Google's Switch To First Price Auction Part 2
/Little Market Volatility, Lots of Publisher Volatility
When Google introduced first-price auction at 20% last Monday (9/09), there was surprisingly little variability in the market. This past week has been quite a different reality. After Google rolled out first-price auction at 50% on Monday (9/16), some publishers experienced significant gains in revenue while others experienced the exact opposite. When we looked at Monday’s data (9/16), and saw AdX revenue down 16% week over week, we thought this transition might get ugly; and for some, it still may.
STAQ is seeing modest growth in CPMs across all partners. This is consistent year over year when looking at 2018 for the same time period, further indicating that the overall market is relatively unchanged by this transition. That being said, we are seeing AdX revenue flat week over week, while all other partners (excluding AdX) experienced a small revenue growth.
For the week of September 16th (September 16 to September 22),
AdX CPMs were $1.34, up from $1.27 the week before; an increase of 6%
All other partners (excluding AdX) experienced an increase of 4% week over week, with CPMs at $1.54, up from $1.49.
All other partners (excluding AdX) experienced a revenue increase of 7%.
Publishers' See Varying September AdX Performance
Taking a closer look at how individual publishers were impacted, we have observed a marked variance week over week for AdX.
Many larger publishers saw varying revenue decreases week over week.
Interestingly, mid-size and smaller publishers had a much lumpier experience on a weekly basis. Some experienced revenue increases greater than 30%, and others experienced revenue decreases of over 20%.
The net impact of these variances was slight growth in AdX CPMs but a flat AdX revenue week over week.
Overall, as first-price auction is rolled out at higher levels, we have begun to see variance in AdX performance for individual publishers. While we expect the market to stabilize, it appears it is moving in different directions for different publishers. As a whole, Google seems to be managing this market dynamic exceedingly well, unless you are one of the handful of publishers that are down. Interestingly, year over year, we're seeing that September CPMs are experiencing little movement but revenue is down.
