Benchmarking

Ad revenue benchmarking: how do you compare with similar publishers?

Q: Is Benchmarking available through the API?

Yes. Each section has a /report/insight/benchmarking endpoint, for latency, ad density, Core Web Vitals, revenue, revenue by dimension, ad delivery, ads.txt, CMP and SSPs, plus one that lists your IAB categories. Options include filtering out extreme cohort and network values and leaving out publishers in your own organisation. See the API reference.

Benchmarking shows how your ad set-up and results compare with publishers like you. Every metric is shown three ways: for you, for your cohort (publishers in the same IAB Content Taxonomy categories) and for the whole Content Ignite network, with a trophy on whichever group leads. It covers CPM and what closing a CPM gap would be worth, latency, ad density, Core Web Vitals, ads.txt, consent and SSP bidding.

Get Started Get Free Healthcheck

How it works

From your IAB categories to a revenue figure

01
Your cohort
Your sites are tagged with IAB Content Taxonomy categories, such as Sports > Football. Publishers that share a category with you form your cohort.
02
Compare
Each metric shows Publisher, Cohort and Network side by side, colour-coded, for the date range and filters you choose. A trophy marks the leader.
03
Size the gap
Revenue Opportunity multiplies your impressions by the difference between your CPM and your cohort's or the network's.
04
Act
Jump to the report that explains the gap with your filters kept, and test a fix, such as a new SSP, with an experiment.

Benchmark groups

Publisher, cohort and network

Every chart shows the same three groups in the same colours, so you always know which bar is yours.

The three benchmark groups in Fusion: who is in each and what to use it for
Group	Who is in it	Use it for
Publisher	You: the selected publisher, aggregated with your filters	Your own baseline over the date range
Cohort	Other publishers that share at least one IAB category with you, averaged per publisher	A like-for-like comparison: same kind of content, similar audience
Network	All other active publishers on Content Ignite, averaged per publisher	Telling your own changes apart from market-wide shifts

What it compares

Every metric in Benchmarking, and why it matters

Four sections, each with your figure next to your cohort's and the network's for the dates and filters you choose.

Benchmarking sections and metrics in Fusion, what each compares and why it matters
Section	Metric	What is compared	Why it matters
Experience	Latency	Median page, tag, unit and ad latency	Slow ads load after the reader has moved on. See ad latency
	Ad density	Mobile ad density and heavy ad interventions, with threshold goals	Over 30% mobile density risks penalties; heavy ads are typically around 0.3%. See user experience
	Core Web Vitals	LCP, INP, CLS and FCP	How your page experience compares. See Core Web Vitals
Performance	CPM	Programmatic CPM	Normalises revenue, so sites of any size compare fairly
	Revenue Opportunity	Your impressions × the CPM gap to your cohort and the network	Turns "our CPM is lower" into a figure you can act on
	CPM by dimension	CPM by ad unit type, country, region, device, channel, partner or creative size, including values your peers have and you don't	Shows where the gap comes from, and growth areas to try
	Ad delivery	Ad load rate, click-through rate, fill and viewability	Delivery problems that hold revenue back
Infrastructure health	Ads.txt	Your share of DIRECT relationships and how many unique exchanges you list	Whether there is room to optimise your supply paths. Fix lines in Ads.txt Insights
	CMPs	Consent rate	With similar audiences, a higher consent rate means more personalised, better-paid ads
SSP partners	Bid overview	The bid funnel from requests to winning bids, with revenue efficiency for each group	Whether your header bidding set-up is as effective as your peers'
	SSP rate distribution	Each SSP plotted by bid rate and win rate, sized by bid volume	How each SSP behaves for you compared with others
	SSP performance	Bid rate, win rate, bid value, win value and revenue efficiency per SSP, plus strong SSPs your peers use that you don't	Candidates to add, and partners to review. See SSP Insights

Revenue figures cover programmatic demand only, so direct and house campaigns don't skew the comparison.

Using it well

How to get more from benchmarking

A comparison only helps if it leads to a change you can measure.

Pick two or three metrics

Don't try to fix everything at once. Choose a few, such as CPM, mobile ad density and viewability, and track them against your cohort.

Lead with the opportunity

"Matching our cohort's CPM is worth this much" is a clearer case for change than "our CPM is lower".

Test before you switch

An SSP doing well for your cohort is a hypothesis. Try it on a share of traffic with an experiment before changing your stack.

Learn more

Track it over time

Benchmarking isn't a one-off. Compare month on month and quarter on quarter to see whether a gap is closing.

Which report next?

Found a gap? Here's where to look

Benchmarking is one of the Insights Hub reports. The buttons in each section open the right one with your filters kept.

Which Insights Hub report to open after Benchmarking, and what it shows
Report	Open it when	What you see
SSP Insights	An SSP gap shows up in Benchmarking	The full bid funnel for each SSP, by country, device and config
Revenue Insights	Your CPM trails your cohort	Revenue and eCPM by country, device, partner, ad unit type and more
Core Web Vitals	Your page experience trails your cohort	Daily LCP, INP, CLS and FCP against a no-ads baseline
Diagnostics	Ad density, heavy ads or consent look off	Daily traffic-light checks with who fixes each one
Ads.txt Insights	You lead on ads.txt but want to be sure	Every missing, duplicate or invalid line, and the fix
Health Score	You want one score for the whole site	Ads.txt, Core Web Vitals, implementation and risk, with network and cohort averages

All Insights Hub reports Read the benchmarking guide Benchmarking in the docs

Results

Where publishers got to on Fusion

Results are for each publisher's whole Fusion set-up.

+1,710%net revenueTimes Higher Education — header bidding, dynamic floors and refresh on a managed stackRead the case study +131%total revenue, including directLondon South East — Managed Service, with +121% user RPMRead the case study +129%overall revenueKelsey Media — across its flagship sites, versus the previous partnerRead the case study

FAQ

Benchmarking questions, answered

What is ad revenue benchmarking?

It is comparing your ad metrics, such as CPM, fill, viewability and latency, with other publishers, so you know whether a number is good or just familiar. It is most useful against publishers like you, with similar content and audiences, which is why Fusion compares you with a cohort as well as the whole network.

Who is in my cohort?

Publishers that share at least one IAB Content Taxonomy category with you, such as Sports or Technology. The network is every other active publisher on Content Ignite. Cohort and network figures are averages per publisher, recalculated for the date range you pick.

Can other publishers see my data?

No. Everyone sees averages for their cohort and the network, never another publisher's numbers. An organisation can also be opted out of the aggregated figures in Fusion altogether, and Benchmarking respects that opt-out.

What is a good CPM for a website?

It depends on your content, audience, countries and devices, which is why a single industry figure isn't much use. The fair comparison is with publishers like you: Benchmarking shows your programmatic CPM next to your cohort's and the network's, and CPM by dimension shows where the difference comes from.

How is the revenue opportunity calculated?

Fusion multiplies your impressions by the difference between your CPM and the cohort or network CPM, and shows the result as a gain or loss. For example, 10 million impressions with a CPM 20p below your cohort's is £2,000 of revenue for that period.

Why does Benchmarking only use programmatic revenue?

So the comparison is like-for-like. Direct and house campaigns depend on each publisher's own sales team and deals, so they are left out. Everything else is included, such as all ad unit types. For your full revenue split, see Demand Mix.

What does the trophy mean?

It marks whichever group, Publisher, Cohort or Network, is doing best on that metric, whether higher is better (as with CPM) or lower is better (as with latency).

If I win on ads.txt, is my file fine?

Not necessarily. Benchmarking compares your share of direct relationships and your number of unique exchanges, not whether every line is correct. Check Ads.txt Insights for missing, duplicate and invalid lines.

Is Benchmarking available through the API?

Yes. Each section has a /report/insight/benchmarking endpoint, for latency, ad density, Core Web Vitals, revenue, revenue by dimension, ad delivery, ads.txt, CMP and SSPs, plus one that lists your IAB categories. Options include filtering out extreme cohort and network values and leaving out publishers in your own organisation. See the API reference.

Who can use Benchmarking?

Every Fusion publisher. It has been part of the Insights Hub since October 2025, alongside the other reports, with the same publisher and date filters.

See how you compare.

Get a free Revenue Healthcheck: ads.txt, Core Web Vitals, tag set-up and header bidding scored and benchmarked against similar publishers.

Get Free Healthcheck How the Healthcheck works