About RealGM
RealGM is a leading US sports media platform providing news, statistics, transactions, analysis and discussion, alongside coverage of other major sports.
With a highly engaged audience and significant traffic peaks around major sporting events, RealGM continuously explores new opportunities to increase the value of its digital inventory while maintaining a high-quality user experience.
The Challenge: Increasing Page RPM While Protecting UX
Ahead of an important period for sports traffic, RealGM identified an opportunity to strengthen its publisher monetization strategy by generating additional revenue from selected areas of its inventory.
The objective was not simply to increase advertising pressure. The team wanted to introduce a differentiated monetization experience capable of creating meaningful incremental value while remaining carefully integrated into the browsing experience.
This required a solution that could be deployed quickly, tested progressively and continuously adapted based on both monetization performance and user experience.
Our Solution: Ad Experience Hub
RealGM activated Opti Digital’s Ad Experience Hub, giving the publisher access to standalone, innovative high-impact ad formats and advertising experiences designed to unlock incremental value from existing inventory.
By identifying the right inventory opportunities and progressively scaling the activation, Opti Digital helped RealGM turn the new ad experience into a significant incremental revenue driver. The activation ultimately contributed to a 27% uplift in RealGM’s global revenue, while maintaining a controlled advertising environment and preserving the user experience.
The activation began across a limited portion of inventory, allowing both teams to validate implementation, monetization performance and UX before progressively expanding its reach.
Rapid Deployment Ahead of a Key Traffic Period
Speed was particularly important for RealGM, with a major sports traffic period approaching.
Opti Digital’s technical and Account Management teams moved rapidly from testing to production. After initial QA, RealGM deployed the experience across a first portion of traffic before progressively expanding it to additional pages as the implementation was validated.
This progressive approach enabled the publisher to start capturing additional revenue quickly while keeping full control over the rollout.
“The Opti Digital team moved quickly but in a measured way. They clearly explained how the solution worked and what kind of lift we could expect. What really stood out was their willingness to iterate. We went through multiple rounds of adjustments to ensure our user experience stayed high despite the introduction of a new ad format. They have a sharp team and are genuinely great to work with across all facets.”
— Christopher Reina, Executive Editor & CMO at Real GM
Continuous Optimization Around UX
Once live, the teams closely monitored how the new experience interacted with RealGM’s site.
Several activation behaviours and positions were tested. Opti Digital adjusted where the experience appeared within the viewport, tested activation after user scroll, and refined its behaviour when users returned to the top of the page.
The setup was later refined again to activate from page load while remaining sufficiently low in the viewport to preserve monetization opportunities while respecting the publisher’s UX requirements.
This continuous testing became part of RealGM’s broader ad revenue optimization strategy, helping the publisher increase revenue from existing traffic without relying on higher overall advertising pressure.
27% Global Revenue Uplift
The activation became a significant incremental revenue driver for RealGM.
By introducing a differentiated ad experience across carefully selected inventory and progressively optimizing its delivery, Opti Digital helped generate a 27% uplift in RealGM’s global revenue, strengthening its programmatic revenue optimization strategy.
This result demonstrates the effect high-impact ad formats and standalone premium ad experiences can have when deployed strategically, creating a substantial new revenue contribution from existing traffic while maintaining a controlled approach to user experience.
As performance was validated, RealGM progressively expanded the activation across additional pages, further scaling the revenue opportunity.
FAQs
RealGM strengthened its publisher monetization strategy by introducing a new high-impact advertising experience through Opti Digital’s Ad Experience Hub, initially testing it across a limited portion of inventory before progressively expanding the activation based on revenue performance and UX.
RealGM focused its ad revenue optimization strategy on generating more value from selected existing inventory. The teams continuously tested the positioning and activation behaviour of the new ad experience, allowing revenue opportunities to scale while maintaining control over the browsing experience.
Ad Experience Hub gave RealGM access to high-impact ad formats that could be deployed independently and progressively optimized, helping create an additional revenue stream during a key traffic period while protecting UX.
As a publisher, we're always looking for new revenue streams, and this came at an ideal time. We were heading into our highest traffic period of the year, so we capitalized on that audience right away. The revenue performance exceeded our expectations.
Christopher ReinaExecutive Editor & CMO at Real GM