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About the Customer

C-SPAN is an American cable and satellite television network created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises the United States federal government proceedings and other public affairs programming. C-SPAN is a private, nonprofit organization funded by its cable and satellite affiliates.

Case Study

How C-SPAN's ad revenue increased by ~75% with Aditude’s Cloud Wrapper

The Problem

As cord-cutting became more of a problem, C-SPAN gradually monetized their digital presence as another revenue stream. They started in 2020 with YouTube, then focused on their website with Google Ad Manager (GAM). Lacking knowledge of monetization and a marketing department with different objectives, Barkley Kern of Digital Media, spearheaded the learnings of programmatic advertising and monetization with several colleagues. When they started looking at Prebid partners, Jared Siegal and the Aditude team were highly recommended, and they decided to explore a partnership with Aditude.

The Approach

C-SPAN’s brand integrity was the most important thing to protect. Getting started in June 2021, Aditude took a crawl, walk, and run phased approach to C-SPAN’s optimization, with a light ad load experience being paramount. 

Aditude started helping with GAM optimization, including recommending the best ad dimensions to get the most bidding and establishing a solid price flooring strategy. Aditude also helped C-SPAN implement open bidding, integrate Prebid with Aditude’s Cloud Wrapper, and set up preferred deals/private marketplaces(PMPs) throughout the partnership.  

In the last year, Aditude:

  • Introduced Prebid demand in Q2 2023 to increase their fill and overall yield
  • Improved C-SPAN’s website alongside their development and security teams, which led to more attractive inventory from additional SSPs and DSPs 
  • Implemented smarter refresh and lazy load in Q3 2023 to increase requests and have a positive impact on viewability
  • Launched Aditude’s dynamic flooring in November 2023 to further drive revenue lift

The Results

  • Overall revenue increased by ~75%
  • Effective CPM went up by 15-20% YoY
  • Fill rate nearly 2X with the inclusion of both Prebid and Amazon
  • Viewability increased by ~10%
  • Q1 2024 saw a 20% lift in revenue YoY
  • Unfilled impressions only make up 8-10% (a decrease from 20%)
  • House ads only make up 10% (a decrease from 40%)
“Publishers who are looking for a turnkey solution, you’ve found it with Aditude. Not only that, but you also get unparalleled subject matter expertise from Aditude. Their team guides you on best practices across monetization and all things digital. I can rest easy, knowing that they never leave me hanging and always bring new things to the table. We couldn’t be happier.”
- Barkley Kern
Digital Media

Conclusion

C-SPAN’s ad monetization continues to improve with Aditude’s Cloud Wrapper and industry expertise. They look forward to further developing its relationship with Aditude as they fight the effects of cord-cutting on their business and maintain that balance of brand integrity and monetization. This partnership offers many opportunities to explore together through a combination of direct deals and programmatic through GAM and header bidding, video, and more.

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