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How to Count the Number of Ads on a Page
How to Count the Number of Ads on a Page

How many ads are you running?! Tips and tricks on how to "count" your PubNation ads.

Heather Tullos avatar
Written by Heather Tullos
Updated over a year ago

PubNation offers enterprise-level full service exclusive ad management for sites specializing in gaming, sports, tech, entertainment and news.

If you've scrolled through your content and been concerned about the number of ads you're serving - that they seem too high or too low - this article will help you learn how to determine the number of ads you're serving

💡 Did you know that counting your PubNation by Mediavine ads as you scroll through a post is actually NOT an accurate way to know how many ads you're serving? 💡

Mediavine ads serve differently than the ads from any other ad manager, so counting ads on a page works a little differently here. This article will help you to find the answers you are looking for!

Impressions and ad slots are two different things.

Impressions are how you are paid when you are earning from display ads.

IMPRESSIONS * CPM / 1000 = REVENUE

You can find the number of impressions (the actual number of ads) that you have served in two places in your Mediavine dashboard.

AD UNIT BREAKDOWN

In the Ad Units section of your dashboard you can see the total number of impressions for each ad unit as well as the number of impressions site-wide.

PRO TIP: Divide total impressions by total pageviews and you will know the average number of ads you serve per page site-wide.

TOP PAGES INFORMATION

Readers use all of the posts and pages on your site differently, so if you look at the number of impressions served PER PAGE in the Top Pages section of the dashboard, you'll see how the actual number of impressions you are serving varies from page to page.

With Mediavine, Impressions per Page includes:

  • Every in-content ad served on desktop, tablet, or mobile

  • Every adhesion ad served on desktop, tablet, or mobile

  • Sidebar ads

  • Dual Edge Ads

  • Leaderboards

  • Universal Player

  • In-stream video impressions

  • All of the refreshes (many units refresh every 30 seconds when they are in view; each refresh is an impression)

Pages with a high number of impressions are usually well-optimized, engaging, and probably have a higher time on site.

Ad Slots are just places that ads CAN appear.

If you scroll through a post or page and count the ads you see 1-2-3-4-5, you are not counting ads, you are counting AD SLOTS.

We tailor every user's experience to their behavior. Ads are only served where your readers actually are. So if your reader uses a Table of Contents link to jump around the post, most ad slots that they skip effectively don't exist. Learn more about how that works here. This implementation is one of the reasons we boast higher CPMs (the amount that advertisers are spending per 1000 impressions) than our competitors.

Higher CPMs means you can make more money with fewer ads.

If you use the ?test=houseads or ?test=placeholders query at the end of a URL to force your ad placements, you are counting AD SLOTS.

Ad slots that are in view can refresh, and again, we only load those ad slots in and fill them with an impression as the reader navigates the page.

Dashboard data will always be the best way to know just how many ads you are serving AND!!! Remember that while sometimes website owners count ads, your readers really never do.

Watch metrics like time on site, pages per session, and be sure that ads are where your readers actually linger on the page.

Reach out to your Account Management Team at help@pubnation.com if you need further assistance.

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