Website Optimization and Ad Revenue Uplift | Case Study
How did the Setupad team use its expertise to optimize the client’s website and achieve a 38% ad revenue uplift?
About Freecads.com
Freecads.com is a free digital library of AutoCAD drawings and blocks designed by professionals for professional use. AutoCAD is the original CAD software used by millions around the world to create precise 2D and 3D drawings and models, as well as electrical diagrams, construction drawings, and much more.
The website caters to students, architects, designers, engineers, project managers, real estate developers, and other professionals thanks to the thousands of free AutoCAD blocks designed over the course of 2 decades.
The Challenge: Optimize banners for the website, unlock AdBlock traffic, and increase ad revenue
How did the publisher’s website look before Setupad?
Previously the publisher was using Google AdSense. The website had a sleek and unobstructed design. However, the AdSense banners didn’t necessarily match it well.
Moreover, because of the results that AdSense was generating, the client didn’t feel like he was getting the most out of his inventory. The fact that AdSense lacks client support and individual approach also played a role for the founder of Freecads, Greg, who is an interior designer by vocation and has a great attention to detail.
Setupad has evaluated the website and came up with the ad setup that benefited the website the most. Some banner sizes were replaced, for example, the 336×600 sticky sidebar was changed to 200×600 sticky sidebar to better match the website design.
Another notable change was the introduction of an outstream video widget, which now accounts for more than 10% of the total ad revenue.
Thanks to a holistic approach, our Account Executive was quick to spot the high rate of ad blocker users. Therefore, Setupad has advised the client to implement an ad blocker solution (Google’s Funding Choices).
After the test, it was calculated that the allow-rate for ads was 14.07% between October 2022 and March 2023. This ad revenue would have otherwise been lost to the ad blockers.
The Solution: Custom high-performing ad formats, improved user engagement, and holistic approach
The main goal with Freecads was to achieve optimal ad density while keeping user-friendliness intact. This was done with custom formats, careful ad unit optimization, and continuous testing.
However, every website optimization journey for the Setupad team involves searching for pain points and finding ways to improve them, not just for ads.
Our Account Executive, Kristiāna, has used a heatmap tool Hotjar to see what the user engagement was and discovered that users aren’t clicking on the More Files carousel. She suggested adding left and right chevron arrows to the More Files section carousel for users no naturally understand that there are more files in the carousel.
After this change, users started clicking on the arrows. The clicks on the arrows now account for 65.91% of the total clicks for one of the Freecad’s top-performing pages.
“At Setupad everything is custom-made and thought of. The effort that is being put by everybody in their team to make the website formats better and better is just unreal. Even now, almost a year after switching, they still come up with new ideas trying to push the limits.”–Greg, Founder of Freecads.com
In addition, the Setupad CMP (free for all Setupad clients) was implemented to ensure compliance with the latest data privacy regulations.
Altogether, the use of interactive video content in the form of an outstream video widget, improved recirculation strategy with a chevron arrow slider, and overall website performance have benefitted the website’s user engagement, which is normally reflected in the number of pageviews a user generates during his visit session. This is a crucial metric in monetization because it greatly affects the ad revenue results.
Our website’s yield formula is a fantastic tool to help you understand how to unlock 100% of your revenue potential by changing the key audience and monetization metrics, including the user engagement.
The Result: Creative customer support and 38% ad revenue uplift
The client gladly supplied us with reports from his previous monetization platform. We compared it against the data from the Setupad reporting system to see how significant was the ad revenue increase in November 2021 when the client was only using Google AdSense compared to November 2022 when the client was only using Setupad (after all optimizations).
According to the graph above, our approach with Freecads resulted in 37.6% ad revenue uplift over Google AdSense.
That, of course, was achieved after careful modifications and thanks to an advanced header bidding technology that connects the publisher’s ad inventory to 30 demand partners instead of one (like in Google AdSense).
Moreover, thanks to our server-to-server connections and improved yield, the client benefitted from extra ad revenue without compromising the website speed.
“And now to address maybe the biggest advantage that Setupad has. It’s people. I cannot stress enough how good the account executives and the account handling direction are. They always hear everything you have to say, and they will never come up with a problem without having different solutions ready for you to implement. I have never seen anything like it before.”–Greg, Founder of Freecads.com
Would you like to try out our technology at no risk? Sign up with Setupad and bring your ad revenue to the next level!
About Alise Zaiceva
Alise is a content marketing manager at Setupad. She’s passionate about content and helping publishers scale their businesses through powerful digital marketing strategies. In her free time, she expands her knowledge of tech.
