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RPM Guarantee FAQs

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1. Are we offering an RPM guarantee?

Yes! All sites that qualify and join Raptive before March 31, 2025, will receive a 15% RPM lift guarantee on top of any year-over-year growth you've already achieved—without increasing ad density. 

  • If your site earned $100K+ net advertising revenue over the past twelve months, your guarantee will run from the time you install ads with Raptive through March 31, 2025. Creators who install with Raptive by October 1, 2024, will receive our guarantee for a full six months! 
  • If your site earned between $12K and $99.9K net advertising revenue over the past twelve months, your guarantee will run from the time you install ads with Raptie for your first two calendar months—with the potential for bonus days during your installation month. Creators must install by January 31, 2025, to secure the full two months.   
  • A 15% RPM lift is the minimum amount you're guaranteed to earn. If you exceed the guaranteed amount, you keep the extra revenue. 

2. How can you deliver my RPM lift?

You’ll reach a baseline level of ad earnings just by running ads on your site from any source that taps into the programmatic open market. 

The real benefit comes from our exclusive partnerships and investments in your future. As you'll read in this article—Why are RPMs so good at Raptive right now?—our creators' RPM gains are dramatically higher than the rest of the industry. This is due to the following advantages, which are only available with Raptive:

  • Ongoing ad code optimizations
  • New, exclusive demand partners
  • New opportunities from our direct sales team, which is double the size of any competitor and secures exclusive deals that earn 2-3x higher CPMs than programmatic ads
  • Constant personalized behind-the-scenes optimizations

We are committed to continuing these investments in your future and ensuring we deliver the highest RPMs.

3. How do I get started?

Apply here today! Once your application is approved, we’ll reach out to you to get started. To determine your guarantee numbers, we will use traffic data from your Google Analytics account plus requested ad performance data.

4. Will I receive a guarantee for my small additional site? 

The guarantee is available for all sites earning over $12,000 net advertising revenue over the past twelve months. Given the significant amount of work that goes into supporting our RPM guarantee, combined with the inherent traffic fluctuations of smaller sites, we are unable to extend the guarantee to sites under $12,000 at this time.

RPM Guarantee Calculations & Guarantee Fulfillment

5. When does the guarantee start?

The guarantee starts as early as the day of installation so long as the ad code/plugin and the ads.txt file are properly installed.

To ensure these items are properly installed, we share instructions (or manage the install for you!) and will follow up until they are fully completed. The guarantee will not begin until these are correctly set.

6. Is there a ramp-up period where my ads won’t perform at full strength?

Yes, when switching to a new ad provider it is very common to see a temporary dip in RPM. Our RPM guarantee starts the day the ads and our ads.txt file are live, so even if there is a dip during the ramp-up period (which is often 4-5 days and could be as long as 2 weeks), we cover the difference at the end of the month.

7. How is my RPM guarantee calculated? Is it based on daily or monthly averages?

The guarantee is based on monthly RPMs calculated using your daily earnings.

We use your actual earnings each day so that high-traffic days (like holidays) are weighted accordingly in the calculation. As you’ll see in the example below, your highest earning days have a larger impact on your overall monthly RPM.

Your RPM will ebb and flow throughout each month—some days you'll see higher RPMs than the guarantee, and some days may be lower. 

Regardless, our guarantee ensures that you will always earn at least the guaranteed RPM at the end of the month. We’ll work with you to ensure we’re doing everything we can to exceed the guarantee.

8. What if I install mid-month? Does that count toward the guarantee? 

For any install date after the first of the month, we will guarantee your RPM lift for the remainder of the month on top of your guarantee period. Think of this as a guarantee bonus!

9. What if I was receiving more than 75% revenue share with my ad management company last year?

We will take your net RPM from the previous year (based on the total net revenue that you earned) and guarantee you 15% more—regardless of your previous revenue share.

10. What if I’m receiving a higher revenue share now than last year?

If your revenue share has increased since last year, we can work with you to forecast your RPM in the coming months based on your current revenue share, traffic patterns, vertical, and seasonal trends. Then we’ll add 15% on top of that number.

11. What if my RPM has increased significantly YOY?

If you have seen a large shift in traffic or implemented a new ad strategy that resulted in higher RPMs in recent months, we can work with you to forecast your RPM in the coming months based on your current traffic patterns, vertical, and seasonal trends. Then we’ll add 15% on top of that number.

12. What if I wasn’t running ads last year / can’t provide 12 months of data?

If we can’t get the necessary data from last year, we can work with you to forecast your RPM in the coming months based on your current traffic patterns, vertical, and seasonal trends. Then we’ll add 15% on top of that number.

13. What if my traffic patterns have changed drastically YOY?

If you have seen a large shift in traffic in recent months, we can work with you to forecast your RPM in the coming months based on your current traffic patterns, vertical, and seasonal trends. Then we’ll add 15% on top of that number.

14. What happens if my RPMs exceed the guaranteed RPM amount?

You get to keep the difference! All upside is yours.

15. Can I qualify for the guarantee if I don’t currently have ads on my site?

Only sites currently running ads are eligible for the guarantee because we rely on historical ad performance to establish the guaranteed RPMs.

16. What if my monthly RPM doesn’t hit the number I was guaranteed?

At the end of each month, we review your average finalized RPM. If it falls short of the guaranteed amount, we will calculate the extra revenue owed and manually add this incremental amount to your monthly payment, which will be paid out on our normal net-45 schedule.

The incremental payment will be reflected in the Dashboard ‘Earning Sources’ report as a ‘Guarantee’ line item on the 2nd of the following month (or the following Monday if that falls on a weekend).

17. When will the extra revenue be paid out if the guarantee is not met?

At the beginning of each month during your guarantee period, we will reach out with an update on how the guarantee is going and if you will receive an incremental payment to meet your guarantee. 

The incremental payment will be reflected in the Dashboard ‘Earning Sources’ report as a ‘Guarantee’ line item on the 2nd of the following month (or the following Monday if that falls on a weekend)  and paid out on our normal net-45 schedule. 

18. How does the change from UA to GA4 affect the RPM guarantee?

If you have GA4 data for the guarantee period last year:

We will calculate your RPM using (Earnings / session_start count) x 1,000 for both the ‘before’ period and our RPM guarantee.

If you only have GA4 post-July 2023 and UA pre-July 2023

We will use what you have available to calculate using both session and session_start metrics from both accounts. We will be sure to explain this when we send your custom analysis.

If you do not have GA4 data for the entirety of the guarantee period last year:

Since most creators do not see a huge discrepancy in sessions when GA4 is implemented properly, we will not be adjusting for those differences. 

We will take your reported RPM from last year (using UA sessions) for the ‘before’ period and the guaranteed RPM at Raptive will use session_start from GA4 in the calculation for RPM. 

If you know that your GA4 session_start metric is noticeably different from your UA sessions, we can work with you to estimate what your RPM would have been with GA4 last year and use that instead.

19. Will the deprecation of cookies affect my RPM guarantee?

No. Only 1% of Chrome is currently affected by the deprecation of cookies, we will honor the RPM guarantee regardless of any changes with cookies during your guarantee timeframe. 

Ad Requirements & Change Requests

20. Can I make changes to my ad or site layout during the guarantee period?

Yes, you may change your ad layout or site structure during the guarantee period, however this could void or require modifications to your RPM guarantee.

We strongly encourage you to speak with your Creator Partnership Manager or email our support team [support@raptive.com] before making any changes so we can provide recommendations and advise you of the potential impact on your guarantee.

21. What will change the guarantee?

While we are committed to upholding your RPM guarantee, there are some actions out of our control that could require us to modify or void the guarantee. These reasons include, but aren’t limited to:

  • You make revenue-impacting changes to the ad layout your guarantee is based on 
  • Your site traffic makeup (source, country, device, etc.) changes substantially during the guarantee period 
  • You drastically change your site layout/theme to the point we’re unable to run the ad layout that would allow us to meet your guarantee

We will keep in touch throughout your guarantee period and if we notice any changes that may impact the guarantee, we will immediately bring this to your attention.

If you request a change that would compromise the guarantee, we’ll work to get you an updated guarantee with the changes taken into account.

22. Will my ad layout significantly change in order to receive the guarantee?

Every ad provider’s ad tech is a bit different, so while our proposed ad layout may not be 100% identical to your current layout, we will try to get it as close as possible. Some pages could have one more ad, and some could have one less—but your site’s average number of ads should be similar. 

23. Which ad units/types are required in order to receive the RPM guarantee?  

In most cases, our ads will be the same as the ones you are currently running, however there are a few exceptions. In these cases-–outlined below—we have carefully evaluated our ad units and placements to ensure the highest RPMs with the least impact on user experience.

If you were running similar ad types previously, then examples of ad units that may be slightly different here include:

  • Sticky Footer Ads - We work with many of premium advertisers that other competitors don’t and include unique footer ad experiences like Animated footers that appeal to these premium advertisers.
  • Sticky Sidebar Ads - In this sleek new experience, one sticky sidebar ad image is replaced by another as visitors scroll. More ad impressions, more money, and no impact to user experience.
  • Content and Recipe Ads - We do our best to match the number of content and recipe ads across your site but since every company’s technology inserts ads differently, some posts may have slightly fewer ads while others may have slightly more. We do run some unique content ad experiences like Large Format ads that were specifically requested by our advertisers and help these locations earn a premium.
  • Sticky Video Player - Our Sticky Playlist video player will replace your previous video player. It starts within the content and then sticks as a user scrolls past. On desktop, it will stick to the lower right corner of the screen, and on mobile, it will stick to the top center of the page.

24. I’m running Mediavine’s Universal Player. What video unit do I need to run to qualify for the guarantee?

If you are currently running Mediavine’s Universal Player, we will replace it with our Sticky Playlist Player. There are a few differences in functionality. 

On desktop, the Sticky Playlist Player starts within the content and collapses to the bottom right corner upon scrolling. On mobile, the Sticky Playlist Player sticks to the top center of the page as users scroll. 

If you would like to explore variations to our video units, it will impact your guarantee numbers. 

25. When does my ads.txt need to be added?

Ads.txt should be updated on the day of install. The RPM guarantee will not begin until this has been updated correctly and the ads are installed properly. 

We will be in touch throughout the day of install to help and will advise as needed. 

Have additional questions? We're here to help! Send us an email at support@raptive.com for more information

 

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