How 1.4% of impressions delivered nearly a third of Techbox's ad revenue
How Techbox grew total ad revenue by 27% and built a new income stream after handing ad operations to FatChilli.
Techbox, one of Slovakia’s leading technology news sites, was facing a decline in advertising revenues.
The outlet does not have direct reader revenue, and a major shift in the digital media landscape occurred at the same time. Think changes in how search and social media traffic have been mainly in decline.
Techbox migrated from a generic Advanced Ads setup to a custom Google Ad Manager configuration managed by FatChilli, with rewarded ads introduced as a new format.
In the first full month after the switch, total ad revenue grew 27.3% month-over-month, eCPM rose 25.5%, and the brand-new rewarded ads income stream contributed almost one-third of overall programmatic ad revenue.
And here is the biggest kicker: the significant growth in ad revenue came mainly from just 1.4% of total impressions.
We weren't familiar with the rewarded ads format before. It fit our plans perfectly, as we had been thinking about 'monetizing' our content for quite some time. However, the available methods and systems seemed too complex to us, so we literally put off implementing them for years. Rewarded ads are exactly what fits us perfectly. It’s automated; we don't ask our readers for any money, and yet we can still increase our revenue simply by having them watch an ad as a thank you for the content they want to read.
Roman Calík, CEO and editor-in-chief, Techbox
Subscribe to our newsletter for more publisher stories and strategies straight into your inbox.
It does matter how you run your ad tech
For a publisher that is relying on how much time and pageviews the audience spends on the website, the user experience is top of mind. And showing fewer ads with a higher return is not just appealing, but game-changing.
And another important point: the ad request volume stayed almost identical between the two months, which means the lift came from how the inventory was monetized, not from more traffic.
Before working with FatChilli, Techbox ran its programmatic stack through Advanced Ads. It worked, but it was hard to read and harder to optimize.
CEO Roman Calík and his team were effectively flying on intuition rather than data, with no real way to tune yield format by format, and no clear view of which demand sources were actually pulling their weight.
Previously, we used Advanced Ads to deliver direct-sold client campaigns, which actually slowed down our website. To maintain site 'speed,' we had to manually monitor the impressions of individual campaigns, as inputting them directly didn't work well. We also automated the delivery of Google AdSense ads through Advanced Ads, but we only utilized basic formats, which caused us to lose out on higher yields.
Roman Calík, CEO and editor-in-chief, Techbox
FatChilli moved the site onto its own Google Ad Manager configuration, rebalanced AdSense weights, added missing formats, including sticky placements, and switched on rewarded ads, a format that lets readers watch a short video or interact with an ad in exchange for continued access to premium content.
The goal was straightforward: lift yield without piling on more ad slots, and prove the new Rewarded format could carry real weight on a quality news site.
During the monitored period, the outlet had an even higher direct demand for its inventory. Direct-sold campaigns were unusually strong, and their share of impressions grew by 16%. That left less inventory for programmatic to fill, yet it still grew sharply. Meaning the new setup by FatChilli was monetizing what remained far more efficiently.
Overall traffic and reader behaviour on the site showed no significant changes between the two months, which matters: it confirms the revenue lift came from the ad stack itself, not from any underlying shift in audience or engagement.
Huge upside of rewarded ads for web: Fewer ads, more revenue
As always, the team monitored user behaviour as the change is considered significant, but it turned out that the rewarded ads format did not push readers away. Bounce rate and time spent remained the same.
The whole point of rewarded ads is that it converts when readers are engaged enough to accept a short ad as a fair trade for continuing with content they actually want to finish.
That is exactly what Techbox has: a loyal, returning audience that comes for exclusive technology reporting and stays for the depth.
Currently, we are saving time on deploying direct campaigns, which are managed at a much better level directly by the FatChilli team. We also really appreciate the 'carefree' nature of the entire collaboration. The team at FatChilli constantly evaluates what works and how, and recommends new formats that maximize our profits.
Roman Calík, CEO and editor-in-chief, Techbox
For Roman and the Techbox team, the day-to-day shift was about handing off ad management to people who could see and act on the data.
The Advanced Ads setup made it nearly impossible to optimize without guessing. The GAM rebuild gave FatChilli granular control over floor pricing, demand sources, and format allocation, and gave Techbox a partner managing it in real time rather than a dashboard to interpret alone.
The result, beyond the numbers, is that the CEO can focus on running the newsroom instead of second-guessing the ad stack.
Related articles
Key takeaways for publishers
- A 27% revenue lift on flat traffic was a yield problem solved, not a traffic story. If ad requests are stable but revenue is stuck, the issue is almost always in the stack, not the audience.
- Rewarded ads can punch far above their impression weight. 1.4% of impressions delivering 31.8% of revenue is not a rounding error; it is a structural change to the revenue mix.
- Loyal audiences are a prerequisite for rewarded ads. The format converts engaged readers, not casual ones. Publishers with strong direct or returning traffic are the natural fit.
- Direct and programmatic do not have to cannibalize each other. Even with Direct claiming more impressions month-over-month, programmatic revenue grew. Right-sized floors and demand management make both channels healthier.
- Ad operations are a craft, not a checkbox. The shift from a self-managed Advanced Ads setup to actively managed GAM was the unlock. The format choices matter, but so does having someone watching the numbers daily.
Enjoyed the post? Share it.
An expert specializing in helping digital publishers to drive revenue with smart monetization strategies.
FatChilli's Solutions
