong. Maybe a campaign stops delivering. Perhaps your CTR tanked overnight without due cause. Or you need to implement a tracking solution requiring technical coordination.
The right partner doesn’t just log your ticket and say someone will “look into it.” Someone who understands both the platform and your situation will reach out with expertise. They will explore what has happened, explain to you what they’re seeing and work with you to correct it.
Similarly, support isn’t just accessible for troubleshooting. Good ad network partners act as consultants, suggesting optimizations based on what’s worked for similar advertisers, flagging things before you even realize there’s a problem.
Targeted Opportunities Fit Your Audience
Each advertiser has a specific target audience they need to reach. However, not every network has access to those audiences – or better yet – can actually deliver those audiences realistically and effectively.
When you’ve found the right fit, your targeting options align with where your target customers actually spend time online. The geographic access makes sense for your marketplace. The demographics and interest-based targeting seem precise enough that it works, but not so niche that scaling is out of the question.
Furthermore, the traffic you do receive from that targeting acts like the audience from which you’re trying to appeal. If you’re targeting small business owners looking for marketing tools, the clicks you purchase should come from those individuals – not some random person who visited a tangentially related website six months ago.
Scaling Doesn’t Break Everything
This is a major test for many advertisers: how does everything scale? When partnered with the wrong network, scaling means sacrificing quality. Double your budget and suddenly your cost per acquisition skyrockets by 150% because they’re now scraping the bottom of the barrel to get any kind of traffic to hit your expanded request.
The right partner and ad network knows how to scale effectively. In fact, performance remains relatively similar as budgets increase. Yes, there might be some variations as they access different inventory but shouldn’t provide traffic comparable to a completely different audience.
This matters whether you’re going from $1,000 monthly to $5,000 monthly or $50,000 to $200,000 monthly – the infrastructure and access should support your growth – otherwise what good is working with them?
Reporting Feels Transparent and Useful
Cheap ad networks create poor dashboards behind which they can hide millions of excuses. They’ll throw up impressive-looking charts that don’t give you any valuable information about campaign success. Or even worse, their numbers never match up with your analytics numbers.
Good partners make reporting simple. You can easily see what’s working and what’s not. The breakdown helps you make decisions – as compared by placement, device, day part or geographically. And when you compare their numbers with your tracking numbers, things generally add up (and if they don’t, there’s reasonable explanation – perfectly aligned comparable results are rare).
Equally important is their ability to show you where your ads are running; you’re not buying a black box stocked with “premium inventory” without any insight into where your ads might be.
Pricing Model Works For Your Businesses
Sometimes pricing based on cost-per-click makes sense; other times, cost-per-thousand impressions makes more sense. Occasionally you only want to pay when conversions actually happen (cost-per-action).
The proper partner enables pricing options that align with how you actually make money without making the rates feel suspiciously cheap (which usually indicates fraud). You understand what you’re paying for enough to forecast costs when operating within parameters which allow profitable campaigns.
Similarly, minimums make sense; if you’re testing something at $2,000, a company that requires a $10,000 minimum probably isn’t a good fit. Similarly, a network with zero true volume may be helpful for tiny tests but can’t support significant growth.
Your Gut Says It Feels Different
Sometimes it’s not one specific thing; it just feels different because you’ve been through enough networks to know this one feels solid.
Communication is seamless; questions get answered; campaigns go off without a hitch; you’re not constantly fighting to find functionality or certainty that you’re not being played.
It doesn’t mean everything is perfect all the time – but when things are wrong or adjustments need to be made, they’re easily resourced through accountability – not everything feels like a stretch.
When you’ve found the right ad network partner, it becomes life-changing how advertising fits into your business; you’re no longer putting out fires or questioning every second guess – strategy rules the day with growth potential at every corner as this partner becomes a reliable resource for continued addition to your bottom line – and that’s what separates any player from just another vendor trying to take your money.