Waterfall strategy
Configure a waterfall strategy. Prioritize ad networks based on performance and follow best practices to improve ad delivery and support revenue goals.
Read time 3 minutesLast updated 2 days ago
Note
Waterfall placements are being phased out. Starting July 23, 2026, you can no longer create new waterfall placements. Any placements not converted to bidding or archived by this date will no longer be editable, but will continue to serve ads.The recommended approach is to transition to in-app bidding placements before the deadline, as follows:
- If you use Unity Ads as your only ads provider, migrate from Unity Ads to LevelPlay.
- If you use Unity Ads as part of a mediation stack, set up Unity Ads as a bidder within your mediation platform. This method might require an app update depending on your mediation partner’s requirements for supporting Unity Ads bidding.
Important
eCPM Targets are not intended for publishers who use Unity Ads as their exclusive network for running ads. In these cases enabling any minimum pricing thresholds will limit the demand for your inventory and ultimately result in less revenue.
Best practices for setting targets
Pricing is always a balance of charging the highest possible price that enables the largest amount of your available inventory to fill. This varies by many factors, including game type, popularity of the game, advertising demand from ad networks and exchanges, and types of advertisements (such as banners or videos), to name a few. Determining the right price points is a matter of frequent testing. It is important to note that the ideal pricing last month might not equate the ideal pricing next month, as the market for auctioning ad inventory is ever changing.Give your price points enough space from one another in your waterfall
Setting eCPM Targets extremely close to each other (for example, within $0.25 USD) is generally not recommended as the complexity is almost certain to outweigh any revenue benefit. Strategically placing your price points apart from each other to capture a greater variance of bid levels reduces both the time to deliver an ad as well as the time in managing your efforts.Place Unity Ads at high, medium, and low price points in your waterfall in order to maximize both your eCPM and fill rate
In addition to separating Unity eCPM Targets from each other, it is best to separate them across your entire mediation stack. For example, if for a given placement you work with 3 ad providers totaling 12 price points, it is recommended to serve Unity Ads at the top, middle, and bottom of the waterfall to maximize your potential revenuePrevent cannibalization across price points
If you run multiple Unity price points in mediation, you might find that the highest price drives sufficient fill while the next price point drives very low fill. This is likely due to the lower price being close enough to the higher price where much of the incoming advertiser bids in that range are captured by the higher price. In these cases, it often makes sense to raise your highest target until your second target sees increased fill. We recommend slow increases of $1 to $2 USD at most and waiting at least 3 days for performance to stabilize. Note that weekday performance will likely differ from weekend performance.Understand regional differences
Prices can vary dramatically depending on the region in which your ads are being served. Ensure this is taken into consideration if setting region specific eCPM Targets. Unity's 2020 Mobile Game Monetization Report shows the relative difference in eCPM by continent, which you could use as a starting point in determining your own regional price differences.