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As I mentioned a few weeks ago, ad rates are plummeting in the opening weeks of January (as they usually do). One of the best ways of weathering this storm is to maximize the ad revenue you are generating. Here’s an easy step-by-step primer on doing just that.

If you use Google DFP to manage your ads, this is simple.

Setting a Rate

The Rate is the CPM price at which Google AdSense competes with the ad defined in your Line item. (Except for House ads, which uses Value CPM to define this competition).

To calculate the number that you should use as a Rate, you’ll have to log-in to your ad network and find two statistics for each ad unit: Fill rate and CPM.

Note: I would limit my data to the last seven days. I don’t want those high December ad rates to skew my numbers.

Multiply the CPM your ad is earning by the fill rate. For example, if I’m getting a CPM of $1.50 for a skyscraper ad through PulsePoint — but my Fill rate is 25%…

1.5 x .25 = .375

Therefore, I’d set my Rate at $0.38

Now… you can update these rates as often as you’d like. You can adjust these rates daily, weekly, monthly, annually… or never, for that matter. But, obviously, the close this rate matches what’s happing for each of your ad networks, the better your ads are going to perform.

For example, if you’re getting $.40 CPM for a leaderboard through Tribal Fusion and your Rate is set to $0.50, then Google can’t replace the Tribal Fusion ad with a better-paying AdSense ad — at least not until Tribal Fusion reaches $0.50. And if that never happens, you’re going to be stuck getting a $0.40 CPM.

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For more DFP tips and tutorials, check out this post from the archives and this one, too.