The success of your ad campaign depends on many factors. This includes your angle on it, creatives, and, of course, your product. However, sometimes advertisers overlook the importance of choosing the right publisher.

When it comes to working with traffic, you can’t do without publishers. That’s why today’s article is dedicated to publishers, their types, and their role. Be sure to stick till the end because we’ll explore what the exclusive traffic is and why it is beneficial. 

Publishers explained

Publishers are an integral part of digital marketing, offering a platform for advertisers to connect with users. Their main goal is to monetize their platform (websites, apps, social media pages) by providing ad space.

Besides managing their platform monetization by deciding which ads and formats to use, publishers are also responsible for building an audience through content creation. When working with a publisher, it’s important to look at how they manage their platform. Remember, the quality of their work directly affects the quality of your traffic.

Now with the basics out of the way, it’s time for us to dive deeper into the different publisher types and their benefits.

Webmasters: The website keepers

Webmasters are people who develop and manage websites. Their title doesn’t mean that webmasters own the platform, sometimes they just maintain it on someone else’s behalf.

When it comes to traffic provided by Ad Networks, most of it is coming from webmasters. Their job involves filling the platform with content, website moderation, improving the user experience (UX), and of course, search engine optimization (SEO). The traffic that comes from content-rich and well-maintained websites is of the highest quality.

At TwinRed we strive to have a close relationship with our webmasters so as to know what to expect from the traffic that they can provide.

Ad Networks: The publishers of publishers

While you can think of publishers as a bridge between users and advertisers, Ad Networks work as a bridge that connects publishers and advertisers.

Ad Networks have a lot of sites in their rosters, selling traffic to anyone who’s interested. In some cases, Ad Networks also can become publishers when they sell traffic to other networks. While their job is to monetize webmaster’s traffic, they also may have and manage their own websites.

Advertisers: Monetize what they can’t

Yes, you read that right, even advertisers can be publishers under some circumstances.

As the title of this section suggests, advertisers become publishers when they sell traffic that they themselves cannot monetize. Don’t be skeptical about such opportunities, because it doesn’t speak of the traffic quality itself. While this type isn’t as common as the others in this article, it might give you an idea of what you can do with underperforming traffic.

Brokers: The middlemen

While sometimes advertisers unintentionally become publishers by selling off traffic, there are those who make it their business to wheel and deal surplus traffic. These are brokers.  Brokers profit by deliberately acquiring, repacking, and then reselling quantities of traffic.

What is exclusive traffic

We want to end this article by touching upon a benefit that is limited to Ad Networks — the exclusive traffic.

Traffic becomes exclusive when the Ad Network agrees to purchase all of the publisher’s available ad space. Such a deal is beneficial for both parties, providing stability to publishers and a competitive edge to the Ad Network. This is also profitable for advertisers, because it gives them access to an exclusive inventory that isn’t available anywhere else. 

TwinRed has a lot of special deals with long term partner publishers, and we cherish this cooperation. If you want to try it out for yourself, you can ask your AM to get the list of exclusive sites, traffic from which will definitely improve the performance of your campaigns.