Navigating Your Way to Better Quality

Using the ADR and blocked domains to your advantage

Back in the day, family road trips were incomplete without maps. Actual, paper maps. The kind that were supposed to fold neatly into a rectangle when not in use, though in most cases, probably ended up crumpled on the floorboard or dash of the sedan.

Luckily for most of us, technology took over, and instead of relying on a state atlas or old-fashioned city grid, we can now print out door-to-door driving directions online, or even fancier, rely on a GPS device. And though some probably still prefer the thrilling adventure of just hitting the open pavement with no specific destination in mind, most of us like to know where we’re going, and the fastest, most logical way to get there.

This is the idea behind our recently launched Ad Delivery Report (ADR.) By navigating to this spot in the account interface and selecting a date range, you’ll get a list of all of domains in our network that are driving traffic to your account. If you’ve installed Full Analytics, you can also access domain-specific conversion data, which is another bonus.

The concept behind the ADR is really one of transparency. We believe that rather than sharing a high-level list of partners in our network—which may or may not be sending traffic to your account—it makes much more sense to provide you with the actual list of domains that are contributing to your clicks. This way, you’ve got a clear view of where your ads are served, something that will aid you in your quest for tailoring the traffic mix at the account level.

Meaning?
Well, by poring over the ADR—and either our Full Analytics conversion data or your own third-party conversion stats—you can make informed decisions about which domains do or don’t meet your performance thresholds. This, in turn, will factor into your decisions relating to domain blocking, which is a great way to improve the overall performance of your account.

Say, for example, that you’d like to eliminate referring domains that are contributing more than 100 clicks and are converting at less than 0.05%. By reviewing the ADR combined with your conversion information, you can isolate any domains that meet that criteria and then block those using our blocked domains functionality. This essentially removes those domains that aren’t performing to your standards, which ultimately will benefit your traffic quality mix.

And unlike the sometimes illogically persistent and oftentimes monotonous tone of the voice-enabled GPS, our ADR will simply show you the stats and let you navigate from there.

— Malin Kennedy, Senior Manager, Advertiser Experience