The publisher’s biggest obstacle to generating satisfactory profits was the type of his content. After all, the majority of the website’s insides were made by its users, otherwise known as user-generated content (UGC). Such content creations tend to be problematic since it’s not always appropriate in their form and accurate in terms of validity. This is why UGC is considered possibly hazardous for the brand safety of entities advertising on such websites. Numerous policy violations started to be reported by advertising systems that encountered inappropriate content on Wykop.pl. This made advertisers avoid its ad inventory and caused its monetization earnings to drop dangerously low.

First, we had to understand what kind of violations were reported; therefore, we sorted out the website’s content by its monetization potential into:

• premium – in line with every ad system’s policy,
• proper – accepted by the majority of SSPs,
• inappropriate – not suitable for monetization.

Fortunately, it turned out that the questionable content was not numerous. Hence, the objective was to find a way to monetize the valid content without being held back by the incorrect one.

In the next stage of collaboration, we noticed an opportunity to increase the publisher’s profits by diversifying used methods of selling his ad inventory. To this end, we wanted to apply Programmatic Direct, but this method’s effectiveness depends on the presence of content described as premium.

We’ve segregated the SSPs collaborating with us in terms of their requirements and matched them with the distinguished content groups present on the website. The publisher has also started to categorize his content based on assigned tags to determine the monetization potential of each website’s page. This way, we were able to implement ad systems with less stringent rules on pages containing potentially more risky content. Eventually, if it’s not safe to monetize a particular page, the ads are removed from it for the sake of both publisher’s and advertisers’ brands’ safety.

The introduced solutions enabled the monetization of pages previously excluded from it due to numerous policy violations. It also allowed for applying better paid programmatic advertising sources. As a result, the website’s earnings increased by 47% (when compared to the average revenue from the troubled period with modest monetization).

Moreover, thanks to the presence of more prestigious SSPs, Wykop.pl is now prepared for diversified monetization methods, from direct and programmatic ad inventory sales to concluding deals through Programmatic Direct. Many advertisers are aware of its reach and attractive audience, and thus are eager to bid for their attention on the website.