Google shifted from second-price auctions to first-price auctions and introduced Unified Pricing Rules in 2019. Google Ad Manager’s old Pricing Rule was inefficient for publishers and lacked a centralized management system. Due to this, Google switched to a first-price auction, which Google refers to as Unified Pricing Rules(UPRs).
Besides being a simplified method of implementing floor pricing, UPRs create uniformity for applying floor prices to all channels. It means app publishers can use floor prices across all their programmatic demands, including Ad Exchange, Open Bidding, Yield groups and other line items.
Executing Unified Pricing Rules in GAM can definitely help optimize yield and boost ad revenue. But, it comes at the cost of lower fill rates neutralizing the CPM lift. To avoid that, you must maintain an optimal floor price to prevent underselling the ad impressions and increase ad revenue. Hence, managing UPR can get tedious and needs dedicated understanding and attention.
This article is a detailed guide on Unified Pricing Rules(UPRs). We will briefly cover everything about Unified Pricing Rules. Know what Unified Pricing Rules in Google Ad Manager are. How do you configure Unified Pricing Rules or set up UPR on your inventory? How do other pricing rules affect UPRs? What are the Pros & Cons of UPRs? And how can you optimally set up Unified Pricing Rules in GAM to boost ad revenue?
What Are Unified Pricing Rules in Google Ad Manager?
Unified Pricing Rules allow app publishers to manage the ad inventory floor prices from indirect demand sources to a single dashboard on GAM.
The simple explanation for UPR is that it is a centralized floor price management system that enables app publishers to manage floor prices and target eCPM across all the channels on GAM.
Unified Pricing Rules apply to the following channels on GAM:
- Open Bidding
- Google Ad Exchange Line Item
- Private Auctions
- First Look Pricing
- Remnant Line Item Types
How To Setup Unified Pricing Rules in Google Ad Manager?
You can configure Unified Pricing by navigating to Inventory > Pricing rules and clicking New unified pricing rule. Although, it is always better to conduct an A/B test and discover the optimum floor price before applying such changes to the entire ad inventory.
Hence, let’s discuss both ways to set up Unified Pricing Rules in GAM:
1. Set Up a New Unified Pricing Rule
Here is the step-by-step guide to setting up a new UPRs on your GAM:
- Go To Inventory Tab
- Click on Pricing Rules
- Click on New Unified Pricing Rule
- Enter a Name
- Setup Targeting
- Select a Pricing rule and set the Floor or Target prices
- Click Save
A new Unified Pricing Rule should be active now.
Although a UPR has been created, it needs to be optimized for the optimum floor price to yield higher ad revenues.
After conducting the Unified Pricing Rule experiment, you can analyze the results and discover the best floor price for your inventory. Hence, let’s now understand how to experiment with the created UPR.
2. Setup UPR As An Experiment
The ideal way to implement a unified pricing rule is to experiment on a small part of your inventory and analyze the impact. You can manually set up a UPR experiment on a percentage of your DAU and set preferences to maximize yield.
To start a new Unified Pricing Rule experiment:
- Go to Optimization
- Click Experiments
- Click Unified Pricing Rule – New Experiment
- Enter a Name for the experiment
- Under Price Setting, select the existing Pricing Rule to experiment with.
- Under Delivery Settings, enter the Experiment Period and Traffic Allocation
- Lastly, Save the Experiment and monitor it to Navigate Further.
An experiment must be active on your Google AdManager, and you can tweak the pricing values to unveil the best pricing rule yielding the maximum ad revenue for your app.
Once you discover the optimum floor value, use the experiment configuration and roll it for 100% traffic or create a new Unified Pricing Rule as described.
How do other Pricing Rules Affect Unified Pricing Rules in GAM?
Google AdManager has another pricing rule type that app publishers use to optimize their inventory – First Look Pricing.
At times while optimizing ad revenue, app publishers could end up targeting two different rules to the same inventory. In such cases, the ad unit will fetch the highest floor price used regardless of the rules applied.
What Are the Pros & Cons of UPRs in Google Ad Manager?
Pros of UPRs in Google Ad Manager
- The unified Pricing Rule simplifies the entire process
- Offers better and centralized management of opportunities to boost ad revenue
- Multi-size creatives are supported in Unified Pricing Rules
- Our optimization experts found that a data-driven configuration of UPR can increase ad revenue by 15% to 20%
Cons of UPRs in Google Ad Manager
- There is a limit of up to 200 UPRs per network
- UPR only allows targeting advertisers and brands but not buyers
How Can You Optimize Your Ad Revenue with Google Ad Manager Unified Pricing Rules?
We have listed down some factors you should consider while implementing Unified Pricing Rules by Google.
- Ensure to analyze and set a floor price per your historical performance. Setting a higher floor price may scare away the advertisers, while a lower floor price further reduces your revenue due to bid shading.
- Based on past performance, start setting floors based on ad formats, countries, or device types
- Floor prices must be dynamic based on the demand, the value of your inventory and seasonality.
- Regularly monitor line items and make corrections on the set Target eCPM.
Implement Google Ad Manager Unified Pricing Rules with The Help OF An Expert!
We hope this article might have helped you understand UPRs more granularly. However, setting up experiments, trying different pricing rules and discovering the optimum floor price can be time-consuming and tedious. There are multiple factors which may lead to revenue loss for publishers.
Implementing Unified Pricing Rules with the help of an expert can save you precious time and boost your ad revenue substantially.
At AppBroda, we help publishers optimize their pricing rules, leverage Google AdX demand and use 3rd party mediation networks IronSource and AppLovin MAX to optimize revenue further.
Reach out to an AppBroda expert today!
