Publisher Background

Viewport is a North American media company that operates a network of 25 digital publications, reaching millions of Americans daily across desktop and mobile. It produces original content across categories including food, comedy, education, and infotainment.

With a constant stream of high-performing content, Viewport prioritizes scale, consistency, and a seamless user experience. Generating over 200 million ad opportunities each month, the company continues to expand its reach and impact.

Opportunity

With most of its traffic coming from Safari and Firefox, Viewport focused on improving programmatic performance in these cookieless environments, where attribution challenges made monetization difficult.

The publisher needed a way to track performance, measure revenue impact, and test new monetization strategies in real time.

They were looking to:

• Run experiments on floor prices, ad layouts, and demand partners without disrupting user experience.
  
• Gain real-time visibility into performance issues, such as drops in fill rate or shifts in demand partner behavior, and address them immediately.
  
• Improve addressability and increase bidder competition on Safari and Firefox to drive higher yield.

Solution

By leveraging Mile’s ad management platform, Viewport optimized its ad stack using a suite of tools designed to boost yield and protect inventory value, supporting its performance and revenue growth goals.

Maximizing Monetization on Safari and Firefox
To address lower yields on Safari and Firefox, Mile integrated over seven ID partners, including UID2, IntentIQ, and Live intent.
Initial implementation focused on high-traffic cooking sites to validate impact, followed by expansion to their other properties. Mile leveraged a first-party ID graph, improving addressability in cookieless environments.

By tracking performance, normalizing data for accurate comparisons, and routing advanced identity signals in real time, Mile increased auction competitiveness and filled key monetization gaps.
As a result:

• SSP match rates, bids per auction, and bid rates more than doubled post-activation.
  
• CPMs increased by nearly 30%, resulting in an estimated revenue uplift of 26% compared to the control group.
  
• Safari session RPM grew 30 percent, surpassing Chrome’s 19 percent, confirming that identity integration significantly boosted underperforming segments.
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Safeguarding Inventory Value

Viewport aimed to maximize the value of every ad impression. To achieve this, Mile integrated several advanced yield-optimization tools into Viewport’s ad stack:

• AI-driven Dynamic Flooring:
  Analyzes over 15 parameters, including bidder trends and site-level data, to intelligently set optimal floor prices for each auction, ensuring maximum revenue capture.
• Smart Refresh:
  Refreshes ads only when in view and when the user is engaged, improving impression quality and reducing bid wastage.
• Lazy Loading:
  Delays ad rendering until placements become visible to the user, improving viewability and advertiser outcomes.

After implementation, sites consistently saw performance lifts of 14% to 20%. These improvements led to stronger yields across their portfolios.

Video Monetization

Viewport aimed to increase revenue from its video inventory while maintaining steady and reliable demand. 

• Multi-Partner Integration:
  Mile integrated premium video partners, including Connatix, Primis, and Vidazoo, expanding competition and increasing overall demand.
• Advanced Video Mediation:

  Mile implemented mediation strategies to balance demand across multiple video partners, reducing dependency on any single source and ensuring consistent performance even if one provider’s demand fluctuated.
• Placement Optimization:
  Ran controlled tests comparing anchored outstream units versus accompanied video placements to identify formats that maximize user engagement and revenue.

Following this integration, video RPMs increased significantly, rising over 25% confirming that Mile’s approach effectively boosted video monetization without compromising demand stability.

Real-Time Performance Insights

Viewport faced challenges in piecing together performance data from multiple sources, creating the need for a more streamlined approach to monitor yield. Mile addressed this by consolidating these data sources into its Revenue Analytics Dashboard.

• Centralized Revenue Tracking:
  Consolidated multiple revenue streams- including display, video, Wunderkind, and interstitials, into a single comprehensive dashboard.
• Real-Time Analytics:
  Provided detailed visibility into key performance metrics, including session RPM, fill rate, and CPM, along with breakdowns by device type and page layout.
• External Partner Revenue Estimates:
  Enabled real-time estimation of external partner revenues (such as Connatix, Primis, and Wunderkind) through precise monitoring of impression events.
• Proactive Issue Detection:
  Facilitated rapid detection of anomalies like sudden fill-rate drops or unusual bidding behaviors through real-time alerts, allowing prompt responses.

As a result, Viewport significantly strengthened its analytics capabilities, gained deeper visibility into partner performance and established a stronger analytics foundation for future A/B testing. 

Impact

Viewport’s optimized ad stack delivered measurable results:

• Non-Google Demand Surge: Contribution from non-Google partners jumped 60%, enhancing competition.
• Fill Rate Increase: Fill rates rose from 84% to 88%.
• Testing Gains: Layout optimizations delivered week-over-week RPM increases of 14 - 20%.

By working with Mile, Viewport was able to make meaningful improvements to monetization, especially in challenging environments like Safari and Firefox. With better identity coverage, smarter yield tools, and real-time visibility into performance, the team gained the flexibility to test, adapt, and grow revenue without compromising user experience.

Mile Advantage

Instant Revenue Insights
Monitor performance in real time across 30 plus metrics and 20 plus dimensions. Track everything from session RPM to alternative ID effectiveness.

Risk Free A/B Testing
Run experiments on ad layouts, refresh rates, and bidder partners without disrupting your current setup. Make confident decisions backed by data.

Dedicated Expert Support
Get real time Slack support, regular performance check ins, and fast custom optimizations from a team that goes the extra mile.