RealGM Increases Programmatic Revenue by 27% with Opti Digital
by on 27th Oct 2026 in News
Opti Digital, the leading ad tech company specialising in publisher revenue optimisation, announced the results of its collaboration with RealGM, a leading sports media platform providing news, statistics, transactions, analysis, and discussion across basketball and other major sports.
With a highly engaged audience and significant traffic peaks around major sporting events, RealGM identified an opportunity to generate additional value from selected areas of its existing inventory ahead of one of its busiest periods of the year. The publisher wanted to introduce a differentiated monetisation experience that could create meaningful incremental revenue while remaining carefully integrated into the browsing experience.
"As a publisher, we're always looking for new revenue streams, and this came at an ideal time. We were heading into our highest traffic period of the year, so we capitalised on that audience right away. The revenue performance exceeded our expectations," said Christopher Reina, executive editor & CMO at RealGM.
Unlocking incremental revenue with Ad Experience Hub
RealGM activated Ad Experience Hub, Opti Digital’s solution providing publishers with standalone, innovative high-impact ad formats and advertising experiences designed to unlock additional value from existing inventory.
With a major sports traffic period approaching, Opti Digital’s technical and Account Management teams moved rapidly from testing to production. The activation initially launched across a limited portion of RealGM’s inventory, enabling both teams to validate implementation, monetisation performance, and user experience before progressively expanding it across additional pages.
This measured rollout allowed RealGM to begin capturing incremental revenue quickly while retaining control over how the new experience was introduced across the site.
"The Opti Digital team moved quickly but in a measured way. They clearly explained how the solution worked and what kind of lift we could expect. What really stood out was their willingness to iterate. We went through multiple rounds of adjustments to ensure our user experience stayed high despite the introduction of a new ad format. They have a sharp team and are genuinely great to work with across all facets," Reina added.
Continuously optimising monetisation around UX
Once live, Opti Digital and RealGM continuously tested and refined how the new advertising experience interacted with the site.
The teams experimented with different placements and activation behaviours, including positioning within the viewport, activation following user scroll, and how the experience behaved when users returned to the top of the page. The setup was subsequently refined to activate from page load while remaining sufficiently low in the viewport to preserve monetisation opportunities and meet RealGM’s UX requirements.
As performance was validated, RealGM progressively expanded the activation across additional pages. By generating greater value from carefully selected existing inventory, the new ad experience became a significant incremental revenue driver and strengthened RealGM’s broader programmatic monetisation strategy.
Key result
- +27% programmatic revenue uplift
"RealGM demonstrates how publishers can unlock meaningful new revenue opportunities from their existing audience and inventory while keeping user experience at the centre of their monetisation strategy," said Magali Quentel-Reme, CEO at Opti Digital. "By combining innovative ad experiences with progressive testing and continuous optimisation, we help publishers create incremental value while maintaining control over how monetisation is integrated into the user journey."
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