El Comercio is a Peruvian news website that first started as a newspaper in 1839. El Comercio has grown to over seven websites covering topics from lifestyle to sports with millions of users coming from all around the world.
The Brief
El Comercio was previously using an AMP monetization solution that wasn’t hitting their revenue targets and there was a language barrier between their team and customer support. El Comercio was ready to move to a better AMP monetization solution that could provide:
- Higher Revenue – El Comercio wanted to increase revenue by at least 20% through its AMP environment.
- Dedicated Customer Success Team – They were looking for a hands-on responsive team to address any issues and respond to any questions in a timely fashion.
- Spanish-Speaking Support – El Comercio wanted to work with a team that can speak and support them in Spanish to reduce confusion and expedite issues.
“El Comercio has a great partnership with Freestar. From billing to customer support, Freestar knows what to provide its publishers to best support them. We’ve had the pleasure to work with such great people from Antonio in Business Development to Ricardo, our Customer Success Manager. If we have any issues, we know we can reach out to either of them and get the support we need.”
The Approach
After meeting with Freestar, El Comercio was ready to try a new AMP solution that offered new technologies and better performance. The implementation process for AMP was simple and efficient with Freestar’s QA process and ability to converse in Spanish.
To improve El Comercio’s AMP performance, Freestar implemented the following:
- Key Ad Units – Freestar added new ad units like flying carpet, sticky footer and multi-sizes.
- Ad Refresh – Freestar added a 30-second ad refresh to their website.
- Dynamic Flooring – El Comercio’s Customer Success team formulated and implemented Freestar’s proprietary dynamic flooring algorithm to balance fill rates and CPMs to get the best page RPM.
The Results
In the first year, El Comercio saw an increase of 47% in RPM from H1 2022 (previous solution) to H2 2022 (Freestar). By replacing ad units with a unit like flying carpet, El Comercio saw a 20-30% increase in daily revenue. Their dedicated Customer Success team regularly looks for new opportunities for additional lift. El Comercio is currently in the process of testing video to provide even more undiscovered revenue.
Overall, El Comercio’s RPM increased by 52% and AMP revenue increased by about 70% across all websites with Freestar in comparison to their previous solution. With this improved performance, AMP monetization has grown to be El Comercio’s main source of programmatic revenue. El Comercio is now testing web monetization with Freestar to see how much more revenue they’re leaving on the table.
