FirstCry, a go-to source for parenting advice with over 25M monthly pageviews and 7.5 million registered users, partnered with Mile to significantly increase their ad revenue by 66%.

FirstCry is a category leader in parenting and health, providing essential advice and resources to parents globally. Their viewership expands to multiple geographies, including the US, UK, Australia, India, and Canada, contributing to the majority of traffic. With a substantial online presence, FirstCry reaches millions of users every month, making it a prime destination for advertisers. 

The Challenge

Before partnering with Mile, FirstCry faced significant challenges in maximizing their ad revenue. The sole reliance on Google Ad Exchange for selling remnant impressions meant missed opportunities for higher bids and better monetization. The existing setup was not efficient, resulting in suboptimal revenue per million ad requests. Additionally, balancing revenue generation with maintaining a high-quality user experience was challenging. The publisher lacked a unified auction management system, which prevented them from leveraging competitive bids from multiple demand partners.

The inefficient monetization strategy, coupled with a suboptimal ad setup, led to lower eCPM and overall revenue. The existing ad performance metrics were not meeting expectations, and there was a pressing need to enhance ad revenue without disrupting the user experience. The goal was to implement a more sophisticated ad management strategy that could boost profitability while preserving the quality of the user experience.

The Solution

FirstCry partnered with Mile to completely redefine their ad management to break free from their programmatic struggles. Mile introduced a unified auction management system, which brought in bids from premium and exclusive demand partners from around the world, including the likes of Amazon, OpenX, and AppNexus. This competitive bidding environment helped maximize eCPM and overall revenue. The implementation of Mile’s AI-backed tech expertise led to substantial increase in CPM and revenue.

Mile’s Smart Ad Refresh was also introduced to improve the viewability of their existing ad inventory.  It leverages real-time data and algorithms to optimize ad refresh points based on user interaction and engagement levels.

In addition to optimizing the ad stack, Mile's ad operations team introduced new ad units and formats, which were specifically designed to enhance ad performance. The introduction of these new formats, combined with Mile's expert tactical implementation, ensured that the ad placements were optimized for maximum performance and revenue generation.

The Impact

FirstCry was making an average of $120 per million ad requests sent before Mile. After partnering with Mile for their ad management platform, FirstCry started making $200 per million ad requests- a staggering  66.6% increase in ad revenue.

Let’s understand how Mile was able to achieve this feat with the suite of solutions in the ad management platform.

1. Unified Auction Management:

With Mile's auction management system, FirstCry received bids from multiple premium demand partners, ensuring a highly competitive environment that maximized eCPM and revenue.

2. New Ad Units & Formats:

The introduction of new ad units led to a substantial revenue contribution. Despite delivering only 22.8% of the total impressions, these units accounted for 36.2% of total ad revenue.

3. Smart Ad Refresh:

Mile’s Smart Ad Refresh technology delivered highly-viewable impressions that remained in view to active users for 25 seconds. This increased viewability, CTR, and eCPM contributed significantly to FirstCry’s revenue.

4. AMP Monetization Suite:

For mobile traffic, Mile's AMP Monetization Suite enabled server-side unified auctions, leading to a 55% increase in revenue per million ad requests.

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