Gazeta Express: Improving
AdOps Team Productivity
and Page Loading Speed with Epom

Gazeta Express is an online media which hasn't been printed since 2013. It’s the most prominent media in Kosovo and the most popular media in the Balkans by visit. In 2018, they also launched their TV channel.

The newsportal is known for its wide range of news, fastest news delivery, distinctive editorials and op-ed's, and focus on investigative journalism.

They used Epom Ad Server to improve ad delivery performance, get continuous support, implement specific targeting and manage advertisers in one place.

The Challenge Arised

Kosovo is a state with limited international recognition, which has numerous implications for advertising businesses in the region. Therefore, Google AdSense doesn’t operate in the state that creates another bunch of the problems.

Apart from that, Google AdSense does not support the Albanian language as a targeting parameter. Also, it’s impossible to target Kosovan IP addresses since the country doesn’t have designated ones. So instead, half of the users in Kosovo use Serbian, and another half use Albanian IP addresses.

Also, Gazeta Express was previously using Revive open-source ad server, which was inconvenient because of the constant need to maintain software independently.

As a result, some ads had poor load time and slowed the website performance. But Revive had no support to assist on these issues.

Here Epom ad server came to the rescue.

The Strategy with Epom: Open-Source vs Hosted Ad Server - 0:1

In 2015, Gazeta Express switched from Revive to Epom, expecting to acquire professional software as a service with 95%+ uptime and high performance.

Revive vs. Epom: Why Did They Switch?

The client aimed to serve more ad units on their website and optimize their placements without compromising user experience, which wasn't possible with Revive. Epom appeared to be a technically capable solution to satisfy Gazeta Express's needs, thanks to platform architecture almost honed to perfection over the years.

Revive and Epom are products from different "leagues." Revive is a free piece of software that offers only a base code to users. Then, they customize it how they want (often encountering difficulties since it's not easy to tweak such a complex platform as an ad server).

Epom, a technically sophisticated solution, has been built and maintained by industry experts for 10+ years. It offers a comprehensive set of tools to optimize ad management, including free rich media templates, auto CTR and conversion optimization, scheduled reporting, and banner prioritization.

In contrast, Revive, a free software, provides a basic code that users can customize. However, due to its complexity, this customization process is often challenging.

How the Strategy Changed?

The client started running more impressions without fearing losing readers due to poor user experience. They started using the following features of Epom:

1. Geotargeting. Allowed to alternate ad serving depending on the user’s location. Gazeta Express has users worldwide, and 30-40% of the audience comes outside Kosovo or Albania. Thus, it helped them make their ad delivery more effective.
2. Language targeting. Gazeta Express required Albanian language support, but it’s quite rare, though Epom has all language support.
3. IP targeting. Gazeta Express can target Albanian and Serbian IPs combined with location to target Kosovan users. Epom allows them to set up complex targeting algorithms.
4. Prioritization. The client has 200+ advertisers and requires robust prioritization algorithms, which Epom can provide in its banner filtering, weighting, daisy-chaining, campaign-level priorities, etc.
5. Custom ad formats. Gazeta Express largely relies on custom ad units. Their CTR is from 0.12% to 0.28%, depending on the advertiser. Epom provides no-code templates for non-standard ad units; the most widely used are always redirect, responsive banners, and advanced interstitials.
6. Limits. Gazeta Express runs fixed deals with some advertisers, which require impression limits to be set. Again, Epom limits functionality helped.

The Victories & Numbers

GazetaExpress improved its website load speed by 137% after switching to Epom.

Also, the ad operations team boosted their productivity by 50% (as they no longer need to manage open-source Revive) and switched to strategic and business development tasks.

As a publisher, Gazeta Express is now trusted by prominent brands like Project Agora, ProCredit Bank, Shell, Toyota, Domino’s, and Jysk.

Comparing 2023 to 2018, GazetaExpress runs 27% more impressions and drives 59% higher CTR to their partners using the Epom ad server.

On average, GazetaExpress runs 2.1B impressions per year with the Epom ad server.

The website delivers targeted ads to the Kosovo and Albania audiences, which was impossible with Revive and would be impossible with Google products.

Ads are correctly displayed on the website 99% of all time, compared to 79% of the time in the past.

The Bottom Line

GazetaExpress is pleased with Epom customer support and remembers the case when the Head of Support personally addressed the critical issue at 6 AM.

The client has no plan to switch to another product since they’re happy with the support, technical stability, and targeting functionality. Instead, they consider Epom the right tool for their further scale-up.