Freestar Increased CPMs for SignUpGenius to Observe 38% Revenue Growth

SignUpGenius simplifies the process of coordinating events and people by providing online sign-ups for nonprofits, schools, sports, churches, families, colleges, businesses and organizations.

The Brief

Over the previous year, SignUpGenius experienced a decrease in CPM and technological issues while using AdSense.

One of their core goals in 2018 was to find a better solution to their existing ad monetization implementation that could address the following:

Direct sales and custom audience segmentation – SignUpGenius wanted the flexibility to create direct and sponsorship deals with advertisers and ability to flight them in Ad Manager.
Customer service – SignUpGenius wanted a solution that included responsive and prompt support to combat malicious ads and critical issues. It was important to them that issues that impacted their customers were addressed quickly.
Prompt payment – Since a significant portion of revenue would be coming from display ads, SignUpGenius wanted to work with an ad-tech provider that had an established history of prompt payments.

"Setting up a header bidding solution can be a daunting task to do on your own. We found that the solution from Freestar allowed us to be up and running faster than we could on our own. In addition, we were able to rely on their expertise in optimization to see positive results."

The Approach

SignUpGenius A/B-tested Freestar’s solution against their own ad-tech stack for revenue performance.

During the first month, the team at Freestar systematically tested Freestar’s ad-tech against SignUpGenius’ existing ad-tech stack. SignUpGenius saw an initial revenue increase of 15–20%. SignUpGenius gradually switched their entire site inventory to Freestar which saw their overall revenue rise by 35-38% (once fully optimized and differences in traffic growth were factored in).

Freestar’s team worked closely with SignUpGenius for several months to further optimize ad units and provide significant additional lift. The header bidding solution included introducing new demand partners, implementing lazy loading, using Freestar’s Self Serve interface to flight direct deals via Freestar’s DFP, and taking advantage of anchor and refresh ad units where appropriate.

The Results

Over time, working with Freestar, SignUpGenius saw increases in CPM, ad revenue, and viewability.

By using Freestar’s header bidding solution (which is comprised of Freestar’s header bidding container, access to Freestar’s demand partners, including Freestar’s own server-to-server differentiated demand, and Freestar Analytics), SignUpGenius was able to very quickly improve their website monetization. As site viewability improved, CPMs increased, translating into higher overall ad revenues.