View and configure peer benchmarks (Beta)

With the Peer benchmarks card on your Overview Home dashboard, you can compare the performance of your network to that of your peers.

Peers, or peer sets, are networks similar to yours. We choose an appropriate peer set for you based on your network’s traffic volume and dimension distributions. 

You can change how networks are selected for your peer set by changing the benchmark configuration.

The card includes two views:

• Analytics: Compare your network’s key metrics, such as impressions and eCPM, against your peers. View detailed breakdowns and expandable charts for more insights.
• Transparency: Review how current performance compares to the data used when your peer set was configured, and decide if it’s time to reset your peer set.

This card supports the following dimension filters (found on the dashboard): Country, Demand channel, Device category, Inventory type, and Programmatic channel. If you select the App or Ad unit filters, only network data shows. The Yield partner filter isn’t currently supported for the card.

Enable or disable benchmarks

By default, benchmarks are enabled for your network. With benchmarks enabled, you’ll find the Peer benchmarks card on your Overview Home dashboard.

To enable or disable benchmarks:

1. Sign in to Google Ad Manager.

2. Click Admin and then Global settings.
3. Under “Network settings,” scroll down to “Report settings.” 
4. Enable  or disable  Benchmark insights.
   This setting also applies to the Industry benchmarks card. If you disable Benchmark insights, both the Peer and Industry benchmark cards will be removed from your dashboard. Learn more about benchmarks.

Review the card

By default, the card is ready to use. After you’re familiar with the default settings, you might want to set up your own configuration for more focused results.  

To review the card:

1. Sign in to Google Ad Manager.
2. On the Overview Home dashboard, add the Peer benchmarks card.^{(Help me add a data card)}
3. On the metric scorecards at the top of the card, compare the overall period change of your network against the peer benchmark.
   Example: Let’s say your network had a Viewability increase of 5% this period, and the benchmark had a Viewability increase of 3% this period. Your Viewability scorecard will show +2% in comparison to the benchmark.
4. To compare your network’s performance to your peers in greater detail, under “Analytics,” review the table:
   • To select a dimension for your breakdown, next to “Break down by,” click and make a selection, such as “Continent.” 
     Expand a row for detailed time series charts, and hover over a chart for the percent difference. Values shown are based on a 7 day rolling-average to even out daily traffic fluctuations.
   • To select a metric for your breakdown, on a metric menu, click  and make a selection, such as “Viewability.” 
     The columns let you compare two metrics at a time.

     Tip: Analytics columns are calculated as follows:

     • Your Network and Benchmark: For percent change (% change) metrics these two columns show the relative change from start to end of the period, based on 7 day rolling-average values. For other metrics, these columns show an average for the time period.
     • Your Network vs Benchmark: This column shows the difference between your network and the benchmark for the selected time period.
5. To understand the composition of your peer set, click Transparency.
   • Review the charts comparing your network to your peers by key dimension distributions. The thick bar shows current performance, while the thin bar shows previous performance. 
   • Hover over a chart to view the percent change for current and previous periods. The “Current” column shows your current distributions. The “Previous” column shows your distributions when the benchmark was configured. If the difference between current and previous periods is large, you can reset your peer set for a better match.

About peer benchmark configurations

With benchmark insights enabled, you can use the default peer benchmark configuration, or you can select dimensions and overrides to configure the benchmark yourself. When you configure a peer benchmark, your peer set is reset. 

Dimensions

• A benchmark configuration includes one to three dimensions. The default setting includes the “Inventory type” dimension. To focus the benchmark, you can add up to two more dimensions, such as “Continent” and “Demand subchannel.”

Overrides

• For each dimension in a benchmark configuration, you can add an override. Overrides filter your peer set for networks with traffic matching the override category. For example, under the “Inventory type” dimension of a benchmark, you can add an override for “Browser only.”
• An override filters out networks with traffic that doesn’t match the override category. Because overrides filter out networks with other traffic distributions, results may be unavailable, and your updated peer set may not resemble your network as closely.

Your configuration informs our selection of your peer set. 

For some dimensions and overrides, results may be unavailable when there aren’t enough networks to compile a peer set.

Configure a peer benchmark

The default peer benchmark is “Inventory type.” This benchmark establishes a peer set based on networks with a similar distribution of traffic to your network defined by inventory type. You can configure it by adding dimensions and overrides. 

1. Sign in to Google Ad Manager.
2. Choose one:
   • On the “Peer benchmarks” card, click Transparency and then Go to benchmark configuration. 
   • Click Admin, then Global settings, then Configure peer benchmarks.
3. (Optional) Rename the benchmark.
4. To change the dimension, under “Dimension,” click the menu and select a different dimension.
5. To add another dimension, click Add dimension.
   For each benchmark configuration, you can have up to 3 dimensions.
6. To add an override to a dimension, under “Override,” click the menu and select a category. 
   For example, if you add the “Primarily programmatic” override, your peer set will include networks with similar traffic. 
7. Click Save.

Reset your peer set

Over time, you may notice the distributions between your network and your peers have significantly diverged. To maintain meaningful benchmarks, you can reset your peer set.   

When you reset a peer set, we’ll choose new peers using current data.

1. On the “Peer benchmarks” card, click Transparency, and then Go to benchmark configuration.

2. At the bottom of the peer benchmark, click Reset peer set.
3. Click Save.
   This change can’t be undone.