Header bidding has been top of mind for premium publishers over the past year. Many publishers have adopted the marketing strategy and are seeing significant revenue gains, but due to a lack of education in the market, multiple publishers are unsure if it is right for their business, or they are implementing header bidding without the right expectations.
PubMatic has released new white paper titles, “Lessons Learned in Header Bidding,” that explores how publishers can experience success with header bidding—to drive advertising sales—and what role technology partners play in the pre- and post- implementation phases. We see header bidding as a key part in the ad decisioning evolution paving the way for new innovations, such as wrapper tags (see more in Lesson 6).
Here the five lessons learned, along with a bonus lesson in wrapper solutions.
Understand if Header Bidding is Right for You: Take a quick questionnaire to see if header bidding makes sense for your organization.
Heed Expectations and Understand the Potential Pitfalls: Before jumping into header bidding, learn about possible challenges that might arise and how to address those challenges.
Set Both Short- and Long-Term Expectations in Header Bidding: Learn about typical short- and long-term goals in header bidding and define what success means to your organization.
Define Who is in Charge and of What: Learn about the roles and responsibilities needed to effectively implement header bidding, on both the publisher and technology partner side.
Test, Test… and Then Test Again: Learn how to optimize header bidding setups to achieve success. In header bidding, testing is everything.
Prepare for Wrapper Solutions in 2016: Thinking about what’s next, all publishers (even those without header bidding) should understand what wrapper tag solutions mean to the digital advertising industry.
Quality over quantity is key to preserving the native greenfield opportunity
This year’s Industry Preview highlighted how far “in-feed monetization” has strayed from its “native advertising” origins, and the risks this practice poses to publishers. To the non-discerning eye, these two tactics might seem similar, either because they spawn from the same ad placement, or because in-feed providers exploit subtle nuances within the native advertising category.
Whatever the reason, publishers under pressure to make revenue goals must understand the differences and the long-term consequences of short-term compromises. By embracing and diligently applying a “quality over quantity” approach to what they permit into their editorial feed, publishers will safely navigate through an increasingly volatile digital ecosystem and watchful regulatory environment.
Defining and scaling native advertising versus in-feed monetization
Native Advertising: When marketers use publisher storytelling tools to promote and distribute custom brand content the same way site owners publish editorial. In this vein, native advertising is custom brand content promoted in-feed via “native ad units” and consumed on-site via integrated “content landing pages”. The New York Times supports this definition and further clarifies its perspective on true native here.
In-Feed Monetization: When publishers use native ad units to serve “better looking” banners and rich media experiences, or even memes and animated GIFs. In-feed ads use native slots to unexpectedly punt users off of the publisher site on click or rollover, open a new browser window, launch a lightbox ad over the site, autoplay a brand video or any other [Insert creative here]opportunity. IAB Deep Dive on In-Feed Ad Units covers a lot of these.
Scaling native advertising is about aggregating high quality brand content via the direct sales channel and trusted third party demand providers, and using the native canvas in the way it was always intended. As such, and like other hyper premium products, 100% fill is not a realistic expectation and, given today’s native market, is not possible without introducing severely damaging trade-offs.
In contrast, scaling in-feed monetization chases a wholly different definition of scale: achieve 100% fill by cramming in-feed inventory placements with as much paid ad demand as can be sourced. This is a recklessly aggressive monetization tactic that will pollute, and ultimately devalue and destroy the native opportunity for publishers and marketers. Continued in-feed CTR erosion for publishers, and consistently high bounce rates for marketers are clear evidence to this fact.
Considering today’s digital ecosystem and regulatory environment, plus the steep downside to mismanagement, it does not behoove publishers to favor the short-term, incremental revenue of in-feed-monetization without acknowledging the long-term costs.
Consumer experience, ad blocking and the economics of annoying your users
Digital publishers are in the midst of repairing a very broken relationship with consumers. You know things are bad when the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) issues an apology for a decade of forgetting the user, and allowing the business side to steamroll and create an unusable experience for online content consumers.
With consumers actively ignoring online ads since 2007, and global ad blocker adoption approaching 200MM monthly active users in June 2015, users are clearly exercising control over their online experience as a result of frustration. The importance of reinforcing user trust has never been more critical for media companies, content owners and ad providers. We can’t ignore the numbers, nor can we continue to degrade the digital experience.
Operators tempted by the promise of short-term in-feed revenue should consider this 2014 survey that reveals consumers distrust mismatched ad formats in the feed as much as they distrust banners, and the knock on effect erodes trust in surrounding editorial, or this Microsoft study that concludes user dropout and site abandonment resulting from annoying ads ends up costing publishers more money than they earn. The study urges publishers to consider the more subtle and long-term effects that annoying ads have on user retention and revenue. This sentiment is even more critical when it comes to content, the last piece of real estate on which consumers actually place value and willingly give their attention.
The Federal Trade Commission and risk of deceptive ads
The FTC doesn’t issue a policy statement and business guide without the full intention of enforcing it. No less than 3 months later we’ve seen our first perp walk, a settlement that could end up costing Lord & Taylor $800k (not to mention the damage that deceptive practices do to consumer trust). Safe to say unrestrained in-feed monetization practices easily qualify as a fast follower. So, before publishers contemplate the dangers of OpenRTB and programmatic native monetization, they first have to understand which types of in-feed ads expose them to risk and increase the likelihood of potential government scrutiny.
Quality over quantity as the way forward
Native advertising is a bright light of hope. It brings a return to solution selling for publishers, and unlocks a massively effectively brand storytelling solution for digital marketers. When properly administered, native allows publishers and marketers to authentically tap into the scarce reserve of consumer attention, which in turn drives amazing effectiveness and upholds premium pricing and packaging flexibility. Native is proven to uplift the entire digital ad portfolio and preserve long-term monetization integrity, rewarding marketers with superior engagement and meaningful consumer connection.
It’s imperative that publishers exercise patience as the supply of high quality native demand grows. They must withstand short-term revenue temptation from in-feed opportunities whose ad experience exports consumer trust with every click, exposes publishers to dangerous business risk and legal implication, and hacks away at the foundation of their entire digital business—the editorial feed. The solution is clear: publishers must adopt a quality over quantity strategy to protect authenticity and receptiveness to engage in the feed, preserve the user experience and reinforce trust. In doing so, they safeguard native’s greenfield opportunity and in large part their future.
Chris Rooke is Senior Vice President of Strategy and Operations at Nativo, a native advertising platform for brand advertisers and publishers. A 20 year digital media and ad technology veteran and thought leader, Chris has led significant innovations in digital marketing, consumer engagement, and publisher monetization. Prior to Nativo, Chris served as SVP Global Business Development at true[X], where he built and led teams responsible for programmatic and platform sales, publisher development, demand sales, and client services. And, before his tenure at true[X], Chris served as senior executive at CBS.
Programmatic ad buying behavior more than doubled over the last two years despite major ad fraud and transparency concerns. The ANA (Association of National Advertisers) and Forrester just released the results of a new study reporting of a new study reporting an increase in programmatic ad buying habits among marketers from 34% in 2014 to 79% in 2016. This research was conducted last month among 128 ANA members.
Two-thirds (66%) of marketers reported “I understand it (programmatic) and use it to execute campaigns” compared to 23% in 2014. Nearly all marketers reported programmatic buying of display advertising and eight in 10 (84%) reported purchasing programmatic video advertising.
Marketers identified key benefits of programmatic ad buying as:
Better targeting (90% rating),
Real-time optimization (76%),
Managing buys across multiple channels (66%)
Reach consumers at multiple points along the purchase path; decreased cost of media (62%, each)
Ability to personalize ads to individual consumers (60%)
Reach more consumers by buying ads in more channel (56%)
Dynamic ad placement (49%)
Access to a broader set of media options (48%)
Faster executions of media buys (43%)
Ability to buy ad directly from media companies, without an agency (24%)
Still markets cite there three top concerns in programmatic ad buying as the higher bot fraud in programmatic buys (69%), the lack of transparency to the costs within the programmatic supply change (64%) and the potential for buying traffic with low viewability (63%).
The research confirms the industries rapid adoption of programmatic buying habits. With the reported complexity of programmatic amid critical concerns, 31% of marketers stated that they expanded their in-house capabilities to manage programmatic ad buying. It appears marketers are looking to new opportunities to fully analyze the digital supply chain from request to execution.
Custom content studios are not new, but they sure are hot! In March we found out that New York Magazine is building out its own content studio. In February, Grantland founder Bill Simmons announced he is getting into the branded content game, as did The Irish Times. It’s safe to say that “branded content” is no longer a bad word (or phrase, as the case may be) in media circles. That being said, not every publisher has the know-how to start up their own content studio.
In May, my book Inside Content Marketing, will hit the shelves. Like many other books on the subject it will take a look at what it takes to be a great content marketer—from strategy to measurement—but one thing defiantly sets it apart. The book is not just for marketers. Inside Content Marketing also takes a look at content marketing from the perspective of publishers who are now in competition with their former advertisers.
Here are five insights from Inside Content Marketing that should inspire publishers of all sizes to get into the custom content creation business:
Too many publishers are still missing out on sponsored content revenue.
“In 2014, Digital Content Next found that 73% of its members currently offered native advertising solutions to advertisers. Yet, the Cxense “Extraordinary Insight” survey found that just 20% of respondents were running native ads. Clearly there’s a big gap between the premium brands that make up the DCN membership (think ESPN and NBC Universal) and the rest of the media world—and that’s a crying shame.
Brands still need you.
Publishers have what most brands do not: Reach. The typical brand does not have an audience to rival the average publisher. In 2015, Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute, predicted that brands were willing to start paying to promote their content. The time is right to start targeting advertisers interested in running sponsored content on your site.
Your audience is ready for sponsored content.
“The gist: As long as you’re honest and transparent with your audience they will actually appreciate your native advertising endeavors. Would you rather have a banner pop up every time you go to a site, one of those annoying ads that suddenly starts playing a video extolling the benefits of Product X, or a well-crafted piece of content that reels you in with its quality? If the last option sounds preferable to you, it probably sounds best to your audience as well.”
You already have all the tools you need.
You have writers, an audience, and a distribution network. Most importantly, you have editorial expertise that many brands still don’t have. Now all you have to do is put a price on all that you bring to the custom content table.
Sponsored content created by publishers performs better than content created by brands.
“A study by Chartbeat and The New York Times found ‘that most Paid Post content produced by T Brand Studio during the research period proved to be significantly more engaging than the content supplied by third parties.’ In other words, research confirms that content created by The Times’ staff out-performed content provided by brands.”
Of course there’s more to launching a custom content studio—like establishing guidelines and editorial boundaries, all of which Inside Content Marketing delves deeper into—but these five insights should inspire you to start thinking more seriously about offering your content creation expertise to brands.
By day, I am the editor of EContent, where I cover the world of digital media and marketing. By night I am a reader and writer of books, NPR addict, and avid gardener. Find out more at TheresaCramer.com or @Cramerstrasse on Twitter.
It’s no secret that investment in TV advertising is declining, with brands allocating more dollars to digital ad spend. This represents a huge opportunity for digital media. Marketers are looking to re-allocate ad spend, set a cross-platform strategy, and re-purpose video content online.
Linear TV ad spending is projected at $66 billion in 2016 – but $1.5 billion already shifted from TV to digital in 2015. While this amounts to less than 3% of the total $66B spend, this is still a huge amount in absolute dollars. This is not a new trend by any means, but one that continues to build momentum. Importantly, most of the beneficiaries are relative newcomers to video (think YouTube).
Here are some factors that are leading to this shift:
Changing media consumption habits: Consumers are increasingly spending time online, away from their television set. And even those watching video online are not watching in the same way. For example, instead of tuning in to linear TV, audiences are watching some of the most popular shows in one sitting (thanks to streaming services like Netflix and Hulu) or skipping traditional shows entirely, making a good business for alternatives like Twitch.
Appealing video content online. There are many examples of success in video, but YouTube stands above all. After only 10 years in business, YouTube is now believed to earn more than $7 billion in annual revenue. Despite some criticism of its “less-professional” content, YouTube is every bit a competitor to broadcast TV.
Here at MediaRadar we’ve recently added TV ad intelligence into our platform. We took a close look at the data to understand the opportunities outside of traditional TV and video streaming sites.
Here are three discoveries:
Online video advertising on DCN member company sites has low overlap with linear TV. There were 3,025 advertisers placing TV spots in Q4 of 2015 on national broadcast and cable networks. Of the 3,025 brands however, just 209 also placed on DCN member websites in this same period. This demonstrates a big opportunity to upsell and convert traditional TV advertisers to digital platforms.
Top ad categories in TV have low overlap with online. The top five product categories advertised for DCN members are Retail, Professional Services, Home Furnishings, Apparel, and Financial. Of those top five, however, only two overlap with TV’s top five: Retail and Professional Service. Making inroads with traditional TV advertisers will mean forging stronger relationships in product categories less associated with web advertising.
TV advertisers do buy across media platforms. Of the national TV advertisers, 50% are buying cross-platform for online video already. This is not to minimize the very different silos that TV, print, and digital are purchased by. But on the other hand, some of the biggest, highest-margin, deals are done across media formats, including even print.
As TV advertisers continue to rethink their strategy, digital media should consider doing the same. Specifically pursue advertisers who are open to shifting away from TV. Upsell existing customers who already buy with you, but not online video. Target early adopters who have already started the shift from TV to online video. Finally, find the product categories that are spending on TV, but not with you, and show them the value of partnering with online video.
Todd Krizelman is Co-Founder and CEO of MediaRadar (@MediaRadar). Growing up near the epicenter of technological innovation in Palo Alto, California encouraged him to become an entrepreneur and co-found of one of the world’s first social media sites, theGlobe.com. Krizelman also held leadership positions at Bertelsmann’s Gruner + Jahr and Random House. With his expertise in ad sales and innovation, Krizelman joined veteran web architect, Jesse Keller, to found MediaRadar in 2007.
Snapchat has gone from being a strange ephemeral video platform for teens to send sexy shots, to a walled garden of content where publishers and brands can reach millions with short-form content. With a user base of 100 million, and video views in the billions, it’s no wonder that Snapchat’s ad business is growing as fast as the company itself. But can Snapchat become a transformative platform for mobile advertising, as Facebook has, or is it just a flash in the pan?
For companies and brands looking to reach a young mobile audience, Snapchat offers a lot: The majority of its users are under the age of 25, it’s slated to improve ad targeting, and it is rumored to be testing longer-form sponsored videos for media channels on its Discover platform. It’s also possibly building its own application programming interface (API) and has recently partnered with Viacom. But these speculations of advertising growth come after the company has long been criticized for unstable pricing on advertising, failing to provide data critical to targeting users, and no guarantee on the ad viewership.
Launching an API? One major indicator that it might have staying power is that Snapchat is reportedly building its own API which would help automate the targeting and delivery of ads to specific users. Snapchat has yet to comment on these endeavors, but an API could also address key concerns among marketers, including ad targeting, tracking visitor browsing and searches outside of the app (which would help it collect data on its users). Better tracking could help publishers and brands figure out how many people are actually watching their ads.
In building its own API, Snapchat is following in the footsteps of platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter — companies that have matured as major ad players in the digital marketplace. An API would also allow for more kinds of ads on Snapchat, including those that include a “call to action” for consumers, such as downloading a new app. This is especially important given that Snapchat has previously been selling ads the so-called “old-fashioned way” — by working directly with brands and agencies. But an API, with its ability to execute effective campaigns and automate different orders, would help measure how successful these advertisements actually are.
The API would also help Snapchat grow out of a closed mindset. “The first thing an API does is allows them to create a partnered ecosystem that is technology driven,” Sean O’Neal, president of the online service platform Adaptly, told Digiday. “There’s only so much that a company is going to be able to develop themselves as it relates to their own native ad solutions.”
Viacom partnership Not only that, but Snapchat and Viacom have also recently struck an advertising deal that allows Viacom to sell ads on Snapchat’s original content. With its mobile video capabilities, Snapchat, after all, is an ideal destination for television and entertainment companies, while Viacom has more experience with larger brands that might not know Snapchat well. The deal wouldn’t just help an aging company like Viacom reach the coveted millennial audience. “Snapchat executives have repeatedly talked up their desire to pull in TV ad dollars, seeing themselves as the video epicenter of smartphones,” the LA Times reports.
However, despite the hype surrounding the potential for advertising on Snapchat, publishers would be right to remain wary as the company sorts out its goals, philosophy and practices. Part of the reason why Snapchat didn’t emerge as a major advertising player to begin with is that its sales team was small, and by some accounts, too old to understand how its digitally native audience would respond to ads on the platform. The fact that it’s most popular among a younger demographic was also a concern for some brands, who feel their core older audiences are more concentrated on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter anyway. And those companies, unlike Snapchat, offer much more data on their users than Snapchat does, which would make it easier to guarantee a return on investment.
Part of the problem is that ad pricing has been erratic on Snapchat. When Snapchat first offered advertising in January 2015, it asked brands to pay at least $750,000 for a one-day ad, according to CNBC. Prices have now dropped far below that threshold, with some saying ads could be had for $50,000 and even others getting ads for free because Snapchat liked the idea. It’s hard for marketers to jump in, when they might figure prices might drop in the near future.
While some folks contend that Snapchat is having its “Facebook moment,” with popular Discover content and attention to ads, it would be wise to proceed with caution until a potential API and more mature ad pricing takes hold.
Marketers are focusing on a newly valued audience segment know as ad blockers. Consumers using ad blocking software tend to be more tech savvy and in the millennial age range. According to a new report published by the International News Media Association (INMA), this premium audience segment offers a new opportunity for advertisers to engage with consumers who care and interact with valued advertisements.
PageFair, which sells services to measure ad blocking and offers alternative non-intrusive advertising to consumers, contributed to the INMA report, “What to do about ad blocking?” PageFair has also estimated that the total lost revenue from ad blocking grew approximately from $5.8 billion in 2014 to $10.7 in 2015.
The INMA report recommends specific strategies for publishers to avoid:
Do not use undeveloped anti-ad blocking technology like domain rotation.
Do not rely on native advertising since this can also be blocked.
Do not depend on advertising partnerships with walled gardens like Facebook or Apple News.
Do not refuse to show content to ad blockers.
Importantly publishers need to respond to ad blockers. This is the time to talk to ad blockers, the time to try new ad formats and the time to discover what specifications need to be included in advertising 2.0.
The radio industry grew its digital ad revenue 11.4% last year, to $550.8 million, and is poised to grow even faster this year, according to a comprehensive study conducted by Borrell Associates on behalf of the Radio Advertising Bureau. The Benchmarking: Local Radio Stations’ Online Revenues report showed that the average market cluster made $951,756 in digital sales last year, with the average station making $231,210. With forecast growth of 14%, the report states that digital advertising will account for 6.5% of station revenue by the end of 2016, a full point above what it was in 2015.
For some, the opportunity goes beyond banner ads and spots in the audio stream. Nearly half of the stations are now selling digital services — mostly Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and website design.
This 4th annual Borrell-RAB benchmarking report documents digital revenue, market share, sources of revenue, methods of billing, and attitudes toward digital ventures. The research studied digital revenue for 2,704 stations and surveyed 250 managers on their attitudes toward digital ventures. It documents digital revenues, market share, sources of revenue, methods of billing, and opinions on station strategies.
Among some of the findings:
One-third of stations surveyed believe their sales reps are talking to the wrong buyers when trying to sell digital products. Three years ago, two-thirds believed that was the case.
Only 16% believe that radio sales suffer because reps are forced to sell digital advertising. That’s down significantly since 2014, when more than half felt that way.
Conversely, 24% believe that digital sales suffer because reps focus on radio advertising. Three years ago, twice as many felt that way.
The average radio cluster received 0.26% of all locally spent Internet advertising. There were some, however, achieving 15 times that – up to nearly 4%.
In kicking off the 2016 Digital Content Next members-only Summit, CEO Jason Kint set the tone for a year marked by customer-driven innovation and a trust-based digital content industry.
“I believe that our brands at DCN are in the best position to shape what is next for digital media. Why? What’s unique about our brands? Well, as you know: We are all content companies. To be a member of DCN, you have to be in the business of creating digital content. Importantly—very importantly—we’re also not tied to one specific revenue stream. We’re not just advertising. We have the ability to adapt, to evolve over time, to test out new models and flow with digital media…”
Watch Kint’s opening remarks from this private, members-only event held February 1-3, 2016 at the Mandarin Oriental in Miami Florida:
Ad blocking has forced the publishing industry to rethink its reliance on advertising, and several digital publishers have incorporated ecommerce and affiliate links as a way to diversify their revenue streams. Now, those same ecommerce links, previously considered immune to ad blockers, are the “latest unlikely casualty of ad blocking,” according to a recent article from Digiday.
While Purch’s ecommerce or facilitated ecommerce links haven’t been tangibly impacted, ad blocking – and this particular type – is forcing all publishers to rethink monetization strategy and user experience.
The Digiday article quotes Sean Blanchfield, CEO of PageFair, a startup that sells anti-ad blocking tech to publishers as stating, “There are no privacy or usability implications to e-commerce attribution; it is a simple practice that helps websites get paid for honest recommendations of products….it causes unnecessary financial damage to thousands of independent websites.”
There is a valid point here. The impetus behind ad blocking was to prevent disruption and irrelevant noise on a page so the user could focus on the content. Yet, unlike most ads, ecommerce links are often directly correlated to the content provided on the page – and in the best cases enhance the user’s experience. Ad blockers have gone too far with targeting these ecommerce links, but this doesn’t mean digital publishers should panic. It means they should pivot – diversifying even further and providing additional value to users.
Increase loyalty by improving the user experience Publishers should concentrate on building the lifetime value of a user (the total future potential) by exploring other ways to provide a better experience to keep them coming back. Creating valuable and relevant services, tools and content that serves the overall relationship is what will ultimately sustain the industry. Publishers who take a longer view by focusing on increasing the number of loyal users instead of increasing the number of page views and maximizing the yield of every interaction will not only end up winning against ad blockers; they will end up winning over users.
Some publishers are doing this in the most simplistic way – creating a highly-engaged and loyal audience by providing real value through highly specialized content. Focusing less on scale and more on quality can engage users for the long-term, while staying true to the sentiment behind “content is king.”
Another way to increase the lifetime value of a user is to design a loyalty program that recognizes and rewards the most engaged, frequent and long-term users, who often drive a large percentage of overall revenue. Some of the more experimental publishers may even offer an ad-free or ad-reduced experience to their most loyal users – or as an incentive to share their email address. This could persuade users to turn off ad blockers, especially as they become increasingly non-discriminative in discerning what’s true content and what’s not.
Engineer an ecosystem of services to regain control of audience interactions With ad blockers ultimately dictating how a user experiences a publisher’s site, we’re likely to see the industry test new ways to regain control of how their audiences are interacting with content. Publishers specializing in travel have also excelled at this. TripAdvisor, Kayak and Bookings.com offer reviews and advice to aid their users during the research phase and when the consumer is ready, they can book everything they need, all within the confines of a single site and in a way that is untouchable to ad blockers. This model is not only diverse, but also encourages loyalty by providing a truly “sticky” service to users.
Not all of this has to be built organically. Resourceful publishers will also look for complimentary technologies or services and integrate those with their sites – or their mobile apps. Mobile apps are also a great way to re-claim control over the user experience and how ecommerce links and ads are integrated. The best part? Ad blocking apps that block ads within mobile apps have been rejected by app stores which means publishers are likely to retain control of their mobile experiences for the foreseeable future.
The future of digital publishing Our peer group – the digital influencers coming up today – are likely to redefine the industry, and probably won’t even see ourselves as just “publishers” in the years to come as focus shifts to revenue augmentation through services and alternate models.
Unfortunately, it seems likely that 2016 will be an arms race between ad blockers and blockers of ad blockers. There will be no clear winner with one clear loser: the user. Users lose as ad blockers continue to take away the very control that attracted them to their tools in the first place. The important thing is to keep our focus on the customer relationship and move toward a future where a better user experience trumps short-term monetary gains.
Phil Barrett is a Digital Marketing and eCommerce Executive with experience managing cross-channel programs where he has helped companies and brands use technology and new media to drive measurable results across the marketing mix. He currently serves as Senior Vice President & GM at Purch, where he leads the Marketing & Shopper Services teams.
With audiences widely dispersed among mobile and social apps – and, soon, virtual reality and augmented reality experiences– publishers who want to thrive must both follow consumers where they want to go and meet them on their own terms.
These were a couple of the themes that emerged from the wide-ranging conversations at Digital Content Next’s annual members-only Summit 2016 in Miami. DCN members met to explore content and business models given that consumption patterns are constantly changing, many consumers are actively avoiding advertising, and digital intermediaries are extracting much of the value out of the publishing economy. Speakers and attendees talked about changing their relationship with programmatic ad marketplaces, seeking alternative sources of revenue from subscriptions and memberships, and aggressively pursuing revenue diversification.
In his opening remarks, DCN CEO Jason Kint noted that although the Interactive Advertising Bureau recently celebrated the milestone of $50 billion in revenue generated by online advertising, more than 50% of the revenue currently goes to two companies: Google and Facebook, with premium publishers collectively garnering about 15%.
“Most of the money doesn’t actually get into your pocket to pay for the professional content, the entertainment and journalism you all do,” Kint said. DCN’s mission is “to make sure the next $50 billion is different.”
Premium publishers need to build on the trust and reputation they enjoy, rather than fighting with consumers over their use of ad blockers, Kint said, pointing out that a blockers are a symptom of consumer dissatisfaction. Smart publishers need to look at the opportunity “in the growth of this audience that is looking for content on new terms.”
“It’s a symptom of a bad user experience – users taking action on their own,” agreed Justen Fox, senior product manager for revenue products at Vox Media. Consumers are weary of pop-up and pop-under ads, not to mention advertising that contains malware. He finds that the use of ad blockers is higher with social and referral traffic, undermining audience acquisition, and said it’s also higher with returning visitors to Vox’s websites. If publishers and advertisers fail to clean up their act, the problem will keep getting worse, he said.
“Focusing on the user experience is actually the long-term solution,” Fox said. However, no publisher can do it alone because consumer impressions are formed by the experience they get across all media sites.
Sarah Frank, executive producer of Now This News, said that killing their website and forgetting about SEO is the best decision they ever made. It gave them the mandate to create content experiences optimized for different social channels so that consumers have a great experience wherever they find Now This content.
Marketers take action Meanwhile, marketers seeking to distinguish themselves from the bad actors in digital media are increasingly creating their own content to build positive customer relationships—with or without the help of publishers.
(L-R) Dave Peck, Global Head of Influencer & Social Media Marketing, PayPal; Katrina Craigwell, Director, Global Content & Programming, GE; Christopher G. Laughlin, Client Services Director, SapientNitro; and Laura Henderson, Global Head of Content & Media Monetization, Mondelez International
“We’re trying to figure out, how we stop interrupting the content and become the content,” said Laura Henderson, global head of content and media monetization at Mondelez International.
Her group has gone as far as to decide the content it creates ought to be good enough to make money on its own merits. One of the products from this division of Kraft Foods, the Oreo Twist, Lick, Dunk mobile game, made back 2.5 times the money spent to produce it, with about 5 billion virtual Oreo cookies dunked, Henderson said.
Like publishers, marketers “feel the pain of ad blocking, of our content being skipped, blocked, avoided at all costs – which means we need to figure out a new way,” she said.
Katrina Craigwell, director of global content and programming at GE, leads a team dedicated to connecting with lovers of science and technology on any medium or platform where they can be found. These content creators compare themselves less with their traditional industrial competitors than with media sites that create engaging tech content, be it the SyFy Channel or the people at NASA who produced the “7 Minutes of Terror” Mars lander video.
Asked if she had any use for publishers now that GE can publish its own content, Craigwell said she looks for partners who know how to tell a great story or can help the firm figure out an approach to emerging formats, such as virtual reality.
Building brand strength Many of the discussions of how publishers adapted concerned how they preserve their brand value while adapting to new business and content delivery models. The Onion Chief Operating Officer Kurt Mueller said that is something the satire site has had to be careful about with its experiments in native advertising: content is sponsored by advertisers but produced by the editorial staff.
The challenge is readers expect a certain attitude from Onion content, “and if we don’t give it to them, it comes off really badly for both us and the brand. You’re just creating ads if it’s not authentic to what you are,” Mueller said.
Laura Evans, VP of audience development and data science at Scripps Networks Interactive pointed out that data offers an excellent way to understand customer preferences, which can be leveraged to create better experiences. The goal, said Evans, is to “turn a visitor into a brand loyalist.”
As Membership Economy author, Robbie Kellman Baxter put it, “you need to love your customer more than your product” in order to create a positive relationship that will last a lifetime. And, as DCN CEO Kint pointed out in his opening remarks, “No business has succeeded, long term, without giving its customers a great experience.”
David F. Carr is a writer, editor, web consultant, and student of digital business. He is a Forbes contributor, a former InformationWeek Editor-at-Large, and the author of Social Collaboration for Dummies.
Industry leading stakeholders have set out to eradicate suspect impressions on a global level throughout the past year, and premium publishers and advertisers have begun to feel the impact of this industry shift to quality. Our Q4 2015 Quarterly Mobile Index (QMI) report, released today, shows that advertisers are directing ad spending towards higher-quality inventory with better targeting capabilities, especially through more transparent mobile private marketplaces (PMPs). As a result, premium publishers are garnering higher prices for their inventory and attracting more mobile ad spending.
This past holiday season, major brand advertisers looked to target mobile consumers with relevant advertising messages through mobile private marketplaces (PMP). This dynamic caused a 45 percent increase in weekly mobile PMP volume from the first week of the quarter through to the week of Black Friday. Looking ahead, the volume spikes in mobile PMP during Black Friday and Cyber Monday suggest similar rises in mobile ad prices and spending around this year’s landmark events, including the 2016 presidential election and major sporting events. Agencies looking to effectively execute on their advertiser clients’ strategic plans around major events should look to PMPs to buy timely, premium inventory, at scale.
The market opportunity in PMPs is significant, as eMarketer estimates that ad spending on PMPs in the U.S. will reach $3.65 billion this year, up from just $80 million in 2013. Globally, MAGNA GLOBAL projects that programmatic spending, which includes open auction, PMP and automated guaranteed, will rise to $37 billion by 2019.
PubMatic’s Q4 2015 Quarterly Mobile Index (QMI) report found five key trends that demonstrate mobile monetization growth:
Advertiser demand shifts towards higher-quality mobile PMP inventory to target mobile-obsessed holiday shoppers. Advertisers increasingly sought higher-quality mobile inventory to target holiday shoppers on mobile devices, as evidenced by mobile private marketplace volume spikes. Weekly mobile PMP monetized impression volume increased 45 percent from the start of the quarter through the week of Black Friday (Nov. 27).
By vertical, retail and technology spending drove PMP growth. Within mobile private marketplaces, the retail and technology verticals showed major volume gains ahead of Black Friday shopping, demonstrating that e-commerce and consumer technology sales likely drove ad spending. The increase in weekly PMP volume in retail and technology over that period was even higher, at 106% and 285%, respectively.
Opportunity for mobile growth remains strong on a global scale. The Americas and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) represented the largest opportunities in terms of volume, but the Asia Pacific (APAC) region was the fastest-growing mobile opportunity.
The Android app ad awakens. Android app ads increased the most in terms of both price and volume, while CPMS increased across all mobile platforms, including IOS app, mobile web and tablet web.
Mobile gap remains closed. Mobile CPMs are still higher than desktop CPMs, and both mobile and desktop CPMs grew a healthy 36% year-over-year.
Native Advertising: When marketers use publisher storytelling tools to promote and distribute custom brand content the same way site owners publish editorial. In this vein, native advertising is custom brand content promoted in-feed via “native ad units” and consumed on-site via integrated “content landing pages”. The New York Times supports this definition and further clarifies its perspective on true native 
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