One of the phrases that Account managers are tired of hearing from clients is, “Give me more traffic!” But it is not as simple to fulfill clients’ wishes as it may seem.

Each account manager wishes to have a wand that they can use to drive more traffic on their desk. Unfortunately, the world is far from magic, and to get more traffic for your campaigns, you will have to dig up and research the technical details and find out what actually impacts the volume.

One thing that directly affects the amount of traffic you get is known as eCPM.

eCPM stands for effective cost per mille (which is a thousand impressions) and is the real bid for which you are buying your impressions and clicks. The higher the eCPM is, the more traffic you will get. However, it is not always feasible to set it directly- it depends on various parameters based on what bidding model you choose.

Discussed below is the definition of eCPM, how it is calculated for each bidding model, and how you can impact it to get more traffic.

Ad Rotation And What eCPM Has To Do With It?

The main motive behind running an ad is to monetize every impression. It implies that all impressions are going to be bought by someone. Even if one advertiser does not buy an impression, another one will. That is the main idea of the rotation mechanism.

The buyer of the impression is determined by an open auction. Every active campaign that is launched on a certain slice participates in it and competes to get impressions.

This takes us to another term ‘slice’ which is defined as a combination of ad zone, GEO, and platform.

The advertiser who places the highest bid wins the auction and gets the impression. And the chances of you getting it depends on your eCPM. So, you can only win the auction if your eCPM is the highest.

What Is eCPM?

eCPM, or effective CPM, is defined as an actual bid for which you’re buying impressions on an auction while competing with other active campaigns. It is calculated differently for different bidding models— CPM, CPC, SmartCPM or CPA Goal 2.0.

But the general rule here is that the higher your eCPM, the more traffic you will get.

Calculating eCPM For Each Bidding Model

CPM

CPM is the easiest alternative. When working on CPM, your eCPM rate is equal to your CPM which you set at the launch of the campaign.

For instance, your CPM bid is $10, that is, you pay $10 for every 1000 impressions. This implies that your eCPM is also $10.

Therefore, if you wish to get more traffic, you can either increase your CPM, thus having a higher eCPM, or you can expand your targeting settings.

CPC

CPC is slightly different from CPM. In the case of CPC, your eCPM depends on your CPC bid and the CTR of your ads. This means that in case your ads have low CTR, then even with a high CPC bid your campaign won’t be getting too much traffic.

So, to get more traffic, you can either increase your CPC rate or make your ads more clickable (that is, improve their CTR). But the best option is to do both.

CPA Goal

On CPA Goal 2.9, the eCPM depends on two factors, that are, conversion rate and the size of the bid. Conversion rate explains how well your campaign performs. In the case of CPA model, it lets you set the bid dynamically so that you can reach the conversion price you wish for.

Things you can do to increase your eCPM

Even though the system controls the size of the bid so that you buy only the best-performing impressions, but listed below are some things you can do to increase the eCPM:

• Increase your CPA goal: By increasing your CPA goal, you will allow the system to buy out more expensive zones with more traffic. In this case, you need to relaunch the campaign for better results.

• Expand your targeting settings: There is a possibility that the targeting you have chosen is too narrow for your campaign and the system can’t find enough converting zones for your ads.

• Improve the CR of your landing page: You can improve the conversion rate of your landing page by improving your creatives, revising your conversion flows, etc.

Conclusion

Thus, working on eCPM can help you generate more traffic and further monetize every impression. Even though the average eCPM tend to fall between $4- $10 but it can vary from one publisher site to another depending on the factors like target audience, the advertising market, ad locations, etc.

Team IdeaClan

Team IdeaClan

A martech company with 10+ years in the market that is engaging technology and media buying skills to transform the face of digital marketing