Values offer important insights into how a person or an organization makes decisions. Ours provide the foundation for hiring, promoting, recognizing, rewarding, and even parting ways with people.

While we can (and should) generally agree on the shared Sovrn values, it’s better that each of us has personal examples to describe what each value means to us. By making our values personal, they become conversational and more easily shared. By sharing and therefore reinforcing our values, we will make better decisions, and I believe a better culture.
—Walter Knapp

Second Order Thinking

Second Order Thinking is intentional and deliberate. Second Order Thinking takes time and reflection. Second Order Thinking considers the downstream and/or adjacent effects of a decision. Second Order Thinking considers the consequences of a decision and requires one to ask: “and then what?”

Scrappy

Scrappy means embracing constraints and obstacles as a path to finding the simplest and most direct answer. Scrappy means solving a problem when there isn’t enough time, money, or expertise. Scrappy means focusing on the desired outcome and working backwards to find the best way to achieve that outcome. Scrappy gets shit done.

Candid

Candid means speaking and asking questions with honesty and humility. Candid looks for the truth. Candid tries to be precise, while also empathizing with others’ perspectives. Candid means communicating objectively even if it’s uncomfortable even in the face of opposition.

Customer Empathy

Customer Empathy means we listen and learn from our customers as individuals and as organizations—we try to ‘walk a mile in their shoes’. Customer Empathy means we understand our customers’ challenges, problems, and wants. Customer Empathy means answering with what our customer needs.

Learning

Learning is the single most important trait of successful people teams and organizations. Learning is how we improve. Learning requires us to explore beyond the boundaries of our competence. Learning happens when we succeed, and when we reflect on why we didn’t. Learning leaves open the possibility that we might be wrong. Learning never stops. Learning is uncomfortable. Learning compounds.

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Content is King

Keep content fresh, interesting, and relevant to your audience and content or topic area. You can use Google Analytics or other page insight tools to give you data on what content your audience spent time on and interacted with the most. Leverage that data when planning content, as well as campaigns.

Responsive Web Design

Nearly 4 billion people access the internet on a regular basis. They spend, on average, nearly 6 hours a day online. Desktop time has remained steady at just over 2 hours per day, while mobile browsing time has steadily increased to more than 3 hours per day. It’s important to ensure that your strategies work across all browser and device types so that your site, including your ads, will be viewable no matter how your audience browses.

Avoid Ads that Get in the Way

Ad formats that take over an entire screen, obscure content, or auto-play jarring sound can provide a poor user experience. These can contribute to lower viewability by increasing bounce rates and reducing session times. In other words, intrusive or content-obstructing ads can drive your audience away and decrease the time spent engaging with your content. That’s bad for viewability, it’s bad for revenue, and it’s bad for your business. A better strategy is to maximize the value of your available inventory in order to avoid ad clutter and make more money with fewer ads, and one way to do that is with Signal.

Above the Fold

In general, the ad inventory on your pages with the highest viewability will be the ad slots or zones that appear “above the fold”, which is the visible area, typically in the upper section of your website that doesn’t require scrolling to view content. Using non-intrusive formats and ad sizes in the above the fold section is a critical component to maintaining your site’s overall viewability.

Bigger Can be Better

In general, larger ads perform better viewability-wise than smaller ads. In particular, 300×600 and 970×250 ads see higher viewability. But that doesn’t mean that you should neglect other placements, or that you shouldn’t test your ad setup (you should).

Don’t Forget your Sidebars

Along with above the fold placements, sidebar ad inventory—especially 160×600 and 300×600 skyscraper ads—have been shown to consistently generate high viewability ratings due to the length of that vertical ad type.

As a user is reading an article, a 160×600 or 300×600 ad will stay in view longer than a more horizontal ad format. These ads are particularly valuable when combined with our Signal technology, which reloads viewable ad inventory to maximize revenue.

Know the Benefits of Long vs. Short Form Content

While common wisdom would suggest that long-form content would
automatically invite more user engagement with your content, short form content that either fits in a page that doesn’t require too much scrolling, or is presented with a lazy-load or infinite scroll process, can be just as effective—if not more  if not more so—at ensuring that your users are engaging with your content and that your ad inventory is viewable.

When you optimize your site for ad viewability, you’re taking steps not only to secure revenue in the short term, but to boost business growth over the long term. Without quality, viewable inventory, advertising interest drops off, and revenue suffers. Prioritizing viewability also gives you access to products that take advantage of that viewability and further boost your viewability scores. That’s a powerful (and revenue-boosting) positive feedback loop.

Finally, remember that optimization is an ongoing process. If you’re ever in need of help or training, our Services team of on-demand ad ops experts can get you on track, no matter your goals.

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1. Keep it Fresh
   Maintain fresh content on your most popular pages, and make sure it’s easy to locate. Stale articles and hard-to-find content can increase bounce rate and decrease your CPM, so easy on-site navigation is a must.
2. Keep it Speedy
   Keep your web page file size below 3MB and your page load speed below 3 seconds. The larger the page file size, the more data that has to be processed to load it, and the longer it takes. Long load times can lead to unhappy visitors and increased bounce rates.
   
3. Streamline Your Code
   Keep your Javascript to a manageable, user-friendly minimum. Streamline the number of third-party demand tags, ad selling methods (such as header bidding, custom native, or in-feed advertising), and other data-transmitting code you have on a page. The more Javascript you run, the longer your users have to wait for the content they want.
4. Streamline Your Wrapper
   Make sure that you only have a single header bidding wrapper running per page. Additionally, limit the number of demand bidders integrated into each auction to six or seven, and use a single bid response time-out threshold for all bidders.
5. Test Everything
   Test, test, test! A/B test different page layouts and features, and examine the results. If you’re using Google Analytics, the free Experiments tool (found in the ‘Behavior’ section of your account)—soon to be replaced by the Optimize tool—is an essential resource. Testing will help you see what’s working and what’s not so that you can get the most out of your website performance.

Bonus tip: Stick to unobtrusive, IAB-approved ad formats. For example, video ads that autoplay with sound can make for a bad user experience, reduce visitor session times, and increase bounce rates.

Improved website monetization requires constant adjustment and optimization. You’ll need to stay on top of your site’s performance, as well as industry trends if you want to maximize your potential. If you need help turning these tips into results, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’ll make sure you’re taking advantage of all the opportunities you have.

Cheers,
Jose

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