Sortable Review For Publishers

Sortable was founded by Christopher Reid as a web publishing company focused on helping consumers in comparing several competing products from each other. Sortable was formerly known as Snapsort Media. In 2014 they relaunched Sortable as an ad optimization company aimed at helping publishers in automating their ad operations. Here is MonetizePros’ Sortable review.

Introduction to Sortable

 

sortable's logo

 

Sortable is a broad spectrum platform that helps publishers unify demand partners, data, and tools. It aims to simplify the highly complex processes of publishing while getting more ad revenues. Sortable uses machine learning to assist online publishers and content creators in automating ad operations.

Sortable highlights their agnostic approach to monetization and unified reporting as their top benefits. Aside from that, they consist of a large engineering team which promises fast implementation and powerful solutions.

Sortable.com Analytics review

Reporting and analytics have always been a challenge for online publishers as ad stacks start to become more complex. Sortable analytics provides unified reporting within a single dashboard where users can view key metrics to help them decide their yield strategy. It shows analytics performance from the partner and the site.

Sortable.com dashboard review

Sortable approaches monetization agnostically. They increase yield through dynamic price floors and timeouts, header bidding, partner discrepancy minimization and server-to-server connections. Sortable assists online publishers in creating an effective and competing ad stack.

With their highly extensive expertise in DoubleClick Ad Exchange and DoubleClick for Publishers, they have become a certified Google publishing partner.

Overall rating: 2.5 out of 5 
sortable review we gave it 2.5 stars rating overall

What we like most about Sortable:

  • Automated reporting
  • New reporting interface has a lot of stats
  • Easy setup

What we liked least about Sortable:

  • Very little transparency into what’s happening within ad inventory
  • Requires you to run 100% of Sortable’s ad setup rather than your ad server
  • Cannot run direct sales campaigns along with Sortable
  • Aggressive sales team
  • Ad RPM and Page RPM performance is quite low
  • 90-day opt-out or withholds all ad revenues
  • Sneaky $0.01 ad request CPM charge
  • Sends too many spam emails

Publisher Requirements

They started out as publishers, so they understand the struggles and hassles that come with online publishing. Sortable accepts all publishers of any size. They do not require a minimum number of monthly views for publishers to sign up to them.

Company Stats

  • Location: Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
  • Categories: Digital Media, Advertising
  • Founded Date: 2014
  • Founders: Alexander Black, Christopher Reid
  • Operating Status: Active
  • Funding Status: Seed
  • Last Funding Type: Seed
  • Number of Employees: 51-100
  • Company Type: For-Profit

Contact and Support Information

Tech Implementation Rating: 4 out of 5

Sortable features an optimistic interface which is user-friendly and easy to get used to. The set-up is amazingly easy. So far tech implementation is fine however you are required to run 100% of ad traffic on sortable and at the same time support isn’t very responsive.

Reporting Interface Rating: 4 out of 5

The newer interface is way better than the older version. You can choose multiple stats to view and monitor. The usability of the interface is decently effective. Overall, their new reporting interface looks promising, however, the most important header bid stats are not available and the necessary optimization toggles aren’t there.

Payment Rating: 4 out of 5

  • Features wire transfer payouts
  • Net30 payments
  • Payment is not always on time
  • Withholds all unpaid ad revenues if not running 100% of ad traffic through Sortable

Account Help Rating: 2 out of 5

The support isn’t as responsive as we would want them to be. After your account has been set up and running, Sortable’s support seems to really diminish. Their overly aggressive sales team makes it hard to work with them.

Performance Rating: 1 out of 5

Sortable seems promising at first, however, you won’t actually be getting what you expected. They over promise high ad revenues but actually underdeliver. This is kind of like getting promised shoes for Christmas but actually getting flipflops. The page RPMs and session RPMs are one of the lowest compared to other ad op partners.

Even after complaining about their low RPM performance, they will leverage their contract to keep you running their tags on 100% of your traffic (90-day opt-out). What makes things worse is the low RPM performance doesn’t seem to worry sales or support representatives.

Pros:

  • The automated reporting is really nifty especially for analytics and statistics oriented publishers
  • Their new and upgraded reporting interface has all the stats that you could possibly ever need
  • Set-up is amazingly easy

Cons:

  • Page RPM performance is low
  • Ad RPM performance is low
  • 90-day opt-out or withholds all ad revenues
  • There is a Sneaky $0.01 ad request CPM charge
  • You are sent too many spammy emails
  • The overly aggressive sales team is hard to work with
  • Very little transparency into what’s happening within ad inventory
  • Instead of your own ad server. you are required to run 100% of Sortable’s ad setup
  • Publishers are not able to run direct sales campaigns along with Sortable

Conclusion

RPM performance is the most important measure for an Ad Op Partner! Although their tech features look promising and exciting, it means nothing with low RPM performance. Sortable’s low page RPM and ad RPM performance is not a desirable trait when looking for an Ad Op Partner. What makes matters worse is the fact that RPM performance doesn’t seem to worry sales or support representatives as they give very little support on the issue.

An Ideal Ad Op Partner should have a very responsive support team which Sortable currently doesn’t have. Another thing to look out for is their aggressive sales team as they left a bitter taste in several publishers’ mouths. All in all, Sortable has great tech features and a good reporting interface however it seems they are more focused on short-term profits rather than value to their publisher clients.