Ad.plus is technology solution for digital publishers looking to earn more revenue from Display ads
I wrote an honest ad.plus review like two years ago in which I discussed everything should know about using this Google Partner.
I also indicated that I never got my own ADX account, probably because I didn’t ask for one.
Since then Ad.plus became a Google Certified Publishing Partner so this places it in the same category as other publishing partners such as Mediavine, Ezoic, Raptive and so many others.
The other day, I felt like giving it a try and replied to one of the few emails I got from an Ad.plus sales manager.
I indicated that I had used Ad.plus for four to six months in the past two years or so and that I really was curious about getting my own ADX account and getting my payment directly by Google.
The sales manager replied promptly and said that they could get me my own ADX account, so I provided:
- The email address linked to my Adsense Account, account which is also linked to Google Ad Manager.
- A screenshot showing that Ad.plus still remained approved as a parent publisher on my Google Ad Manager Account
After that I got an email from Google AdManager in which Ad.Plus requested network delegation and I got an email with instructions from the sales manager to enable ADX on Google Ad Manager
Then the Ad.plus sales representative provided me with a line that I had to add to my ads.txt file.
Then I got an email that said that everything was working and from that point on, I could replace the Adsense ad units with ADX ad units
I will test the performance for a few months and see if getting your own ADX account is what content creators like me really need .
Table of Contents
Why Get your Own ADX Account?
These are my reasons why I like having my own ADX account.
- More advertisers can bid on my sites so it is reasonable to think that most advertisers bidding means betters RPM’s
- I get paid via Adsense so I don’t have to think about extra steps to get my money or be charged twice for additional transactions by my bank.
- I don’t have to rely on third parties data. I can go to Google Ad Manager and run reports.
- I have more control over what’s going behind the scenes, I can create ad units, choose the best sizes and best ad placements.
- I like learning about ways to increase what I make from Display ads, so I don’t really see the time spent figuring all this out as a waste of time.
Is it Easy to Manage your own ADX Account?
Ad.Plus provides little information about how to manage your ADX Account.
They set up the basics, they provide you with some ad codes and you have to figure out things yourself.
If you want to figure out things by reading tutorials and watching videos, you will find that there is not much information out there.
I recommend not messing with anything related to monetization if you are not 100% what you are doing.
Do Earnings Improve right away?
An increase in earning is why people leave Adsense behind and search for alternatives such as Ad.Plus, Ezoic, Mediavine, Raptive etc.
I think I have written somewhere in this blog that if you were making the most out of Adsense account, you probably won’t see a huge increase in earnings when you start using one of these Adsense Alternatives.
Let me give you an example from my first three days of using ADX.
I have two Adsense ad units after paragraphs #4 and #8 on Desktop and Smartphones and this is what I got
| Placement | RPM on Desktop | RPM on Smartphones |
| After Paragraph #4 | 0.43 | 0.20 |
| After Paragraph #8 | 0.31 | 0.17 |
I placed an Adx ad unit after the Table of Content and this is what I got
| Placement | ECPM on Desktop | ECPM on Smartphones |
| After TOC | 0.30 | 0.16 |
So the earnings per 1000 impressions were pretty similar to my second Adsense ad unit or probably lower than that it if you take into account that Ad.Plus will take 20% of my earnings.
So to be clear, I only see partners beating the living crap out of Adsense if you suck at monetizing with display ads.
If you previous Adsense setup was pretty good, I think we won’t see this reaction after the first few days or weeks using ADX.
But these are my first few days and you know that these things take a little bit of time.
Did Fill Rate Fall?
One of my main concerns I have when replacing my Adsense ad units with any partner’s ad units is that the fill rate would be lower.
I know that the fill rate will be lower because I am using a different service for the first time and my main site doesn’t target an English speaking audience.
This is some data related to the number of impression I got with Adsense:
| Placement | Desktop | Smartphones |
| After Paragraph #4 | 2,218 | 3,712 |
| After Paragraph #8 | 1,949 | 3,552 |
This is the data about the number of impressions from an ADX ad unit placed after the Table of Content.
| Placement | Desktop | Smartphones |
| After TOC | 1688 | 2963 |
Numbers don’t lie, Adsense has more coverage than ADX at least during the first few days.
I think this could change as days pass by but this proves my point that Adsense is not a good-for-nothing service, if you have a good idea about what you are doing.
Keep in mind that some countries are linked to low ad fill rate and that page views from smartphones tend to get a lower ad fill rate than page views from desktop computers.
Learn more about why you get a low ad fill rate
Low Fill Rate and Low ECPM (May 4th, 2024)
These are thing that might discourage you a bit
I have several ads on my sidebar.
- Three Adsense Units
- Four ADX Ad Units
The three first ad units are regular ad units and the last four are sticky ad units
| Ad Unit | ECMP/IRPM | Fill Rate |
| Adsense | $0.61 | 74.05% |
| ADX | $0.30 | 39.63% |
| ADX | $0.25 | 47.09% |
| Adsense | $0.64 | 81.58% |
| ADX | $0.24 | 54.72% |
| Adsense | $0.53 | 79.78% |
| ADX | $0.25 | 55.66% |
As you can see the ECPM is pretty low and the fill rate is kind of low too.
Create Reports to Measure ADX Performance
One thing you could do is to create reports to know how much your sites are earning per day, the fill rate, ad viewabilty, ECPM per unit and other important data that you think that you should have.
If you don’t create your own reports within ADX, you will never be able to know whether having your own ADX is paying off or not.
If you have never measured those important metrics in Adsense, you will have no data to compare it to.
