Articles by: "Alynn Beyder, Senior Product Marketing Manager – IAS"

How contextual increases trust – and revenue

March 22, 2022 Alynn Beyder, Senior Product Marketing Manager – IAS

As the industry leans into context-based buying methods, it becomes even more clear why marketers are revolutionizing their advertising strategies with a focus on relevance. In fact, as the deprecation of third-party cookies looms nearer, advertisers and publishers alike need innovative, forward-looking solutions to maximize consumer engagement — and revenue. Contextual targeting promises to be just such a solution.

Through the lens of the advertiser, contextual targeting offers a slew of benefits. But through the lens of the publisher, shifting from third-party cookies (in use since the late 90s) has surfaced questions over intellectual property. Despite differing industry perspectives, contextual targeting solutions help to drive greater content discoverability and increase trust within publisher-advertiser relationships.

Here’s how.

Reinforcing the publisher-advertiser relationship

A healthy, trustworthy relationship between publishers and advertisers is crucial for the entire ecosystem. Advertisers actively seek out media partners that can deliver their messages alongside relevant content, therefore increasing consumer ad engagement and favorability.

Contextual solutions, which a publisher can use to match with their advertiser’s brand suitability needs, create the opportunity for a frictionless ad environment. In fact, when it comes to meeting (and exceeding) an advertiser’s needs, there are sophisticated solutions out there that offer the ability to meet quality standards, prove media value, and reduce discrepancies.

Furthermore, publishers that take advantage of optimization solutions have the opportunity to considerably lower brand risk for all impressions. In fact, some experience massive brand risk reductions of as high as 97%. Even more crucial for long-term success, publishers can strengthen advertisers’ trust by providing inventory that has been independently verified.

Contextual solutions certainly provide relationship-building benefits. But how do they increase revenue?

Let’s explore.

Context is key to driving revenue.

Contextual solutions offer unique revenue-increasing benefits for publishers in particular. For starters, sophisticated contextual targeting methods help to unlock additional inventory monetization opportunities by making publisher content more discoverable to advertisers. By only serving ads in the relevant context and enhancing content discoverability for advertisers to reach specific audiences when they’re in the right mindset to hear their message, publishers ultimately benefit from higher yield and lower fail rates.

An added benefit of contextual is enhanced user experience. Consumers take notice of context — and they love it. Industry research has shown that 74% of consumers like to see ads that match the content they’re viewing. What’s even more conclusive, the recent biometric study revealed over half of consumers find it disruptive when an ad is not related to the content they’re reading.

If consumers aren’t feeling favorable toward the ad experience on a publisher’s site, they may be less inclined to interact with the site in the future. And if consumers find advertisements on a website to be disruptive to their viewing experience, they may associate that publisher with less credibility. That could lead them to categorize the experience, and therefore the content, as spam-like and non-premium.

Publishers — the decision is yours.

Opposing contextual analysis can negatively impact publishers’ ability to monetize all of their inventory. Advertisers are actively seeking independently verified, brand safe, suitable, viewable, and fraud-free inventory. Without transparent contextual analysis, publisher content cannot be properly classified. Therefore, it is not nearly as discoverable by advertisers who have marketing dollars to spend. Instead, advertisers will likely direct their buying towards inventory that’s more transparent on the free and open internet.

Questions about contextual methods are valid, especially as the digital advertising industry moves toward what may feel like uncharted territory. But publishers should note the value context-based solutions can offer: an uptick in advertiser trust, a more positive consumer experience, and last but certainly not least, maximized revenue.

Considering the importance of prioritizing revenue growth as cookies disappear from the advertising industry, publishers should be open to independent contextual verification and collaborate with trusted partners to fuel innovation.

Industry-Research | Revenue

How to combat ad fraud spikes during the holiday season

October 27, 2020 Alynn Beyder, Senior Product Marketing Manager – IAS

The holiday shopping season was once a time of packed stores and crowded gallerias. These days, people are much more likely to stay home and do their shopping from the comfort of their couches. In particular, IAS found that this year, nearly all holiday shopping will be online, specifically on ecommerce and retail sites. So, while audiences watch nostalgic holiday movies, they’ll also be on their phones researching gifts to purchase for their loved ones.

Unfortunately, consumers aren’t the only ones online — fraudsters also have their sights set on holiday traffic. Invalid traffic (IVT), which includes malicious fraud as well as general non-human activity, has the potential to steal valuable impressions. Since it looks like Cyber Monday will become Cyber Season, publishers should optimize their inventory to both support marketers and thwart fraudsters.

Unwrapping holiday ad fraud

Shopping online offers a convenience that brick and mortar stores lack: information. In their search for the perfect gift, IAS found that consumers turn to search engines, review sites, and online advertisements. Consumers look to advertisements for guidance, and are most interested in ads they see on well-known and respected sites. IAS research shows that retail sites are especially prone to fraud, witnessing spikes around popular shopping dates like Cyber Monday.

At the same time, holiday season campaigns tend to be short and sweet, only meant to appear in consumers’ feeds for a few months. Longer campaigns give advertisers more time to review and optimize campaign performance. However, during this time, advertisers rely on premium inventory to achieve the ambitious KPIs associated with holiday campaigns. This puts additional pressure on digital publishers to optimize their inventory to minimize risk and maximize performance.

Putting fraudsters on the naughty list

A recent survey of U.S. consumers found that 51% of respondents plan to start their holiday shopping earlier this year. To mitigate fraudulent activity, publishers should also prepare early by optimizing their inventory. Bots can be given instructions to visit premium sites, pick up desirable cookies, and then visit fraudulent sites to monetize. In order to protect the value of their inventory, here are some key reminders for publishers looking to prepare for the holiday season.

Make a list and check it twice

✓ Figure out where site traffic originates

The first step in identifying fraud is recognizing where traffic originates. For example, traffic that is sourced from a supplier has a higher possibility of attracting fraudulent bot traffic. Suitable ad environments are powerful, and transparency helps to build a strong relationship between publisher and advertiser.

✓ Confirm how visitors are attracted

If traffic is sourced, there is a higher possibility of fraudulent bot activity. If most traffic comes from data centers, rather than residential or corporate networks, publishers should confirm that there are no software tools being run in those data centers that hit their website. Running tools that drive traffic may result in invalid traffic per industry group standards.

✓ Not all invalid traffic is malicious

Some cybersecurity, testing, and analytics solutions employ methods that can trigger fraud detection models from ad verification vendors. For example, some bots are designed to crawl the internet and gather information or generate simulations. Publishers should work with their ad verification vendors to further analyze their inventory and consider adding known data center IPs to an exclusion list.

Happy holidays

In order to protect the value of their inventory, the publisher needs to analyze traffic patterns and optimize their content appropriately.

In conclusion, the web is rife with invalid traffic. Some traffic — consumers, crawlers, etc — is such a helpful gift to marketers that it should with a bow. However, there’s a great deal of malicious invalid traffic, the lumps of coal in the industry’s stockings. Such activity on publisher pages can threaten the trusted relationship you’ve built with your advertising partners and cost you real dollars.

The holiday shopping season is right around the corner, and safe inventory is the best gift to give to your partners. If you’ve detected invalid traffic on your site, then it’s likely that your advertiser partners have too. No need to ring the alarm just yet though. Being proactive and well-informed can go a long way toward ensuring that you and your advertisers present a unified front against fraud.

Advertising | Perspectives | Revenue

Say goodbye to the cookie and hello to contextual

February 24, 2020 Alynn Beyder, Senior Product Marketing Manager – IAS

Understanding consumers’ wants and needs is critical for advertising success. These days, having technology that enables these insights is not just nice to have – it is a must have. However, with January’s release of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which favors consumer privacy rights and increases limitations on advertising targeting parameters, the ability to predict and target those “wants and needs” based on personal information is becoming increasingly difficult.

As a result, advertisers will undoubtedly need to adjust their strategy to accommodate new and emerging regulations. In January, for example, Google announced its plan to phase out support for third-party cookies in Chrome within the next two years. Rather than attempting to reach their target audience based on data collected from cookies, advertisers will need to delve deeper to define consumer preferences and behaviors. Pivoting media buying strategies toward contextual alignment and partnering closer with content creators will be paramount to reach consumers in the new data privacy regulated world.

At Integral Ad Science (IAS), we conduct an annual survey with agencies, advertisers, ad tech vendors, and publishers to get a sense of the common themes and challenges facing industry leaders in the upcoming year. In our 2020 Industry Pulse Report, data privacy legislation was understandably a point of concern for all parties. In fact, 82% of respondents listed contextual targeting as a key industry trend in the upcoming year.

Publishers have the advantage

This is where publishers are able to regain control. With new standards like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and CCPA already imposed (and Chrome’s looming 2022 deadline) a decreased ability to rely on cookies will undoubtedly take center stage globally. When it comes to reaching desired audiences, the industry shift toward an increased reliance on contextual and semantic capabilities will put publishers back on top. Not only do we foresee great power in first-party audience data and stronger than ever buyer-seller relationships, but there is also a greater opportunity for publishers to market the true value of their content.

The first step is for publishers to ask themselves: Am I monetizing all of my inventory, and how can I stand out from the crowd? Taking the time to understand their unique inventory landscape will help publishers smartly create packages with delivery guarantees that their advertisers actually want to buy.

The media buy

According to one 2020 Industry Pulse Report publisher participant, “Data will be the single most important factor. People want to reach specific audiences and, as a publisher, we need to rely on our first party data that has been cleared from a GDPR and CCPA perspective to offer contextual and behavioral targeting for media specific buys.”

However, curating and selling these custom inventory packages by using first-party data is not as simple as it may sound. Publishers need to partner with an unbiased third-party to validate and optimize these custom packages, especially when trying to win back advertiser trust. Now more than ever, advertisers are relying on verification partners to ensure that their ads are placed in brand safe and suitable environments. When asked about the implications of data privacy regulations, a manager at a global media agency noted, “…Ensuring our media is presented in the way the brand intends is now more important than ever.”

And consumers agree: according to the IAS Ripple Effect study, consumers are 30% more likely to remember an ad found in a suitable environment. Publishers leveraging a third-party verification partner who both sits in the epicenter of the ecosystem and provides patented technology to analyze all page content will be one step ahead of the competition.

The increasing impact of data privacy legislation means predicting and targeting consumer “wants and needs” will become increasingly difficult. Advertisers looking to reach the right consumers in the right context will need to lean heavier on publishers offering contextual and semantic solutions. Content is still king. So, publishers should continue to focus their efforts on creating quality content and then partnering with an established third-party to help intelligently package and promote it.

Perspectives | Revenue

Blocked out: the dangers of overzealous keyword blocking

June 26, 2019 Alynn Beyder, Senior Product Marketing Manager – IAS

Brand safety has become an integral part of every marketers’ media buying strategy. One way that brands manage where their ads appear is by utilizing keyword blocking. While this can be a useful layer of protection, it isn’t a one size fits all or set it and forget it solution. Without proper monitoring, keyword blocking can create unintended—even unfortunate—consequences.

Blocking basics

No airline wants its message to run adjacent to news about a rash of problems with a particular type of jet. One way to avoid this sort of inherently negative placement is through the practice of keyword blocking.

Advertisers can choose to block certain categories of content — for example, anything related to drugs or adult content. They may also block particular keywords, such as “explosion,” “shooting,” or other topically sensitive terms. Of course, publishers are focused on providing relevant content to their audiences. However, they must also keep advertisers’ brand safety priorities in mind. Finding a delicate balance between the two can be tricky.

There is no “one size fits all” approach to achieve brand safety in the world of digital advertising. But keyword blocking can be a useful tool—if handled correctly. While effective in the short term, keyword blocking lists can get excessively long or stale if not maintained properly and updated on a regular basis. And this can hurt a brand more than help. Some advertisers may find that their ads are excluded from a publisher’s site entirely due to exhaustive keyword blocklists. Thus, they inadvertently miss out on the opportunity to reach their desired audiences.

When blocking breaks

Keyword blocking alone is not an optimal solution, but it can provide a layer of protection for conservative buyers. To make the most of this approach, however, it is important to revisit blocklists at least once a quarter. This is especially important given that words or phrases associated with a particular incident that was controversial news in March, for example, will have likely changed significantly by June.

Integral Ad Science recently reviewed keywords that were deemed as unsafe in the past due to breaking news, but that now may be acceptable. Remember the Las Vegas mass shooting that took over your newsfeed in 2017? IAS data uncovered that advertisers reacted to that breaking news story by blocking against “Las Vegas” and even “Mandalay Bay,” where the infamous shooter rented a room. Nearly two years after the incident, more than 120 advertisers are still blocking “Las Vegas.” Approximately 40 are still blocking “Mandalay Bay.”

The unintended consequence it that publishers promoting travel deals to the strip or tips on where to catch the best fourth of July fireworks are losing out on revenue opportunities due to dated keyword blocking. And at the same time, marketers who want to reach these travel-hungry audiences are deprived of the opportunity.

Better blocking

Ensuring brand safety is harder than ever, and there likely won’t be a catch all solution anytime in the near future. However, it is important to recognize that with keyword blocking, a “set it and forget it” mentality will not work. In fact, the entire process must be approached carefully from the outset and subject to regular review.

If your buyer insists on maintaining keyword blocklists as a key part of their strategy, then it is critical to reinforce good list hygiene. Too many blocked keywords limit distribution and will cost ad revenue. And ill-conceived or outdated block lists will deprive marketers from reaching the audience you are able to provide. This is an important issue that is negatively impacting publishers and marketers alike. I encourage you to work with your ad tech vendors and directly with buyers to help spread awareness and refine the approach to keyword blocking.

Perspectives

How one publisher won the brand safety battle

November 5, 2018 Alynn Beyder, Senior Product Marketing Manager – IAS

You only have to open your Twitter feed or scan the latest headlines to know that it’s a perilous online climate for brands. A volatile news cycle means it’s increasingly hard for marketers to find brand safe inventory to carry their ads. Even premium publishers are running news content that some audiences may find controversial with increasing public pressure on brands to display social responsibility.

For publishers who traffic in newsworthy, attention-grabbing, informative content this presents a challenge and an opportunity. Every brand has different sensitivities, and content that could be anathema to one might be pure gold to another. However, in this complex climate, publishers need to carefully consider how to grow their revenue and maximize the value of their inventory while delivering the news their readers expect along with the brand safety marketers need. New research points to a solution.

Finding an Optimal Balance

A new study from Integral Ad Science and a major media publisher found that IAS publisher data could be used to manually optimize placements to target inventory that met advertisers’ strict brand safety standards. This tactic allowed the publisher to secure inventory suitable to a major technology advertiser and unlock the value of its young tech-savvy audience. To make the process scalable to other advertising partners the publisher used IAS’ publisher optimization tools to target desirable inventory without increasing the size or workload of its publisher-optimization team.

Automating delivery and prioritizing serving ads adjacent to content that matched the advertiser’s specific brand safety needs resulted ina dramatic decrease in wasted impressions. Previously nearly 7% of all campaign impressions had been deemed too risky for this specific brand. After implementing and inventory optimization strategy guided by IAS verification data, that result fell to just 0.2% of all campaign impressions, allowing the publisher to recover substantial revenue, meet advertiser expectations more efficiently, and increase the total value of its premium inventory.

Publisher Priorities

Although brand safety is an industry-wide problem, it has fallen heavily on the shoulders of publishers alone to solve. Increased attention to the issue, driven by the tumultuous news cycle and a tense political climate, comes at a time when many publishers are seeing their revenue squeezed in other ways, leaving little margin for error.

With the duopoly consuming an ever-larger share of total digital advertising dollars, it’s become critical for publishers to maximize the value of their inventory to ensure a healthy bottom line. More importantly, the long-term health of a media publishing business depends on securing the trust of major advertising partners and meeting their inventory quality needs consistently and efficiently.

For some publishers, meeting the challenges of brand safety has meant sanitizing content or allowing advertiser demand to override editorial judgment. This remediation has created unnecessary tension between sales and editorial teams forcing publishers to choose between quality and revenue. Optimization tools can help publishers to better understand their own inventory by mapping impression delivery to ensure that unique advertiser needs are met without compromising content quality. For publishers to succeed, a resolution that benefits both advertisers and the end consumers is key.