How do I figure out if my ad is profitable via RPM/eCPM?

Sutra

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Background info:
  • I purchase Facebook traffic and direct it to a paginated article (5 pages) on my blog that has Adsense ads.
  • I run multiple ads targeted at different audience segments to find the best performer.
  • All ads are tracked via the Facebook/Google UTM builder.
  • My goal is to get my RPM (eCPM in Google Analytics) above $20 for the page I'm purchasing traffic for.
When I view the campaign in GA it shows all the pages that user went to after arriving via my ad.

Views and clicks are highest on the first page visited and decrease for each subsequent page. Outside of the article I send them to, some users visit 3 - 10 other pages on the site. However, the pages visited outside of the article I send them to are often getting no clicks but still 30 - 70 page views.

So page 1 may have an eCPM of $15, page 2 has $9, page 3 has $5.75 (totally made up numbers btw). By page 7 and on it's more like $1.75, .90, etc.. The total eCPM for all the pages is something like $9.50.

Here's my question:

To figure out if my ad is profitable via RPM/eCPM should I...

A) Use the total eCPM for all pages?
B) Calculate the eCPM only for the page (including paginated pages) I'm directing traffic to?
C) Something else?​
 
Break each page down by device. Then eCPM of each device x Pages per session of each device. That's your true value per 1,000 visitors broken down into the basic targeting options on facebook.

I wouldn't get this number daily but use an average over the last 30 days.

Now you know exactly what you can spend per click on every page per device.

I've found this can be off by about 10% when working out exactly what I earned for the day but it's an average so I don' think that's a problem.

If anyone knows a better way I'd be keen to hear it as well.
 
Should I base that only on the 5 pages in the article, or should I include all the other pages users view after reading the article?
 
By multiply page views per user x eCPM you already include all other pages.

You only need to calculate this for your important landing pages (the ones you're driving FB traffic to) which you can find under behavior > site content > landing page.
 
Makes a lot of sense now, thank you.

I run the same ad against multiple audiences (so 3 - 8 ads). I was able to see Landing Page as you described and then could break it down by device or by ad content, but I couldn't figure out how to get all 3 dimensions (if it's even possible). However, I run every FB ad specific to a device (never combine them) and in the tracking name I enter "desktop" or "mobile". So what I was able to do was view landing page, then view via ad content and specify the ad name (including the "desktop" or "mobile" words) to separate them. Just fyi for anyone else who happens upon this thread.

Anyway, I calculated all ad results and found 1 that is close to break even. Just made an adjustment on the page to see if that will increase the earnings. Shall see!
 
If I am understanding you correctly you want to click the secondary dimension drop down and then find "device category" under that.
 
I was able to add Device as a secondary dimension. The challenge with that is that is lumps all the data from all the ads. I run multiple ads with different audiences.

For example, Ad1 is 18 - 35 years old with an income of 40k+. Ad2 is 40 - 55 years olds with an incomes of 60k+ and interest in Tennis, etc. I want to view the data for each of those audiences separately in GA because (I assume) it could cause the results to vary wildly.

I believe certain types of people are more/less likely to click. And if they're the types to make over 60K, then the Interest based ads they click on my site are likely to have a higher CPC. Rather than an 18 year old high school kid who was looking at ringtones previously and now clicks that ad on my site that's worth only 5 cents a click.

I was able to get what I needed though since I separate my desktop+tablet vs mobile ads and note it in the ad tracking name.

Of course, maybe I'm way overthinking it and completely wrong, haha. If so, please let me know.
 
I gotcha now.

No, you're right. Setting up tracking url's is a good idea.
 
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