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Advertising | Revenue

The case for combined revenue models

Subscription models have increased in popularity among growing numbers of publishers who are shifting their focus away from ad sales – and this trend has gained even more ground over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Advertising revenue has taken a substantial hit over the past few months. Just one example is The New York Times, which estimated a 55% drop in ad revenue. Media organizations have gotten creative with their business models in an attempt to make up for this shortfall, offering readers more flexible payment options to drive up subscriptions.

Companies like BuzzFeed News and The Daily Beast have seen huge upticks in membership as a result, according to Digiday. In addition, publishers such as Gannett, The Washington Post, Time Magazine, and The Philadelphia Inquirer have amassed large coronavirus newsletter audiences—in some cases, twice the size of their regular lists.

“We’ve proven to ourselves that we can be far more agile with this product line,” Kim Fox, a product director at the Philadelphia Inquirer, told Digiday.

Subscription models have been wildly successful across a broad range of sectors. Publishers who pair this powerful strategy with their advertising revenue strategies will be most likely to weather the next wave of uncertainty to hit the media industry.

The future of media: advertising and paid subscriptions

Thanks to the massive amounts of data-driven transactions that occur on a daily basis, publishers and advertisers alike are better informed than ever before about their audiences’ behaviors and preferences. They now have the ability to create highly relevant and targeted advertising campaigns that maximize their budgets as well as their brands’ reach.

While advertising will continue to serve as a crucial revenue stream for publishers, subscriptions have proved their ability to act as a powerful complement to the ad sales model with exclusive, creative offerings that strengthen brand loyalty.

The subscription model has already prompted publishers to think outside the box of traditional advertising and explore partnerships like reward programs with brands. For example, U.K. publisher The Times runs a program called Times+ that features exclusive arts, culture, entertainment, and travel rewards from various corporate partners.

Subscriptions offer a win-win for publishers and their audiences because they give consumers the ability to choose the content they pay for, whether their interest is in current affairs, arts and culture, sports, or entertainment.

A longstanding tradition: selling content and ads

The business model of selling content as well as advertising isn’t new to the media industry. Newspapers have always charged newsstand prices, although they looked drastically different more than 100 years ago. In 1851, The New York Times’ first year of existence, a copy of the newspaper sold for 1 cent. It took nearly a century for the price to reach 5 cents in 1950, and by 1974, the price had increased to 20 cents.

Decades later, when the internet rocked the media industry and gave readers unprecedented access to news, there was great debate about whether it signaled the death of print media. Many news organizations didn’t survive the disruption. However, now that the industry has wrapped its head around the paywall system, publishers have been able to reinforce the monetary value of high-quality journalism.

Media companies are seeing the benefits of charging for content once again. For example, in 2019, News Corp Australia’s publications reached 500,000 paid digital subscribers. In the U.S., The New York Times reached 3.5 million paid digital subscribers that year.

“It shows more and more people are willing to pay more for our trusted, quality journalism,” Michael Miller, News Corp Australia’s executive chairman for Australasia, told NewsMediaWorks. “Premium content that resonates with our expanding audiences…is what will drive our long-term success.”  

Although it’s a delicate balance, publishers can successfully sell both content and advertising by putting two important measures in place. First, publishers must ensure that ad placements don’t become too unwieldy, as to not alienate paid subscribers. They must also keep the cost of subscriptions reasonable to maintain substantial audience numbers worthy of attracting advertisers. 

How combined revenue models drive success

Publishers who combine advertising and subscription models carefully are well positioned to reap significant rewards. This is especially true as first-party data becomes an increasingly essential commodity within the media industry in the face of growing data privacy regulations. 

Subscriptions provide publishers with rich first-party audience data. That becomes an attractive selling point for advertisers seeking to maximize their investment in a contextually relevant and brand safe environment.

“Publishers need to focus on what they do really well, which is produce content. They can do native [advertising] and commercialize contextual targeting,” Bedir Aydemir of News UK said at Lineup Systems’ user conference last fall.

McClatchy CEO Craig Forman agrees that context is key to advertisers’ success in the future. And media organizations—particularly local publishers—can harness this trend to help brands reach audiences in meaningful ways.

“What often you can’t find in the world of digital advertising is the adjacency…that makes your advertising important in context,” Forman told Digiday. “And at this time where local is the success story of the emergence, McClatchy and others are doing everything we can to partner with local brands to show them that the trusted environment of local news is where they need to be.”

At The Washington Post, a new digital advertising tool is helping the media company evaluate “brand suitability” in various contexts.

“This particular display product utilizes the real-time messaging of a brand’s social posts and targets them to an audience in the right context. With a news environment that is changing so quickly, this allows brands to be more relevant with their voice,” chief revenue officer Joy Robins told The Drum.

As media organizations continue to innovate, combined revenue models that blend advertising and subscriptions will undoubtedly become even more powerful.

Advertising | Featured Post | Perspectives

Media execs weigh in on Covid-crisis inspired trends: creativity, productivity, and growth

Throughout the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, media organizations have had no option but to rapidly – and even radically – change their existing processes to keep things running smoothly. despite being unable to work within their usual offices and create content in the manner to which they’d become accustomed.

We reached out to some of the members of Digital Context Next and asked them the following question:

“Given the way companies have been necessarily adjusting and adapting to the Covid-19 crisis, what trends have particularly caught your eye, and which ones do you think are most likely to continue into the post-pandemic digital landscape?”

As you’ll see below, the responses were wide and varied, with each exec offering insight from their own unique perspective. But there were also several distinct similarities of observation, hinting at some potentially noteworthy trends in creative problem-solving, consumption of news and information, and increased productivity in a remote work environment.

“The increase in news consumption among younger demographics has caused an influx of new advertisers to the genre. We have also seen a decrease in keyword blocking over the last month compared to the start of the pandemic. Marketers realized that keyword blocking was being applied too broadly and that they were missing important, brand safe content.”

– Jeff Collins
Executive Vice President, Advertising Sales
FOX News Media

“Advertisers, agencies and publishers continue to navigate these challenging times with flexibility, speed and increased communication. The rapidity of creating solutions and working together across the industry has been impressive, and surely that nimble nature will be a constant moving forward. Additionally, the power of live news in a digital environment has been a force. Partners are embracing cross-platform service advertising to support necessary journalism while communicating brand campaigns and messages with mission at the helm. The value for partners and consumers alike is inherent, and from here, we’ll continue to see that grow in importance.”

– Christine Cook
Senior Vice President & Chief Revenue Officer
CNN Digital, WarnerMedia Ad Sales

“I’ve been impressed with how productive our staff has been in a fully remote work environment. I worry that our strong culture supports an effective WFH structure, but that over time, with departures and new hires, that could erode. Even with that concern, I do think that we will be much more accepting of remote work arrangements and lower occupancy in the office.”

– Michael F. Finnegan
President
Atlantic Media

“In addition to some obvious trends that will stick, involving remote work and public health precautions, I’m hoping that the speed and agility of our response to the crisis as publishers will be long lasting. In the AP’s case, we converted to remote operations worldwide, including complex video newsgathering and distribution. The move required us to move master control rooms to staffers’ homes immediately and implement remote tools for video editing to staffers worldwide. Not every project in the future needs to be run as a fire drill like this, but my hope is that we will retain a lot of the muscle memory from our response to the Covid crisis.”

– Jim Kennedy
SVP, Strategy & Enterprise Development
Associated Press

“Independent trustworthy journalism has proven itself in the crisis and is emerging even stronger than before. However the advertising markets across the globe have collapsed significantly and we cannot be sure whether they will return or shift even further towards the mega-platforms. Increasingly, a very few mega-platforms decide if, where and how citizens can use and access journalistic offerings and other services. The Covid crisis has accelerated this development. The policy response in Europe and in the US must be faster, more determined and more comprehensive in order to safeguard free, independent journalism and to re-establish fair competition in digital markets.” 

– Dr. Dietrich von Klaeden
Senior Vice President Public Affairs
Axel Springer SE

“The pandemic is forcing us to look more closely at who we’re reaching and when. And it’s making the case for more surgical, performance-based advertising in lieu of broader brand marketing efforts. Going forward, I think we’ll see a more concerted effort to tie media investment to business outcomes, but those business outcomes will still include brand building KPIs in addition to performance focused KPIs.

“We’ll also see an increased emphasis on flexibility and agility across the media industry as a whole, specifically in relation to upfront/annual budget commitments and creative production. With so much changing so quickly, the last several months have created an environment in which marketers want to mitigate risk as much as possible, especially when it comes to media distribution or to creative campaigns that may need to be altered based on micro/macroeconomic conditions and societal issues.”

– Craig Kostelic
Chief Business Officer, U.S. Advertising Revenue and Head of Global Advertising Solutions
Condé Nast

“Mobile has been a central part of our business but Covid-19 has brought that to a new level – people aren’t in the office so that workday routine is out the window. Our audiences are toggling between mobile devices, laptops, and Connected-TVs at all hours. This means more news during the day (especially streaming broadcasts) but also on evenings and weekends. Offering a great experience across all devices is so important. We’re also seeing the value of effectively pushing content out through app notifications, search optimization, email and third-party aggregators. It’s a very competitive market and you can’t sit back and hope people find your content.

“We’re seeing how important it is to be ready to tell stories with video and with text. Video does well on social media, text does better on search – people have different preferences. By consistently telling stories in multiple ways, we maximize our audience and the engagement we receive. Explainer videos that offer foundational information have been extremely important during Covid-19. Things like ‘What you need to know about Covid-19’ have been consistently among our top videos and most shared on social media. They also have companion articles that share similar information and that’s been a winning formula for us.”

– Marian Pittman
SVP, Content
COX Media Group

“In our space, OTT and other platforms have seen explosive growth. We are also seeing an uptick on online donations, even in these challenging economic times. This is directly related to an increase in the consumption of PBS content both on air and online. We’ve also seen marked growth in PBS Learning Media as more students and teachers and parents look for online educational tools and growth in PBS Kids content, especially the games app that launched only a few years ago but is now used as much as the PBS Kids video app. For PBS I believe all these trends will continue as consumers adopt new habits and discover the quality content Public Media and our local stations bring to them.”

– Ira Rubenstein
Chief Digital & Marketing Officer
PBS

“Three trends catch my eye. One is the necessary acceleration of creating value from audiences other than via advertising, which is proving to be a fickle friend. That means specifically paid content/membership strategies, but also the value in analysis and research via first party direct relationships with readers. In a world without a compass, insight into the thoughts and inclinations of key audiences are gold dust, both for publishers and partners. 

“The second trend is the changing definition of ‘journalism’ from the spoken, video or written format to a more data-driven and graphical experience. The Covid-19 crisis has been played out – and devoured by readers – in charts and graphs. I think there’s a lot more potential to engage readers in the future with this format.

“The other trend is of course the reinvention of the event space. Digital events were always thought to be a poor relation of the live experience. But I’m seeing audience appetite, bags of creativity, and lots of opportunity to develop engaging, valuable events online. 

“It’s a terrifying time for a lot of reasons, but there are exciting opportunities out there, too.”

– Jon Slade
Chief Commercial Officer
Financial Times
Advertising | Perspectives

With advertising rocked, it’s a good time to revisit fundamentals

Even during tumultuous times, foundational principles persist. Indeed, the tried-and-true techniques we know to be reliable — best practices, if you will — can be most useful during times of upheaval. This is particularly true when it’s difficult to make sense of what’s happening around us. 

To wit: in recent months I’ve tried to keep my elementary school-aged children in check by focusing on the basics. Maintaining bed times, good hygiene and regular exercise has been a constant struggle. But I’d like to think these guardrails have helped to keep the train from careering off-the-tracks. 

Comparing parenting to the advertising industry is absurd at face value. But the concept of best practices and fundamentals is not. It’s possible conditions have bottomed-out for the media and marketing category. Really, the only thing we know for sure is that we’ll be facing uncertain business conditions for many months and possibly years. 

Here are some ideas that might help with navigating the bumpy terrain and making it successfully to the other side. 

Stay top-of-mind with important audiences

It’s human nature to search for safe cover in the face of a crisis and wait until it passes before getting back into the fray. And that’s certainly what a lot of brands are doing when it comes to their advertising budgets right now. But it’s not sustainable over the long haul. The silver lining of lockdowns and restricted movement policies is more time for human connections (via digital platforms, that is). Find reasons to regularly make contact with important people in your network — customers, prospects, employees. Be a resource, for new ideas, as a sounding board, or just sharing a funny story or video. 

Next steps: Develop a “nifty-fifty’” list of the people important to you and design a communications strategy for outreach. 

Audit, assess, and improve

The last place most of us look for improvement possibilities is internally, but it’s a good place to start. Big publishers, in particular, have hidden gems in the form of underperforming — or just abandoned — digital properties that can be resuscitated with modest effort. Once identified, use our guide — How To Maximize The Value Of Digital Properties — to drive performance gains. Remember: content is king on the internet, even old content that might have been forgotten. 

Next steps: Get together with a colleague and make a list of the websites your company has launched over the past 10 years and assign them a status – dead, dormant or in-market. It won’t take long and you might be surprised at what you find. 

Be generous

It’s difficult to be generous when resources are scarce, but it’s also an opportunity to stand out. In a business context, “generous” has a lot of different meanings. For publishers, making excess ad inventory available for free to longtime customers or hot prospects is one way. Providing complementary, limited time subscriptions to products is another. I know of several companies that armed their sales teams with freebies to offer in April. It has paid huge dividends in May and June — in the form of market share and long-term competitive advantage. And then there’s always straight-up gift giving: one of my colleagues found a way to delight one his most important audiences that cost a few hundred dollars and will deliver goodwill for years to come.  

Next steps: Figure out what your organization is able to part with for free and who would benefit the most from its acquisition. 

Retool for success

When the economy does finally rebound, publishers will still need to wrestle with legacy challenges — mainly, how to compete effectively against Facebook and Google. We’ve addressed this topic in past postings, and many of the same recommendations still apply: make it easier to buy products, emphasize unique brand strengths, and help media buyers track and communicate their successes in a more meaningful way. At the same time, ground continues to shift underneath the duopoly and social media platforms. And there’s a steady drumbeat of opposition and concern about their policies, which will only intensify in the leadup to the November 2020 elections. 

Next steps: Make it an organizational priority to further plans for competing more effectively against Facebook and Google. Publishers need to be front-and-center with media buyers when advertising levels return, and conditions could be more favorable than anytime over the past decade given the state of media and politics.  

There’s no debate about the enormous challenges that the media, marketing, and advertising industries will continue to face through at least the remainder of 2020 and likely longer. But, assuming that existing the business altogether is not the goal, publishers must make well-calculated moves to adjust and ultimately thrive. Some actions will be subtle and geared towards incremental progress. Others will need to be more aggressive, either for reasons of survival or to take advantage of unique market conditions. 

About the author

Tim Bourgeois is a marketing advisor who helps brands optimize ROI on advertising, technology and agency investments through digital marketing audits and strategy engagements.

Advertising | Revenue

Rebound ready: Four ways to build digital revenue

We’re in the midst of what Nieman Lab is calling “a profound advertising crisis.” The advertising and media industries have been hit hard by coronavirus, due in part to the cancellation of live sports and the impact of lockdowns on retail brands. 

It’s hard to think about investing when things are so scary. However, there are investments you can make that have a good chance of paying off as we emerge from this downturn. 

Right now, people are willing to read and view online, and digital content is king. Many premier publications have been providing free access to some or all coronavirus coverage, meaning more views. Travel + Leisure found a savvy (and digital) way to boost its audience numbers. For example, its article about famous museums offering virtual tours generated more than 4 million views. And when it comes to streaming, we predict that those companies with more extensive inventory of content will have a better chance of gaining market share.

Trendwatching

At 3Pillar Global, where we develop digital products for clients in the media and entertainment industries (among others), we have seen firsthand how the transition to digital media and advertising has accelerated rapidly. Americans streamed 85% more video in March 2020 than in March 2019. Newsletter open rates are up, especially in arts, entertainment and fashion. We’ve been told by major publishers that they are seeing significant increases in subscriptions.

Media companies looking to survive the revenue losses of Covid-19 have a unique opportunity to leverage increased traffic to their digital content into lucrative relationships post pandemic. Here are four suggestions for media companies navigating a course forward in the current climate: 

1. Demonstrate brand trustworthiness. 

Brands like Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, and the Atlantic – which have dropped their paywalls for some coverage – have actually seen spikes in subscriptions. The key is to make sure that content is accurate, concise and thoughtful, in order to preserve brand quality and make a lasting positive impression.

However, surging traffic can cause problems with performance and page load time. Consider easing the deployment of new code to prevent embarrassing outages. For example, Zoom delayed all new features to focus on performance and security amid their privacy controversy. 

2. Understand and serve the unique needs of your new subscribers.

Media companies have a unique opportunity to drive subscriptions from those who have shied away from paying before. But in order to maximize opportunity, make sure you’re collecting the right data. Understand who these new customers are and what they’re looking for. 

With these insights, companies can create subscription models that offer a customizable experience. These might include micropayments for customers who can’t afford a subscription, or short-term subscriptions lasting a few months at a time. Topic-specific subscriptions may attract some new subscribers looking for particular information, and there may be opportunities to partner with other companies, à la ClassPass’s studio partnerships, to attract subscribers looking for variety. Creating value to solve for different needs can keep new customers from unsubscribing.

3. Expand targeted advertising efforts. 

Collect insights from your audience data and target your digital advertising efforts. Be creative in your advertising and your digital products. The New media platform Quibi used social media advertising to target millennial customers, and the platform had 1.7 million downloads in its first week. 

4. Develop virtual events with customer needs top of mind. 

Demand for virtual events is skyrocketing. Financial Times reported that “investors are betting that once people try the digital alternative, many will not want to go back to airless conference centers…” The direct losses from tech events alone have surpassed $1 billion. Even after lockdown eases up, companies will have lower budgets for events and travel, making virtual events more necessary. 

Virtual events have the potential to earn more revenue than in-person events, if done well. They have no physical space limitations, allowing more people to participate; top speakers may be more likely to participate virtually than in person; and you can offer in-conference purchases and products only available to participants. Companies like Bevy, Grip, and Bizly have already been thinking creatively about how to equip people and organizations to reach greater numbers, online. 

The key to virtual events is understanding customer needs. Some people, for example, don’t go to events for the content or speakers. Rather, they go to network, or for the status of being part of marquee events. A virtual event might not serve these audiences. So, if you still opt for virtual, you will have to get creative in status-boosting offerings. 

Conversely, there are customers who wouldn’t have made the cut for an in-person event that you can now serve. For example, TED was highly exclusive. So, the creation of TEDx made it possible to spread more ideas by increasing reach without damaging the brand. Access management platform Okta held a multi-day virtual tech conference that generated thousands more sales leads than its Las Vegas conference; 15,000 people watched the keynote, versus the 6,000 who would have been in attendance in person.  

Advertising revenue may be down, but companies do have many opportunities to build strong digital revenue channels. An investment in digital products now is a long-term, not a short-term investment. But its impact will far outlast the current crisis. 

About the author

Jessica Hall is the vice president of product strategy and design at 3Pillar Global.

Advertising | Innovation | Revenue

How to build the house of addressable TV

Houses are built differently across the globe, designed to local customs and to suit individual owners. But the basic structural elements are the same. Every house needs a foundation, a floor, walls and a roof. The same is true of addressable TV. It requires four essential building blocks, ideally assembled by the people with the knowledge and toolkit to create a sustainable structure.     

By making linear TV addressable, advertisers can enjoy the best of both the TV and digital worlds. They can combine the reach and high engagement levels of TV with the in-depth insights and targeting capabilities of digital. This enables them to deliver a relevant and engaging experience tailored to individual households. A five-year Sky Media study reveals the impact and resonance of addressable, finding it boosts TV ad engagement by more than a third and cuts channel switching by half.

But as these two worlds come together – the complex world of digital and the long-established world of TV – there will inevitably be challenges and complications to overcome. These challenges aren’t just technical, in fact ongoing technological innovation is continually making addressable inventory quicker and simpler to buy. Building the house of addressable TV requires something more sophisticated than a technical solution, it requires the following four building blocks, each with a theme of unification.      

Block one: Unified ecosystem

Collaboration across the entire ecosystem is vital to provide a sustainable structure for addressable TV. And everyone has their individual part to play. Broadcasters are the keepers of the user experience and the holders of the premium content brands are advertising around, while operators are the ones with the customer data to create and empower relevant targeting. Broadcasters and operators are already working together and getting ready for addressable. In the UK, for instance, Sky and Channel 4 formed a partnership last year enabling Channel 4 to use Sky’s AdSmart technology to deliver fully-targeted, addressable ads across its linear channels.

But broadcasters and operators on their own aren’t enough. Tech partners are crucial, from data management partners and measurement providers to ad servers. No amount of endpoints will bring the sophistication needed in ad decisioning without the right technology to underpin the process. To build a solid structure for addressable all parties must commit to relevant partnerships and share knowledge, rather than prioritizing competitive advantage.

Measurement is undoubtedly a big challenge when it comes to the broader adoption of addressable solutions by the TV networks. Addressable impressions are allocated from TV’s overall audience and additional value derived from selling an addressable campaign is linked to the ability to “adjust” the underlying linear rating.

To solve this, third-party measurement firms will be needed to build fair methodology for addressable endpoints. They will also need the operators and technology firms that enable these ad insertions to provide them access to addressable ad impressions.

Block two: Unified view

The second building block in the house of addressable TV is a unified audience view. Addressable allows transactions to cross the border between linear and digital with ease. Ultimately advertisers won’t buy linear or digital inventory, they’ll just buy great TV content across a single, converged and integrated platform. And it doesn’t stop at TV; insight across TV, mobile, and all connected devices will help advertisers gain a more granular and strategic understanding when reaching audiences. 

This sounds like an idyllic situation, with a single view meaning unified audiences and easier decision-making that will improve campaign performance and simplify everyday processes. But changing the model in this way is a big shift for the entire industry, and agencies, advertisers, broadcasters and operators each need time to prepare for this currency change. The industry will need to establish standardized values for touchpoints across digital and TV, meaning that everyone needs to be onboard to make a unified view successful.

Block three: Unified reach

The next component of a successful addressable TV framework is unified reach. Targeting linear TV audiences today is well-refined guesswork, but with addressable there is no need to guess anymore, and probabilities become a thing of the past. Data-led decisioning ensures ads are delivered to the right audiences while they are watching the TV screen, regardless of programming or time of day. Addressable will become a powerful complement to the existing mass distribution approach of linear TV, as it can be delivered alongside traditional ads within the multiple slots of each commercial break.

Advertisers who do embrace addressable should apply caution around over targeting. Just because brands know who they’re advertising to doesn’t mean they should target that individual with the same ad over and over again. Advertisers must be shrewd with addressability. They need to go beyond a generic message with nationwide appeal but avoid the over targeting trap digital display occasionally falls into. Brands should use unified reach with creativity, becoming storytellers to their audiences.        

Block four: Unified reporting

Last but not least, the house of addressable TV needs unified reporting. From broadcasters and operators to agencies and advertisers, all parties need to be saying the same thing and singing from the same song sheet. The other building blocks are less effective if the ecosystem doesn’t report in a standardised and transparent format. 

Reporting has been one of the biggest successes of linear TV. Ratings provide a gold standard that everyone understands, so addressable advertising needs to embrace that standard, marrying the qualities of linear and digital and the granularity of data from both worlds. There will inevitably be debate around collection methods but the most important thing is everyone reports in the same way. Standardised, transparent post-campaign reporting for each audience segment will help to drive adoption of addressable.

Addressable TV advertising has many benefits. But making it work for everyone – regardless of the design of their house – requires more than just a technical solution. By putting in place the four vital building blocks of unified ecosystem, unified view, unified reach and unified reporting, the industry can embrace the best of linear and digital, and assemble a strong, sustainable structure for addressable TV.     

Advertising | Featured Post | Policy

The Google antitrust ship has set its course

When DCN created our original chart, where we coined the term “duopoly,” it marked the first wave of what would become five years of interest and activity, marked by intense journalistic investigation – which heats up as antitrust scrutiny does. The line of inquiry often starts with challenging whether anything is new or different. While some industry pundits like to posit that they’ve already “seen this show,” this time around the players are wiser and the stakes are even higher.

In the seven years since the Obama-era FTC issued its decision not to take action against the cool kid in their class, Google, the company has managed to triple its U.S. ad revenues (source: GOOG SEC filings) in line with the overall U.S. digital ad market (source: IAB/PwC Internet Advertising Reports). Put differently, Google has maintained its market share, which is hovering at around 50%.

How on earth has Google maintained share during the same period in which Facebook has grown from virtually nonexistent to the other half of the two-headed duopoly monster? Answer: Pilfering the open web by establishing a walled garden to shift revenues from everyone else to Google’s own properties.

Tired arguments

Yet a small handful of academics, analysts, and influencers (who often fly too close to the sun) continue to rehash the tired arguments that were widely shared back in 2013. They start by broadly painting any scrutiny of Google as a combination of the jealousy of dying legacy media and protectionism by Europe. Often, they claim that news media is manufacturing outrage with an “axe to grind” rather than rightly doing its job of holding the powerful accountable.

They misleadingly suggest that Google makes no revenue from Google News while turning a blind eye to the billions in value they collect from harvesting news content. Much of the value of search would disappear without news content for consumers to find. And when these pundits finally get down to pragmatic analysis, they point out the “gift of web traffic” publishers receive from Google’s free search engine, as if the web, and publishers, couldn’t exist without Google’s pixie dust.

The new wave

However, what these arguments miss is that the voices and minds leading the case in 2020 have evolved their understanding of tech and the marketplace. There is a significant and growing body of consistent research and investigation around the globe about Google’s anticompetitive action from savvy digital thinkers in academia, think tanks, state and federal regulator offices. Say what you want about the various Congressional hearings these days, but they undoubtedly make the committees, public, press, and thought leaders wiser on the topic

Reading long investigative competition reports may not be your cup of tea, particularly during a global pandemic. So, I’ll summarize what DCN is focusing on, what the latest research shows, and what is most important to the health of our members’ businesses.

The latest research

Two key investigative reports have been released: The Australian Competition & Consumer Commissioner (ACCC) July 2019 Final Report and the U.K.’s Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) Dec 2019 Interim Report. If you can only read one, read the latter (and don’t miss Appendix E). The U.K. investigation launched well before those in the U.S. and it offers a solid look into how Google and Facebook are being examined.

I was also delighted to see a Yale professor, Dr. Fiona Scott Morton and co-author David Dinielli, publish “A Roadmap for a Digital Advertising Monopolization Case Against Google” earlier this week. They lean heavily on the U.K. CMA report and did a masterful job of translating hefty regulator documents into a readable form that anyone who has followed our industry will understand. They assert that any eventual court case will demonstrate how Google’s established monopoly in the search business was subsequently leveraged for market power in the design, growth, and capture of value through its intermediation of ads across the open web.

Inside Google’s walled garden

It is important to understand that approximately 90% of Google’s revenue growth (3x over the last seven years) was captured on its own properties (search, Gmail, YouTube, etc.). This led to a shift of Google’s source of revenue to increase from a total of 74% to 84% from their own properties, where their costs to acquire traffic approaches zero. Not coincidentally Google was, all the while, cementing a dominant position in the buying, selling, serving, and measuring of all ads across the open web.

This shift in revenue growth towards areas where Google keeps the most revenue has only been possible because of Google’s market power and ability to see large amounts of data throughout the consumer and advertiser journey, in its own so-called “walled garden.” This allows them to optimize the customer experience in a way that will inevitably keep consumers and advertisers driving the most profit to Google.

Revealing revenue research

Just a few weeks ago, the U.K. advertiser group ISBA published a transparency report. For the first time, the report laid out empirically just how much revenue was captured by intermediaries. Google was, of course, the most substantial player on all sides of the market. (Though there was a curious mystery 15% that the researchers couldn’t lock down.) At this point, it’s beyond hypocrisy each time Google preaches “transparency” but refuses to report both gross and net revenue for its advertising services.

Based on various investigations, Scott Morton and Dinielli expose how Google has achieved this dominance. They examine how Google collects 40% of the revenues across the open web, limits the use of data, and steers consumers to its Google-owned properties with its own higher-margin ads. Google does so while appropriating publishers’ data and audiences for its own gain on its own properties and elsewhere on the web.

Anticompetitive conduct

Morton and Dinielli clearly lay out 20 examples of Google’s potential anticompetitive conduct. Many of them tie to previously published concerns and research from DCN. All will require further investigation and subpoena power – but I’m sure we can agree that they pass the sniff test.

  1. Acquiring Independent Companies To Cement Its Role Across the Ad Stack
  2. Leveraging Market Power in General Search into Display
  3. Designing Auctions That Facilitate Arbitrage and Rent Seeking
  4. Cross-Subsidizing Competitive Functions of the Ad Tech Stack with Monopolized Functions In Order to Rise Rivals’ Costs and Foreclose
  5. Deceptive Gathering and Integration of Data
  6. Strategic Disabling of Interoperability To Disadvantage Rivals
  7. Withholding Interoperability to Steer Demand and Supply Through Its Own Exchange
  8. Providing Exclusive Programmatic Access to YouTube Though Google’s DSP
  9. Retiring the Third-Party Cookie
  10. Disadvantaging Rival Exchanges by Google’s Publisher Ad Server
  11. Undermining Header Bidding Through the Development of So-Called “Open Bidding”
  12. Undermining Header Bidding Through Exclusionary Features of AMP
  13. Designing Analytics to Steer Market Participants to Google Products and Prevent Entry
  14. Resisting Transparency at All Levels of Ad Tech Stack
  15. Obscuring Fees So That Competitors Cannot Enter and Compete Effectively
  16. Using Privacy Laws as an Excuse to Hide Performance Data
  17. Thwarting Publisher Efforts to Understand Source of Payments
  18. Designing Attribution to Favor Search and Disadvantage Publishers
  19. Raising Rivals’ Costs and Foreclosure of Existing and Potential Horizontal Competitors
  20. Capturing Publisher Data in Order to Monetize Their Audiences

Antitrust investigations

Finally, we should still ask whether Google’s lobby and power somehow afford it unique protection in the U.S. market. Only time will tell. But we expect Congress’ antitrust investigation to issue a report in the next 90 days.

Nearly 50 state attorneys general, who previously announced their inquiries, are expected to move forward along with the (not easily intimidated) Department of Justice. Both have broad subpoena power as well as the U.K. and Australian reports to inform their deliberations. Providing further confidence thus far is that the Texas Attorney General office is leading the states’ investigation. They provided Google with an extensive list of nearly 130 questions focused mainly on Google’s advertising business. (Note: DCN received this “CID” through a public records request). It certainly looks like they want answers to Morton and Dinielli’s claims.

The internet has evolved, and it continues to do so. While many of the arguments media pundits and academics may have made a few years ago seemed plausible at the time, that time has passed. It is clear that serious research and reflection is being done that will inform any discussions around the duopoly, antitrust in the advertising ecosystem, and restoring the value exchange between premium content and the “virtual pipes” of technology that control and make money off its flow.

Advertising | Perspectives

Identity crisis: Why Google and Facebook dominate digital advertising

Last year, Google and Facebook accounted for over 60% of all U.S. digital advertising spending, and 33% of all U.S. advertising spending.

It is tempting to simply assume that Google and Facebook’s outsized share of advertising revenues reflect the popularity of their services with consumers. In fact, consumer attention falls short as an explanation for the advertising success of these services.

For example, research by Comscore found that consumers spent 34% of their online time with Google and Facebook properties. However, these services captured 63% of all U.K. digital ad spending. Google and Facebook received almost double the ad spending their consumer attention warranted.  Mary Meeker has found the same anomaly.

Sherlock Holmes famously said “the art of disguise is knowing how to hide an object in plain sight.” The often-overlooked reason for Google and Facebook’s rise to dominance of digital advertising reflects this principle. To experience the great majority of the benefits of Google and Facebook, users must, with few exceptions, log in. Hidden in plain site is the often unrecognized value of identity knowledge.

Because users must log in, Google and Facebook know, with near perfect certainty, the identities of their users. The net result is these services can offer advertisers targeted ads, to reach specific individuals, with near-perfect accuracy.

Free services create valuable knowledge

In addition, Google and Facebook collect a wealth of information about their visitors, as a by-product of the services they offer free of charge. This data enables these services to offer advertisers, of all sizes, the opportunity to target look-alikes. By comparing a list of current customers, these services help companies to grow by identifying individuals who “look like” their current customers, with respect to key attributes, and accurately deliver targeted ads to these look-alikes.

The industry often refers to Google and Facebook as “Walled Gardens,” because they operate their own advertising eco-systems, without the aid of third parties. In fact, a better description is “Moated Gardens.” The “price of admission,” to cross the moat and enjoy the botanical wonders free-of-charge, is a visitor’s identity.

Google and Facebook’s 1:1 accuracy in identifying visitors stands in stark contrast with the identity knowledge of most publishers. How many publishers can claim to know the verified identities of 50% or even 30% of their visitors?

Identity disorder

To enable publishers to compete with the Moated Gardens, a sprawling ad tech industry has developed. Phrases such as identity graphs, third-party cookies, plus probabilistic and deterministic determinations all reflect activities that help web publishers estimate the identity of website visitors, without visitor logins. Unfortunately, these sprawling efforts at estimating the identities of visitors are an ineffective means of competing with services that offer verified identities.

First, an internal study by Pubmatic found that a typical advertiser was willing to pay a 261% CPM premium for a verified identity, as opposed to an anonymous identity, while a cookie-based derived identity realized a far lower 90% CPM premium. Second, studies find that the error rate associated with the delivery of ads, based on third-party cookies, is shockingly high. For example, one study found that cookies-based ad campaigns, on average, overstated the reach to targeted individuals by 200%, and understated frequency by 66%. Cookie-based targeting led advertisers to mistakenly believe their ads were delivered to triple number of actual, individual ad recipients.

Today, publishers are understandably focused on the immediate challenges to ad revenues created by the pandemic. However, over the next 19 months, many web publishers will confront yet another challenge to their revenues.

Post-cookie identity

Cookie-derived estimates of identities are far less valuable than verified identities.  Nonetheless, third-party cookies do enable publishers to realize CPM’s that, on average, are 90% to 108% higher than the prices derived from otherwise anonymous users. By 2022, publishers will lose these vital, higher CPM revenues as Google follows Apple to eliminate third party cookies.

BritePool (and others) are building identity solutions that enable web publishers to effectively compete with Google and Facebook, and achieve the high CPM’s associated with verified users. Strategies and solutions that will bring web publishers competitive advantages versus the Moated Gardens, are also hiding in plan site.

Yet, there seems to be an impractical assumption in the offices of most web publishers. There’s a notion that there is adequate time to address the disappearance of cookies.

In fact, this notion of time is an illusion. To take advantage of emerging identity solutions, web publishers must focus on developing user logins. This will allow them to gain both identity knowledge and the associated high-CPM advertising. Moreover, the testing, development, and successful implementation of these initiatives will necessarily span lengthy periods of time. There is no quick fix.

When Google announced it planned to eliminate third-party cookies, we put a countdown clock in our office, and our publisher website. Theses clocks continue to tick away, and the available time for effective publisher action is quickly evaporating.

About the author

David J. Moore is the CEO of BritePool. Prior to founding BritePool, Moore was Chairman of Xaxis and global President of WPP Digital. Earlier, Moore was the founder of 24/7 Real Media, which he sold to WPP. He has also served as Chairman of the Board of the IAB and Chairman of the IAB Tech Lab.

Advertising | Perspectives

Why brand suitability is important for publishers and advertisers

The unprecedented events of 2020 have thrust brand safety into the spotlight yet again. As the digital advertising industry grapples with uncertainty, publishers and advertisers must wrestle with the challenges of a news cycle that’s dominated by a single, risky topic.

Web traffic is surging. However, news and media sites have been unable to turn those record levels of engagement into ad revenue. In part, this is because advertisers don’t have the tools in place to confidently navigate through the challenging content ecosystem.

Among other things, increased uncertainty has led to a growing chorus of advertisers questioning the limitations of traditional brand safety approaches, like keyword blacklists. They are also asking what else can be done to assure brands that their ads won’t appear in unsafe environments. 

The answer to such questions may lie in the evolution of brand safety from a one-size-fits-all content ban into a more nuanced approach focused on brand suitability. “Brand safety” has dominated the conversation in digital advertising circles for years. However, “brand suitability” is nascent—having only recently entered the vernacular. 

Brand safe, but risky business

Brand safety focuses on marketers’ need to prevent their ads from appearing alongside problematic or inappropriate content. Historically, it used a heavy-handed approach to block ads from appearing near content using certain terms. This was based on keyword blocking and URL blacklisting. What has become increasingly apparent is that those old-school tactics don’t offer the flexibility of customization and control that modern marketers need to safely advertise in today’s programmatic market. 

Brand safety roared into public view in 2017. With numerous high-profile incidents involving ads from major brands, marketers everywhere quickly understood the impact of lax brand safety strategies on brand equity. The enormous risk and ensuing cost—both in revenue and brand image—was finally appreciated across the supply chain. From that point on, brand safety became a common discussion among marketers and publishers.

But things have progressed significantly since then. And the pitfalls of blocking specific keywords and whole URLs are glaring. The main problem with blacklisting based on exact matching keywords is that it misses one vital ingredient—context. Context is critical when defining suitable inventory versus isolating damaging content. Without context, the full meaning of the page is determined by a single word. However, that word could have various definitions and interpretations based on the broader story that’s written.

Context matters

Consider the word “shot” as an example. An advertiser’s first reaction might be to block any content mentioning it due to the word’s association with firearms or injury. However, “shot” is also a word used in the context of healthcare (flu shot), sports (jump shot or chip shot), technology (moon shot), and photography (camera shot).

The same is true for “dead”—a word blacklist providers say is often the number one blocked term by advertisers. It might seem like an obvious choice for a blacklist. But blocking content associated with the word “dead” eliminates inventory associated with the hit TV show The Walking Dead, and popular movies such as Deadpool. Beyond that, pages featuring similar words like “dead heat”, “dead-pan”, “dead tired”, “dead lift”, and “dead zone” would also be blocked. This removes vast inventory (and potentially valuable placements) from the advertiser’s bid.

Words without context are a clumsy and ineffective filter to use for determining brand appropriate inventory. That’s why traditional brand safety tactics are largely ineffective.

The shift to brand suitability

Brand suitability is the logical evolution of brand safety. Where traditional brand safety tools rely on cookie-cutter approaches to avoid unsafe or inappropriate content, brand suitability is more nuanced. Brand suitability identifies the advertising environments that will help digital campaigns drive outcomes for the business and uses individual brand profiles, market research insights, and strategic positioning to find and target specific environments for advertising.  

Publishers have played—and will continue to play—a monumental role in the shift from brand safety to brand suitability, due to the simple fact that they are disproportionately affected by the use of blacklisting and keyword blocking. These outdated tactics can limit audiences and scale for advertisers. And they rarely offer the robust protection modern brands need, so the impact can be severe.

The impact on publishers

Broad blacklisting and keyword blocking mean publishers cannot monetize their inventory in its entirety. Incorrect categorizations and over-blocking often mean that relevant and high-value impressions are lost along with the associated revenue. Compounding the effect of this is the fact that publishers are already operating in a cluttered, hyper-competitive online environment. Even if only a small percentage of content is blocked or incorrectly categorized as unsafe and removed from the bid, it can have a devastating effect.

The implications can extend far beyond missed revenue opportunities for individual publishers. Over-blocking and blacklisting can leave a lasting impact on the broader media and publishing industry. Advertising dollars being funneled away from reputable news and content sources also open up the door for content farms, low-quality journalism, and intellectual property theft, as fringe publishers try to game the system.

A better way

Advertisers want their messages seen by receptive audiences who have a positive contextual association. And along the way, their work can help fund reputable news organizations and publishers. It’s doubtful that any advertisers’ goal is to inadvertently penalize media organizations for covering current events and providing essential content to their audiences. While there will always be high-risk content that’s not appropriate for all advertisers, a blanket, keyword-centric approach is not the answer. 

Brand suitability can help bridge that divide. It provides rigorous context-based protections for advertisers from appearing near unsafe, illegal, or inappropriate content. It also green lights significant inventory that is safe and suitable for most advertisers. Shifting to a brand suitability approach enables advertisers to confidently navigate the online news cycle. And, importantly, it helps publishers fully monetize their inventory, so the health of the advertising, news, and media industries is maintained well into the future.

Advertising | Perspectives

How marketers and publishers can collaborate for success

In the current environment, the brand safety and suitability tactics used by advertisers are prompting debate within the industry. Many marketers, themselves impacted, are adjusting their strategies, halting or reducing investment, and tightening their risk tolerance. The result has caused a ripple effect across the publishing industry that underscores the vital role that advertisers play in supporting a free and independent press. Our society is dependent on high quality, factually sourced journalism. And the outlets producing this information are essential to keeping our public both safe and informed. 

Advertisers, concerned about appearing adjacent to COVID-19 content, may resort to highly restrictive brand safety practices. Publishers, in turn, are concerned about the balance between editorial integrity and the bottom line.  Here’s how both sides can align:

Communication 

Publishers should seek a direct dialogue with their agency and advertiser partners. It is imperative that lines of communication are open. It is also important that buyers clearly establish and convey their brand’s suitability strategies and concerns. Mutual understanding of a brand’s perspective will open up opportunities for buyers to leverage the unique combination of content and audience engagement that only a premium publisher can provide.  

Education 

Education and communication are first and foremost right now. We’re in a climate of misunderstanding when it comes to the strategies that brands and agencies are employing.  Fundamental knowledge of the varying technologies, how they’re applied, and most importantly, how that aligns with the content where advertisers want their ads to appear is paramount. 

For example, keyword blocking has been a part of the brand safety narrative for years. And It has been thrust into the spotlight amid the current crisis. Industry professionals now wonder about the impact of overblocking on impression volumes. And there’s understandable concern about how this type of approach can affect publishers. 

Keyword blocking has value if used in careful moderation. However, it’s important to remind advertisers that the practice is just one piece of the puzzle. Advertisers should frequently revisit and scrub keyword lists to ensure that scale is not restricted by an ever-increasing list of outdated terms. Another valuable reminder for advertisers: use whitelists. In the same way that keyword lists should be frequently assessed, whitelists should be actively employed and reviewed to make sure that trusted sites are included. 

Content categories are a great way to ensure that advertisers aren’t approaching brand suitability binarily. Instead, they must evaluate topics for appropriateness with different levels of tolerance. Finally, the increasing use of cognitive semantic technologies will also benefit publishers. By enabling marketers to only advertise in contexts that align positively with their brand values and allowing for greater flexibility, this technology opens up valuable opportunities to connect with consumers that might otherwise have been lost due to standard blocking practices 

Technology

Verification technology is a powerful tool and has come a long way in the last decade. With solutions now leveraging machine learning and contextual, semantic technology, marketers can now elevate brand suitability strategies to reach consumers in thoughtful, appropriate ways without alienating publisher partners. 

The shift toward cognitive semantic technologies, specifically, paired with increasingly sophisticated machine learning models provides marketers with greater flexibility. This allows for more nuanced, nimble approaches to address brand suitability. Contextual targeting works by taking a deeper look at the content on a given page and assessing its suitability based on the topics covered, whether the tone is negative or positive, and which emotions are conveyed. Evolving verification technologies help marketers protect their brands from unsuitable content. They also grant them the flexibility to reach consumers in the right places without limiting scale and negatively impacting publishers.  

Collaboration 

In times of uncertainty, it’s common to see marketers react reflexively and conservatively, with rapid adjustments in strategy. Although this approach is understandable, it bears potential side effects for publishers who see unexpected decreases in advertising. Technological advancements only help when publishers and advertisers bridge the gap and collaborate. 

Recent initiatives, such as the 4A’s APB Brand Suitability Working Group for Trusted News Environments, have marked an effort by industry members to take further steps toward collaboration in hopes of aligning all players toward common goals. Anyone can understand that marketers want to avoid content that’s unsuitable for their brand values. But working together is necessary to underscore the importance of premium news and a free press.   

Advertising | Industry-Research

ISBA’s new research challenges the programmatic supply chain

The promise of programmatic advertising has always been its ability to target the right audiences, in the right context, at the right time. Buy and sell side participants look to maximize advertising opportunities, at the best possible price, leveraging technology to efficiently and smartly manage decision making in a dynamic environment. Unfortunately, the truth is far from the promise. Today’s programmatic ecosystem is far from delivering on trust, transparency, and efficiency across the digital marketplace.

A groundbreaking new report from ISBA, the British advertiser group, Programmatic Supply Chain Transparency Study, offers an end-to-end analysis of the programmatic supply chain that uncovers many of the reasons programmatic is failing to deliver on its promise. ISBA, in partnership with UK publisher organization AOP, commissioned PwC to conduct this two-year-long study that outlines the deep complexities of the ecosystem and the revenue impacts on advertisers and publishers.

The findings overwhelming speak to the complexity and the need to reform the programmatic advertising supply chain.

Complex ecosystem generates tracking chaos

The study set out to track every impression. However, only 12% (31 million) of the total 267 million impressions were effectively identified through the supply chain.

In total, there were more than 1,000 distinct supply chains detected across the 15 advertisers. The 31 million tracked impressions were matched end-to-end across 290 supply chains to the 12 publishers. The multitude of supply chain combinations adds opaque layers and complexity to the programmatic marketplace.

Publishers receive only 51% of all advertising spend

The waterfall of advertising spend shows 34% of all ad dollars goes to agency fees, DSP and SSP fees, and tech fees. Unattributable costs account for 15%.

The 15% unknown delta – nearly one-third of the supply chain costs – represents winning bids in the DSPs that could not be matched to any gross revenue recorded in the SSPs. There are many possibilities for the unknown delta, such as DSP or SSP fees that aren’t visible to post-auction, bid shading or post-auction financing arrangements, foreign exchange rates or reseller participation. However, no data provided mapped to the 15% delta

The study included 15 advertisers, 12 agencies, five DSPs, six SSPs and 12 publishers and represents approximately £0.1 billion of the UK’s programmatic ad spend or nearly two-thirds of the AOP’s digital ad revenues.

The ISBA research demonstrates a clear need to reboot. The starting zone needs to include contractual reviews, standardization of taxonomies, definitions and data protocols with an overarching focus on transparency across the board for all participants. Further, if the digital marketplace is to thrive, the industry must find ways to drive a higher percentage of advertising spend to publishers.

Advertising | Perspectives | Revenue

Catch me if you can: Malvertising thrives in high-volume, low-CPM environment

It’s scary out there. Next quarter’s 34% projected contraction for the U.S. economy doesn’t bode well for our industry. The effects of scrutinized marketing budgets and throttled—if not eliminated—advertising spend are already rippling throughout the digital advertising ecosystem. While engagement is on the rise (great), publishers are hindered from capitalizing on this boon due not only to brand safety concerns but also a surge in malvertising and scam ads. Clearly, getting a handle on these bad ads and isolating the serving partner is critical to future growth.

Bad ads threaten publisher recovery

The unfortunate byproduct of today’s troubled economy is the downside pressure exerted on ad spend, which depresses CPMs, effectively lowering the barrier to entry for bad actors. The reality of the situation is apparent; the average number of incidents in a 24-hour period actively managed by The Media Trust’s 24×7 Digital Security & Operations team is up an average 22% month-over-month (April vs. March)—even more alarming when viewed year-over-year, with volumes 35% greater than usual (April ’20 vs ’19).

The composition of the malware threats is also changing. The rapid increase in personal data scams erodes the long-standing dominance of fake installs and uploads.Covid-19 or coronavirus-related scams drive the category. In parallel, while still a relatively small percentage, brand fraud/hijack ads are something to track especially when put into the context of a significantly larger malvertising environment.

Malvertisers are taking advantage of the current environment to steal user data and propagate misinformation around products and services by making it difficult to discern legitimate advertisements from scams. Increased sensitivity to keyword blocking further challenges publishers and their approach to legitimate advertising campaigns. It’s important to remember that an advertiser’s opportunistic campaign, or poor creative, doesn’t mean it’s a scam.

Which are the scams? *

Which poses the question: What is a scam ad?

Slippery slope between a scam and malware

Scam ads contain creative and/or domains that purposefully attempt to mislead and/or extort consumers for financial gain. Criteria for evaluating a scam could be subjective. However, experience provides guidance for activity that could potentially harm publisher reputations and revenue. (For these reasons, our malware taxonomy includes a scam/fraud type).

That said, there is a high correlation between coronavirus-related ad campaigns and scams. In fact, analysis of thousands of these campaigns confirms that approximately 60% of these sketchy campaigns do contain scam content. (Don’t worry, these overt scans are reported to federal authorities to supplement their investigations.) However, it’s a nuanced challenge that requires a thoughtful approach by Ad/Rev Ops teams.

Scam or no scam: Is that the question?

Various initiatives aim to shut down fraudsters—especially in the US and UK. But with thousands of ads and associated domains cropping up on a weekly basis, the scope is large. And, we continue to see abnormally high amounts of web-based attacks. Coronavirus-related ads run the gamut from normal medical equipment supplies to outright predatory shams.

The challenge is simultaneously removing the subjectivity from the process so publishers can serve brand-appropriate content and keep their revenue channels open, at scale. And, flexibility must exist as one’s poorly-designed creative is another’s prohibited bad ad.

To assess your approach to scam ads you need to:

  1. Determine the acceptable, foundational experience (UX) for your audience
  2. Review the percentage of Coronavirus ads trafficking through your environment
  3. Calculate revenue impacts for both campaign termination versus limited/restricted runs
  4. Develop policy and communicate to upstream partners. Policy should cover threshold for Coronavirus ads, examples in increasing restriction:
    1. Allowed, no special treatment
    2. Allowed-bounded, block scams
    3. Limited, only allow ads from designated partners
    4. Restricted, no coronavirus or COVID-19 referenced ads
  5. Monitor and enforce policy compliance via ad quality and security tools
  6. Identify poorly performing vendors and remove from your ecosystem

Knowing your partners makes it easier to catch, isolate and stop bad actors from taking advantage of your users. With an eye to maintaining a positive user experience, premium publishers will block campaigns classified as scam/fraud. Disabling the ability to defraud consumers is a critical step to building a healthier—and more rewarding—digital ecosystem.

In the immortal words of Frank Abagnale, Jr. “Stop chasing me!”. But, like Detective Carl Hanratty, we can’t stop: “It’s my job.”

*(Answer: 1 & 4)
Advertising | Perspectives

Now is the time for publishers to take back control

The forces that were already turning the publishing world upside down have been accelerated by the ongoing global pandemic. And publishers have been busy battening down the hatches as best they can. However, as the conversation shifts from sheltering in place to returning to some form of “normal,” publishers have a unique opportunity to shape the “normal” to which they’ll return on the other side of this crisis. 

Right now, as business-as-usual operations take a temporary pause due to the lockdown, repercussions reverberate across many industries. This offers publishers an unprecedented chance to roll up their sleeves and reset their course within the media landscape. Publishers know the direction they need to head. They’ve just lacked the break in the daily grind (and quarterly revenue expectations) to implement the course correction that they know is necessary for long-term sustainability. A pause in “business as usual” was sorely needed. 

Now is the time. This opportunity may not come again. Let’s look at how publishers can use this “pause” to take back control of their own destinies. They can use their collective power to transform the ad tech and media landscape for the future. 

Game changing

There’s no winning a direct battle against the triopoly. But publishers can still flourish in an ad world dominated by Google, Facebook, and Amazon. They simply cannot do it on their own. And they can’t do it by continuing down the same path they’ve been on. Banners and programmatic media represent the (same) game being played by the major platforms, only publishers are not as good at it. It’s time to play a different game, and at a scale that truly matters. It’s time for publishers to unite around the engagement and influence that define their value to consumers.   

When it comes to industry-wide collaboration, consider it a form of “herd immunity.” Coming out on the other side of the pandemic, publishers need to start working together to influence the media and ad tech landscape. It’s time to act as one and take some of the control back that has been willingly relinquished over the years. To do this, they need to focus on four key areas that they must influence in order to change the landscape: technology, data, inventory, and KPIs.

Cooperation and collective action

A healthy media business is characterized by healthy competition. But let’s face it: Covid-19 has the industry reeling. So, now we must re-evaluate what is best for our companies, and for the industry as a whole. We have an opportunity to reimagine the consortium mindset for a new era. We can look at DCN’s own TRUSTX as an example. By collectively providing premium inventory at scale, we create a technology backbone we can build upon.

Publishers don’t need to split their attention to become tech companies in their own right. They shouldn’t try to recreate Facebook or beat the existing walled gardens at hyper-targeting users with direct response ads. Publisher power lies in engagement and influence — changing minds and informing with trust and credibility. To capitalize on that power, they must work with partners that are incentivized to act in the publishers’ best interests and don’t work against these traits. 

They need partners that can help them unite to achieve a level of differentiation that has impact at a scale that matters. A big part of that is seeking out technology that can improve the speed, experiences, and ad quality on their sites. Lest publishers forget, ads are part of their content, and the quality of their ad experiences reflects on their brands.

Take control of your data

With a collaborative foundation to support them, it’s time for publishers to get their data back in order. Much as the Covid-19 pandemic offers the pause publishers need to hit the reset button, we’re also at a unique once-in-a-decade crossroads that will allow publishers to push back on the external data sources that have undercut their opportunities for the past decade. 

The world has been awash in third-party audience data for years now. And the providers of that data have been capturing a large part of the media value chain, diminishing the importance of the supply itself and publisher context. However, with the shift to cookieless environments and rise in privacy regulations, many of the tactics of these third-party data vendors have been rendered unsustainable. And this, in turn, opens up new opportunities for open web publishers to reclaim that value for themselves.

The problem is that many publishers are going down the same path of either fragmented homegrown solutions that will not matter in the long run or outsourcing everything to a new vendor. No matter how much more publisher-friendly those new data vendors are than the last ones, this individual outsourcing puts publishers at risk of losing their influence again down the road. Working together changes this. Publishers can aggregate their influence to serve the needs of the industry versus only those of the most demanding publishers.

Take control of your inventory

If publishers can come together to bring collective scale to their advertising opportunities, they’ll also be able to accomplish another much-desired initiative to increase sustainability: They can pull their inventory out of exchanges. It’s no secret that the backdoor access these exchanges have to publishers’ premium inventory is undercutting the value of their inventory. Programmatic success by third parties works against publishers’ interests. But of course, simply pulling your inventory from these third parties is not enough. Buyers do want ease and accessibility, which is why cooperation is key. Publishers must give them a way to buy that’s easy and exclusive.  

Take control of your KPIs

Should publishers really be judged on how well they get users to click off their sites?  If you’re looking to drive conversions, hit an audience or drive low-cost clicks, throw in the towel now.  Publishers will never beat a Facebook on user data, an Amazon on capturing commerce intent or Google on capturing search intent — never. Pardon the bluntness, but trying to beat the giants at their own game is like choosing to be the team that plays against the Harlem Globe Trotters. Don’t play a game you can’t win. 

Publishers are great at driving engagement, influence, and deeper thought across a smaller, more selective audience. The ad experience and the KPIs around them should reflect that. As powerful as the large platforms are, they are still largely built on direct response. Digital branding and mid-funnel influence is still nascent and a game that publishers are better equipped to play and win. 

Covid-19’s derailment of the daily business treadmill offers a unique opportunity for publishers to hit the soft reset button on their current paths and unite for a more sustainable future. If they seize this chance, they have the opportunity to wield far greater control over the post-pandemic world into which they emerge. They simply need the courage to not go back to “normal.”

The time is right. Let’s move.

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