Conversant Review for Publishers

Review Information Last Updated on: March 21, 2014

Introduction to Conversant

Conversant (formerly ValueClick Media) is a large display advertising network, rivaling Google AdSense and Media.net in terms of quality. In addition to their display ad network, Conversant is the holding company for CJ Affiliate (formerly Commission Junction), Conversant Ad Server (formerly Mediaplex), Conversant Tag Manager (formerly Master TMS), and Conversant Enterprise Solutions (formerly Dotomi). This review will focus specifically on Conversant’s display ad network. (Click here for our review of CJ Affiliate by Conversant.)

Overall Rating: 3.75 out of 5.

• What We Like: Low traffic minimum, big brand-name advertisers, decent performance.
• What We Don’t Like: Some low quality, or spammy-looking, ads.

Conversant Company Stats

• Homepage: Conversant
• Program Founded In: 1998 (as ValueClick Media)
• Employee Count: 1,001-5,000 Conversant, Inc. employees as of March 6, 2014 according toLinkedIn
• Ownership: Conversant, Inc. (CNVR)
• Profiles: Twitter, LinkedIn,Facebook, Crunchbase, BBB

Conversant Support & Contact Information

• Address: 30699 Russell Ranch Rd Ste 250, Westlake Village CA 91362
• Phone Number: 818-575-4500
• Support Email: support_media@conversantmedia.com

Publisher Requirements

• Publisher Terms: http://www.valueclickmedia.com/pub-display-agreement
• Traffic Minimum: 3,000 monthly pageviews.
• Publisher Language Requirement: Must be in English.
• Prohibited Publisher Content: “Any Websites that relate to or have any characteristic of the following must be approved in writing by ValueClick and shall be on a case by case basis: (i) excessive ads, app – quest/test, user generated content (blogs, forums, discussion boards, chat rooms, etc.) that is not regulated, (ii) foreign websites, (iii) controversial issues (e.g. religion, sexual orientation and/or edgy humor), (iv) wrestling, (v) anime, (vi) gaming, (vii) old content, and/or (viii) poor quality design and functionality.”

Advertisers & Offers

• Advertising Types: Display.
• Offer Types: CPC, CPM.
• Verticals: All.
• Network Size: Unknown.
• Sampling of Publishers: Unknown.

Tech Implementation

Conversant Tech Implementation Rating: 4 out of 5.

Example of a Conversant 728×90 leaderboard unit running at the MonetizePros forums

• Creating an Ad Unit: Generating new ad code is very straightforward and takes only a few seconds to accomplish. From the “Ad Code” panel, be sure to select your site name when creating a new ad, even if you only have one. Most publishers will use the Recommended Conversant ads–standard 728×90, 200×250, and 160×600 ad units. Conversant also offer a couple “combo ad units,” which can accommodate multiple sizes (specifically, there is a 728×90 / 468×60 ad and a 120×600 / 160×600 ad). Using these ads lets Conversant serve ads of either size through this code, which should lead to improved performance. In our experience with these “flex” ad spots, both sizes appeared on the site.
• Display Ad Unit Sizes Available: 728×90, 120×600, 300×250, 468×60, 160×600, 180×150, pop-unders, InVue, interstitials, half-page, flexible banner, in-text links.
• Implementation Technology: HTML, Javascript.
• Compatible with Google AdSense: Yes.
• Mobile Ad Units Available: Yes.
• WordPress Plugin Available: No.

Publisher Reporting & Admin Control Panel

Conversant Publisher Reporting & Admin Control Panel Rating: 4 out of 5.

Conversant’s publisher control panel

• Control Panel: Conversant has developed a good, user-friendly admin control panel for publishers in their network. Upon first logging in, the main dashboard quickly gives a view of the current month’s daily eranings, along with a 48-hour earnings snapshot and a report of monthly stats by ad type. Publishers can click around to the Reports; Media Manager, where they can set options for ad campaigns; Filters, where they can blacklist or whitelist certain advertisers or content; Ad Code; Sites & Apps, where they can set options for their sites; Account, where they can set account and payment settings; and InfoCenter, which is a knowledge base and FAQ section.
• Reporting: The main Reports page is the dashboard that publishers will see upon login. From here, the snapshot report can be set to display any month and filtered by site. More highly customizable reports are available by clicking “Earnings” on the left sidebar. From here, the user may set any date range, and filter by media type, site, and country. Reports are also available for default impressions and fill rate, as well as payments.
• Control Panel URL: https://admin.valueclickmedia.com/corp/login

Payment

Conversant Payment Rating: 4 out of 5.

• Payout: Unknown.
• Payment Methods Available: Check, Direct Deposit, PayPal.
• Payment Terms: Net-60 (but usually within 25 days).
• Minimum Payout Threshold: $25.

Account Help

Conversant Account Help Rating: 3 out of 5.

• Knowledge Base URL: https://pub.valueclickmedia.com/info_center
• Personal Account Manager: No.
• Easy to Contact Support: Yes.

Editor’s Conversant Review

The following review was contributed by Michael Johnston on March 21, 2014. Conversant is a relatively new brand that includes a number of well-known monetization partners. This company includes the operations of ValueClick Media (display ads), Commission Junction (affiliate marketing), and a few other companies. It is essentially the old ValueClick network rebranded as new company. Since Conversant covers multiple monetization avenues–including display ads and affiliate marketing–it may be appealing to publishers looking to simplify and use a limited number of networks. Overall, Conversant is a decent monetization option for publishers though it falls short of “top tier” ad networks such as AdSense. It’s relatively easy to get approved, create ads, generate reporting, and manage ads. But the relevancy of ads simply is not as high as other networks, which leads to poor performance. Signing up for Conversant is a straightforward process; besides having to set up a few silly backup questions, there’s nothing challenging here. Most sites with more than 100 daily visitors will be approved within 48 hours; once you get the approval email, you’ll be able to log in to the Conversant dashboard and begin setting up ads. The ease of use is definitely a positive for Conversant; generating new ad code is very straightforward and takes only a few seconds to accomplish: from the “Ad Code” panel, be sure to select your site name when creating a new ad, even if you only have one. Most publishers will use the Recommended Conversant ads–standard 728×90, 200×250, and 160×600 ad units. Conversant also offer a couple “combo ad units,” which can accommodate multiple sizes (specifically, there is a 728×90 / 468×60 ad and a 120×600 / 160×600 ad). Using these ads lets Conversant serve ads of either size through this code, which should lead to improved performance. In our experience with these “flex” ad spots, both sizes appeared on the site. Conversant ads are generally very high quality, with major brands (such as Microsoft and Angie’s List) running campaigns through this network. There are, however, some lower quality advertisers in the Conversant network, meaning that if you don’t set up any filters you risk serving ads like these:

It is possible to block advertisers within the Conversant dashboard or also to make a whitelist of the advertisers you’d like to be allowed on your site. You can also block certain types of controversial ad types (such as drugs / alcohol or casino ads) or certain creative types (such as User Initiated Audio Ads or Auto Expandable Ads). The process for blocking certain types of ads isn’t quite as easy as it is with AdSense, but it can definitely be figured out. Aside from the Block / Approve features, the reporting dashboard is pretty clean. Figuring out how specific ad units are performing is easy enough, making it pretty easy to see how different ad units are performing. For most publishers, the performance of Conversant won’t be nearly as good as ad networks with better contextual targeting such as AdSense and Media.net that serve up ads on similar topics to a site’s content. The result is that while the ads look good, they don’t perform nearly as well. In our experience, Conversant delivers effective RPMs that are only a fraction of what’s available from AdSense and Media.net. Specifically, most RPMs for above-the-fold ad units will be $1 or lower. If you can’t use AdSense or Media.net for some reason, or if you’re looking to supplement those networks with additional ads, Conversant is a good option. But it’s probably not a good primary ad network.

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