We’ve met a lot of people, both online and live, who have heard great things about us, but don’t really know what we do and if we’re a match for their site. This blog post will lay it all out for the curious searcher, and answer some of the most common questions for people interested in our service.

In short: YieldBuild is a free ad optimization service for publishers. We help publishers make more money from ad networks like Google AdSense, Microsoft pubCenter, and ValueClick. Since 2007, we  have helped almost 1,000 publishers make their ads perform better.

How does it work? YieldBuild uses a proprietary algorithm to figure out which ad (across available ad networks, and their formatting options) that perform best to maximize your ad revenue. So YieldBuild will determine, for instance, if a specific ad spot should be filled with a white-background text ad from AdSense, or a display ad from Advertising.com, or a gray-background contextual ad from Microsoft pubCenter, in order to make the most money from that piece of real estate.

The process is relatively simple:

1. You set up an account with YieldBuild, and associate any ad network accounts that you’d like to use (we support many*)
2. You follow our step-by-step installation guide that helps you embed YieldBuild ad tags into the spots on your site where you want ads to run
3. YieldBuild will test a wide variation of ad layout permutations to train the algorithm for your site
4. Once trained, YieldBuild will serve up the best-performing ads on your site, occasionally testing new layout variants that might work better (in case your traffic patterns change or in case ad blindness sets in)

Here are some answers to common questions (more are answered here in our FAQ):

• Do you charge a fee?
  No, YieldBuild optimization is free. We used to charge a 3% impressions-based fee, but we phased that out in September 2009.
• Are there any potential conflicts with the ad networks I work with?
  No. We have optimized AdSense and other networks for two years and have never had a publisher lose their ad network account simply for using YieldBuild. (We can not prevent you from getting banned for other reasons, however, like click fraud.)
• Do you work with WordPress (Blogger, etc.)?
  Yes. We can work with any site or blogging/CMS platform. We do offer a step-by-step installation guide (our express install option) for  WordPress, Blogger, TypePad and vbForum.
• What sites do you work with?
  We accept sites of any size, and any type (with the exception of adult, gambling, and other excluded site types).
• What kind of improvement can I expect to see?
  That is entirely dependent on how well you had optimized your ads before using us, how much latitude you’ve given YieldBuild to optimize your site’s inventory, and the number of optimization options you’ve taken advantage of. An improvement of 20-50% is possible given the results we’ve seen among our top clients. (See some YieldBuild success stories.)

Ryan Hupfer (first in the video) and Ren Chin talk about HubPages and YieldBuild, respectively, at August’s SES San Jose 2009.

The big news out of the Google camp yesterday is they have opened the doors for ad networks to bid on AdSense inventory.  By logging into your AdSense account and going to AdSense Setup -> Ad Review Center you can see a list of ad networks that are bidding on your inventory.  From there, you control which networks have access.   In the YieldBuild account, I can see seven ad networks.

I read through all the emails I received on this announcement and will give my take.

Why would Google do this? At the end of the day this is about data and making the decision about the ad that gets served which gives them the ability to insert themselves on impressions they think are valuable on more inventory.  They must feel that this will help the existing AdSense business and that the fees they can take from the ad networks will more than make up for lost AdSense revenues, or it will drive up bid prices for AdWords advertisers.

Will other big players play with Google? I think the large independent ad networks will try it out.  In our list of ad networks in the Google Exchange, we already see Specific Media – I’m not sure if everyone sees the same ad networks.  Others (I won’t call them out) that have resisted working with exchanges in the past because they believe it severely devalues their service will remain on the sideline unless they have no choice.  I’d expect Microsoft and Yahoo to compete with Google, either by continuing to operate independently, or by joining forces.  I’d put players like Fox and AOL on the fence.  Fox and AOL are both working on their own exchanges and RTB (real time bidding) platforms, but there are limited numbers of large publishers which makes maintaining and keeping them potentially expensive for the smaller standalone exchanges.  At the heart of success for smaller exchanges is liquidity.  Google certainly has a leg up on this and it can be potentially a killer for others trying to get traction without having a huge set of suppliers and demand.

How do the economics work? One of the questions that publishers have asked is, Should I turn Specific Media off since they have access to my inventory through Google?  At this point, it’s not clear how much each ad network is paying (can’t see it in AdSense reporting), and what percent Google is keeping from the ad networks (Google has never been transparent with publishers about the bid rate and the actual payout of AdSense).  Our advice to publishers is to keep running ad networks independently for now.  The program is just starting and hasn’t been ramped up.  Then, we’ll need to run tests by turning off ad networks and gauging overall fill rate and CPMs.

What does this mean for the future of ad networks? This is an interesting question to conjecture.  We have believed that the number of ad networks will continue to grow into the many thousands.  Super large ad networks will prefer to have direct relationships with publishers, but will go to exchanges for some inventory.  Medium and small ad networks will ultimately focus on selling ads and servicing advertisers over managing publishers.  Most of the inventory they sell will come through exchanges as long as they can get the targeting options they need for their niche.  However, especially small network growth may be slowed if the minimum fees on the exchanges are too expensive.  If that’s the case, I suspect a sub-market will emerge of platform providers that aggregate small networks to get them onto the exchanges with less fees.

How does this impact publishers? Depending on the segment of publisher you are in this means different things.  At the lowest level, if you are a niche AdSense only site, this will probably help your revenue over time.  If you are a medium- or large-sized publisher without a direct sales force, it has the potential to help, but it becomes increasingly worrisome for one entity to have full control over the value of your inventory if they do become the one-stop shop.  For medium-sized and large publishers that sell their own inventory, they will want to make sure that the exchange network is blind so they don’t run into channel conflict. I also suspect that when Google is at full scale with certified ad networks that publishers will hold back inventory in the hopes at preventing the field from becoming completely tilted in Google’s favor.  Similarly to SEMs, publishers want competition.

What does it mean for Ad Network Optimizers like YieldBuild?  For YieldBuild, we view it as a good thing that Google is creating more demand for AdSense inventory.  I have personally felt that this would be the trend for a few years and that we will ultimately end up with two or three major exchanges for remnant inventory, but it’s likely to take a few more years still before this is a reality.  My hope for the industry is that it remains competitive for distribution and there will be continued demand for optimization services, and consolidated reporting with analytics that publishers value.  This may lead to a reduction of ad networks that publishers need to manage, but there will be more than one player

At YieldBuild, we have long known that the color of links influences the click through rates of links.  Google did a recent experiment with GMail that was covered by GigaOm on the click through rates of links by altering the link color.

But there’s also the fact that Google is stuffed full of people who just love to experiment on its users. For instance, Google Mail uses a very slightly different blue for links than the main search page. Its engineers wondered: would that change the ratio of click throughs? Is there an “ideal” blue that encourages clicks? To find out, incoming users were randomly assigned between 40 different shades of links – from blue-with-green-ish to blue-with-blue-ish. It turned out blue-ness encouraged clicks more than green-ness. Who would have guessed? And who would have cared? Google, of course, which wants to get people clicking around the net.

While contrast is important, it’s largely dependent on the surrounding ecosystem of link colors.  For example, in many tests we ran, placing AdSense ads on sites with mostly dark red links, changing the link color to blue of the text ads didn’t increase the clickthrough rate.   However, we were able to increase the CTR in some cases by lightening the surrounding font colors around the ads without changing the link colors at all.

I think the comment that Google made about blue vs green links is true.  That in general, sites with blue links have a higher link CTR than sites with green, or any other color but blue for that matter.  If you’re thinking of starting a site to place text ads on, I’d suggest using light blue for your main link color.

We’re excited to announce that YieldBuild is launching the Premium Text Ad Program today, which includes access for qualifying publishers to Microsoft’s new contextual ad service, pubCenter (adCenter Publisher). The Premium Text Ad Program draws on high-quality, high-performance text ad sources, and complements AdSense or other text or display ad networks that you might be running on your site.

Microsoft pubCenter is currently in beta and not broadly available to interested publishers. However, YieldBuild can get qualifying publishers running Premium Text Ad Program ads including pubCenter today; both current and new YieldBuild publishers are eligible.

Why run Premium Text Ad Program ads alongside your AdSense? You might have read TechCrunch’s article on early results among private beta publishers that expressed performance significantly better than AdSense and Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN)—that has certainly been the case in our early tests as well. In addition to performing well, the ads are attractive and demonstrate excellent contextual breadth.

We look forward to bringing pubCenter to our Premium Text Ad Program participants!

Not a YieldBuild publisher? Sign up and opt in to the Premium Text Ad Program when setting up.

Current YieldBuild publisher? Just go to your Account > Networks page and click the button to start.

We have just launched a suite of performance analytics to our YieldBuild publishers, which will give site owners impressive insight into the traffic and monetization patterns that are bringing in the money. Take a look at these 5 sample screenshots  (click on each to see a full-size version launch in a new window):

The premier tech blog, TechCrunch, just published an update on YieldBuild, covering the most important changes we’ve rolled out recently as we enter our public beta phase:

• we are accepting publishers of all sizes
• publishers can use our self-service wizard to provision YieldBuild code for themselves (you sign up via the application form, and we will send you a link to the wizard shortly)
• improvements to the algorithm have significantly shortened the training period (the time it takes for YieldBuild to yield significant lift to your revenue)
• we support more ad networks: in addition to Google AdSense, we now support Yahoo Publisher Network, BlueLithium, Advertising.com, ValueClick and TribalFusion, with more contextual and display network support coming soon

We thank Jason Kincaid at TechCrunch for the coverage and look forward to seeing more publishers enjoy great revenue improvements using YieldBuild, without the hassle or guesswork involved in trying to optimize your ads’ formats, layouts and ad networks manually.

You might have noticed blog posts (here’s one) about our opening of YieldBuild to publishers of all sizes. We’re happy to report that it is true.

Our public beta introduction features a self-service wizard that allows publishers to provision code on their own, so they can be up and running with YieldBuild in a matter of minutes. Publishers using WordPress, Blogger (Blogspot), TypePad and vBulletin will find a step-by-step express install option that will make installation straight-forward and quick.

Early feedback from public beta users has been overwhelmingly positive. We’re happy to see the number of publishers earning more from their advertising growing, and look forward to roll out more impressive features in the coming months!

Yesterday, we hosted the popular San Francisco Lunch 2.0 series at our YieldBuild headquarters. Attendees got to meet and share ideas with each other, and network in the online advertising space. Good times! More pictures available at Flickr.

Wanna meet Cameron, star of “Sales Call with Cam Edmondson” while learning more about YieldBuild? Come to our Lunch 2.0 Event next Thursday!