I've audited hundreds of publisher ad setups over the years. The same problems show up over and over:

1. Running vanilla AdSense when you should be on Google Ad Manager. If you're getting 50K+ monthly pageviews and still using basic AdSense auto-ads, you're almost certainly leaving money behind. GAM gives you header bidding, direct deals, and way more control over your inventory.

2. Ads.txt is wrong or incomplete. This one silently kills your revenue. Mismatched or missing ads.txt entries mean demand partners can't bid on your inventory. I've seen publishers fix this alone and see a 15-20% RPM bump overnight.

3. No header bidding. Prebid.js with the right demand partners can increase competition for every impression. Most publishers either don't have it or configured it poorly years ago and never touched it.

4. Bad ad placement and lazy loading. Where your ads sit on the page and when they load matters enormously. Above-the-fold viewability, sticky units, and proper lazy loading can transform your CPMs.

5. Policy violations eating your revenue. Google flags something, your ads get limited, and you don't even realize it for weeks. Regular policy health checks should be non-negotiable.

If any of this sounds familiar, that's exactly what I fix at AdPilot Media. I handle GAM optimization, AdSense setup, yield management, and the whole ad ops stack for publishers who want to stop guessing and start earning what their traffic is actually worth.

I've audited hundreds of publisher ad setups over the years. The same problems show up over and over:

1. Running vanilla AdSense when you should be on Google Ad Manager. If you're getting 50K+ monthly pageviews and still using basic AdSense auto-ads, you're almost certainly leaving money behind. GAM gives you header bidding, direct deals, and way more control over your inventory.

2. Ads.txt is wrong or incomplete. This one silently kills your revenue. Mismatched or missing ads.txt entries mean demand partners can't bid on your inventory. I've seen publishers fix this alone and see a 15-20% RPM bump overnight.

3. No header bidding. Prebid.js with the right demand partners can increase competition for every impression. Most publishers either don't have it or configured it poorly years ago and never touched it.

4. Bad ad placement and lazy loading. Where your ads sit on the page and when they load matters enormously. Above-the-fold viewability, sticky units, and proper lazy loading can transform your CPMs.

5. Policy violations eating your revenue. Google flags something, your ads get limited, and you don't even realize it for weeks. Regular policy health checks should be non-negotiable.

If any of this sounds familiar, that's exactly what I fix at AdPilot Media. I handle GAM optimization, AdSense setup, yield management, and the whole ad ops stack for publishers who want to stop guessing and start earning what their traffic is actually worth.