Do they want you to enter an eCPM you want to get from that network or do they want you to enter the eCPM you are getting from the other network? If the latter then what do you enter if you’re new to the network and there is no ecpm history?
There are a few levels of explanation for this - first starting with the wide argument and then giving the exceptions.
Admob eCPM is just a number that is used to rank the ad networks in your mediation. It is a number you set - and if you set $1 $2 $3 for ad network A, B and C, then if you change that to $10, $20, $30 instead - the result will be the same. That is, these numbers are just used to “rank” the ad networks in order of which you prefer to show first. If that is not available then the next one is tried.
This means that compared to the percentage scheme (which admob offered earlier - but now is exclusively “eCPM” based and no percentages stuff) - now if you give highest priority to Admob (let’s say), then it is very hard to ensure that let’s say you give 10% of the traffic to Mmedia.com (in banner ads let’s say). The only way you can “hack” it is that knowing that Admob has a fill rate of 95% let’s say - you know 5% of the time Mmedia.com will get a chance to show an ad (if it is second in priority after admob).
That is, you can try to set the “rankings” of the ad networks by order of priority (by setting those fictitious “eCPM” numbers) - and then you may see that 95% of the time ads go to Admob - then for those cases when it can’t fill the ad request - it will try the next ad network let’s say Mmedia.com. If that has no ad to show - then admob mediation will give a chance to the 3rd ad network (i.e. 3rd highest “eCPM” that you specified ad network).
Now coming to the exceptions. For the “Admob eCPM floor beta” - the “eCPM” you specify is ACTUALLY used to filter out ads and only show ads which are known to deliver an “eCPM” close to what you specified. So we have the first exception here of an “eCPM” number which ACTUALLY is related in some fashion to the real world “eCPM” of an ad network. In this case also however, the relation is not exact - i.e. admob has a sense of what an ad “typically” delivers for the developer - i.e. though it would depend on the app/user demographic and how much they like that ad. But from how well an ad has performed and how much it has paid other developers - Google can get a sense of how much showing a particular ad MIGHT earn you. So this is how they estimate the “eCPM” it might deliver.
So when you specify a fictitious “eCPM” number for the “Admob eCPM floor beta” - that number is ACTUALLY used to filter out and only show ads which are guessed by Google to be able to perform better than that “eCPM” number you specified.
So these are the exceptions - basically “Admob eCPM floor beta” only.
Now coming to the SECOND exception to this - and that is more recent - that is the stuff mentioned by Google in the recent video (someone posted on this forum in another thread):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4Y3uQmdKYA
AdMob, a Platform to Build Your Gaming App Business
Here Google is saying that they are now implementing a way to judge other ad networks as well (similar to what Admob is able to do with their own inventory).
I don’t know how Google is able to judge how much an ad on another ad network actually pays the developer.
But it is possible that Google has implemented ads from other ad networks in some of it’s apps - and then it is able to judge that - but how would they be able to do such analytics on an ad by ad basis ?
Or if they have implemented a crawling mechanism to “discover” this info about other ad networks - then would this not be violating the terms of those ad networks (if Google is impersonating a developer - and not actually showing the ad ?). Or maybe Google has done deals with those ad networks to discover this information. In any case, this seems like something that should probably be explained by Google.
So now Google is saying they will be able to judge how well other ad networks are performing as well - and soon you will be able to automate the process of choosing between networks etc., so that the developer is spared the effort of having to modify their ranking of ad networks depending on time of day, day of week etc. (i.e. depending on which ad network performs better on a certain etc. - if there is such a pattern etc.).
Anyway, I think this covers the whole breadth of the issue - and there may still be some questions on the things Google is promising for other ad networks “discovery” of real eCPM deliverable by those ad networks at any given time etc.
@adforandroidapps Great answer thanks. I jut have two more questions
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In the mediation page in admob there is an option "Optimize AdMob Network " what does this do? is it different from Admob eCPM floor beta
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How do you decide what rank to give each network? I hear some are ranking networks differently on different days of the week or even hours of the day. How are they determining the rank of the network?
I am still using the old admob and I don’t see the optimize option you mention. This maybe the new feature that I mentioned in previous post that is mentioned in the Admob youtube video.
I don’t know exactly how it would work - perhaps someone here can mention that - or if you get more info you could report how you fared with it.
But usually for the “eCPM” choosing what to put for that - usually you will first need to have a sense of what each ad network is paying - which means maybe giving each ad network some time to run on your app - and then seeing how much it is paying (by looking at the developer console for that ad network website etc.).
Then maybe over a week or few weeks you will begin to develop a sense of which ad network is better - and then you will send the majority of your ad traffic to them - so you will give them a high “eCPM” number so they are first. The second best performing network - for that you give is the second-highest “eCPM” number so that it gets the traffic that the first network is not able to fill.
In practice - if you give top priority to Admob - since it generally has a high fill-rate - there will be very little traffic left over (where Admob failed to satisfy an ad request from your app) - but if it is say 5% of the traffic that will be sent to the second-highest “eCPM” ad network.