One of the fun things about the business of ad network optimization is the plethora of numbers and the joys of reconciling them. For any campaign, the ad network has a set of numbers, the ad network optimizer has a set of numbers and the publisher has a set of numbers. Of course, these sets of numbers rarely agree. For an anal accountant (and I’m one of them), this is a potential nightmare.

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#1- Transparency

The level of transparency premium publishers should allow largely depends on the strength of the sites’ sales teams. If there is little direct revenue, a publisher should not be as concerned about advertisers buying inventory through a third party. Presumably, the more information a network can share with advertisers, the higher the CPM paid to the publisher. This assumption usually holds true, but not always. Some level of transparency is necessary to command premium rates and publishers should talk openly with ad networks about how their sites will be represented by their sales teams. Providing an advertiser block list will help minimize the cannibalization risk associated with opening ad inventory to a third party. Blocking your direct advertisers from running through networks and offering transparency to the brands not currently on your site will generate additional revenue, while protecting the premium CPMs garnered from your most valuable clients.

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CBS Interactive announced this week that it is eliminating the majority of advertising networks and ad exchanges from running on their online properties. This follows other major online publishers who have made a similar decision – most of them have focused on the fact that their sites have been cannibalized from networks selling site-specific ads at rates significantly lower than those of their own direct sales teams. There is definitely some underlying truth here, but there are also key ways to address this major challenge facing premium publishers today. It starts with your block list. By addressing this major issue head on, premium publishers can significantly minimize or even eliminate this cannibalization while still driving considerable revenues from their unsold inventory.

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