El Nacional, a leading digital news outlet in Catalonia, successfully increased its RPM by up to 11% with Pubstack’s Server-Side integration, delivered through One, Pubstack’s full-stack Monetisation Manager. The integration, activated in under two minutes, enabled the media outlet to scale its programmatic revenue significantly without additional technical resources.
El Nacional is a leading Catalan digital news outlet based in Barcelona, offering comprehensive coverage across politics, economy, society, sports, and culture. Published in Catalan, Spanish, and English, it serves a diverse and loyal readership in Spain and abroad.
With strong editorial performance and high-quality inventory, El Nacional had already established a mature programmatic stack. However, the team identified operational constraints in their monetisation setup that limited their ability to scale revenue efficiently.
Before implementing server-side monetisation, El Nacional’s stack was exclusively client-side. While functional, it created three core challenges:
The team needed a solution that could address these limitations without increasing operational complexity.
As an existing Monetisation Management customer, El Nacional leveraged Pubstack’s Server-Side integration, delivered through One, Pubstack’s full-stack Monetisation Manager, to activate server-side monetisation quickly and without technical overhead. The activation process took less than two minutes and required no engineering work.
With this integration, the team was able to:
Pubstack’s no-code server-side interface, fully compliant with Prebid Server, enabled granular control over bidder mapping while ensuring all integrations were stable, current, and centrally managed.
“What really stood out to us was how easy it was to get started. Activating the server-side setup took just a couple of minutes, and we didn’t need any engineering support. That simplicity made it possible for us to move fast and test new demand without overhauling our stack.”
Several demand partners performed significantly better when called server-side. For example:
These improvements were possible thanks to faster auction dynamics, increased competition, and more innovative stack management.
“One of the biggest value for us was visibility. With Pubstack, we could finally see how each SSP was performing server-side compared to client-side and make decisions based on real data. That transparency helped us make the right choices and drive a 10% RPM uplift and increase programmatic revenue by 7%—mostly by boosting the competition with a positive impact on our fill rate. Prebid Server-side innovations are key to help us maximise our demand and advertiser reach while maintaining fast auctions and healthy Core Web Vitals.”
This case highlights a key insight: Best-in-class server-side technologies allow publishers to maximise advertisers' reach and boost programmatic competition without compromising site speed and Core Web Vitals. By activating Pubstack’s server-side stack, El Nacional improved auction efficiency and increased the share of impressions monetised..
Pubstack’s server-side integration played a central role by reducing latency, expanding demand access, and improving bidding conditions. As a result, the publisher not only achieved a 10% uplift in RPM but also a 7% increase in programmatic revenue, demonstrating how auction quality and scale can drive meaningful business outcomes.
“We now have more control over our monetisation strategy. Pubstack’s solution lets us manage demand more flexibly, monitor performance in real time, and make changes without going through developers. It’s helped us build a setup that’s not just more efficient, but easier to scale.”
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