Login
close
Login is restricted to DCN Publisher Members. If you are a DCN Member and don't have an account, register here.
Search

Digital Content Next logo

Menu

Category results for "Advertising"

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Four capabilities your data clean room should provide

Despite industry angst over the impending demise of the cookie, the fact is that third-party data was never that reliable to begin with. These two factors have made publishers sit up and think about their data strategy. 

Should they rely solely on first-party data? Or should they look to augment with second-party data? (Second-party data refers to another company’s first-party data from their own subscribers, app users, website visitors etc., but with personally identifying information removed.)

For those looking to enhance their first-party data by tapping into other sources, data clean rooms are proving an increasingly viable solution. In fact, over a third of publishers are more likely to use them than marketers (48% vs 37% respectively). 

What’s more, in an attempt to dispel confusion over them, IAB Tech Lab has announced plans to release its first Clean Room Standards by the end of 2022.  

But how can you tell which clean rooms provide the high-quality, privacy-compliant data you need to inform your most important ad ops or revenue decisions? How easy is it to invite your brand partners to collaborate? And can you actually activate your campaigns from within a data clean room?

Here are the main characteristics that you should look out for in a clean room:

1. End-to-end data management workflow

As anyone who uses any management software will know – from project management to data management or finance – there’s nothing more infuriating than having to log out of one system and into another to manage your workflow. 

Therefore, having an end-to-end workflow in one place is crucial for efficient operations. Opt for a solution that gives you complete control of your workflow and has easy integrations with your existing data automation software. 

2. Purpose-limited “rooms”

The whole idea of a clean room is to create a safe, secure, and purpose-limited environment for second-party data. What we mean by “purpose-limited” is that you only have access to the specific type of data you need, rather than a whole bunch of data that is likely irrelevant. For instance, you can open a clean room for targeting, or one for measurement, or perhaps attribution, and invite your trusted partners to access the (anonymized) data. In each case, the data gets specifically matched to your use case. 

This is in the consumer’s interest, as they know that their data will only ever be shared for the purposes for which they have given explicit consent (according to legislation such as GDPR or CCPA). However, it also means that, as a publisher, you only get the data you really need to make informed decisions.

3. Interoperability 

The problem with certain data clean rooms today is that all participants must subscribe to (i.e. be a customer of) that clean room. Naturally, this can limit opportunities to collaborate (or it requires unnecessary time/expense to set each party up as a fully-fledged customer of the data clean room). 

For instance, as a publisher, you will likely be looking to collaborate with your brand advertisers on projects such as creating ad campaigns for targeting, or creating analysis matches for forecasting purposes. But at the same time, you don’t need the hassle of persuading them all to become a customer in order to join your clean room.

Therefore, interoperability is an important feature of a clean room and you should look for a provider that has an open data infrastructure, allowing you to invite your brand partners to collaborate at will.

4. Activation

Gaining access to relevant data, and collaborating with your partners, is half the battle. But what happens when it comes to activating your data for campaigns? The ability to easily integrate with programmatic and other ad delivery systems – for instance GAM, The Trade Desk or DV360 – is just as important as getting access to the data in the first place. Without this activation functionality, you’ll need to build your own integrations, requiring huge engineering resources.

Therefore, you should look for a clean room provider that allows you to connect to these pre-integrated platforms, activate your campaigns, and start targeting your audience. These activities should all occur directly from the clean room, without actually moving your data. 

The best place to begin is with your own first-party data. But for many publishers, augmenting with second-party data can provide deeper insights into the target audience. As long as you partner with a data collaboration platform that includes interoperability and activation capabilities as standard, the process shouldn’t be as daunting as it might at first seem.

About the author

Navid Nassiri joined Switchboard as Head of Marketing in 2021. Switchboard’s data engineering automation platform aggregates disparate data at scale, reliably and in real-time, to make better business decisions. In his role at Switchboard, Navid is focused on driving growth and brand awareness through innovative marketing strategies. Navid is a seasoned entrepreneur and executive, including leadership roles at PwC and NBCUniversal.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight | Video

Ad-supported streaming offers opportunities for media brands

As the fight for attention and viewership intensifies, more media companies have diversified their strategies to include ad-supported models. This allows them to scale their advertising offerings and capabilities within the OTT streaming category.

What’s up with OTT?

OTT, short for “over-the-top”, refers to the streaming of media over the internet. According to a study by eMarketer, 1.88 billion people around the world will use sub OTT services like Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video. However, that same report also mentions that fewer than 50% of internet users worldwide are watching programs via OTT, which proves that there is much opportunity for growth in the category.

Historically, OTT and streaming companies primarily focused on subscription-based models. However, as subscriptions plateaued, ad-supported revenue models have gained traction and become more mainstream. This broadens the reach of streaming to the many consumers who are unwilling to subscribe to content, but still want to view it.

OTT’s impact on advertising trends

OTT streaming models are impacting advertising trends in several ways. First, given the proliferation of offerings, there is increasing competition for ad dollars. We are starting to see this competition now, particularly as ad spend and targeting costs increase across the market. 

As the market evolves, inventory quality is also quickly becoming a hot topic. From a pure supply basis, do providers have enough inventory to reach targeted audiences at scale? The irony of targeting is that as targeting specifications increase, addressable inventory starts to decrease.

Additionally, when it comes to scaling, it happens in two ways: one is through actual ad sales based on inventory and that inventory being sold directly by the OTT platform. The other way is though parent companies and alternate organizations selling premium inventory on behalf of the media or streaming platform. When this occurs, all that remains to be sold are the remnants, thus raising the question: what does one do with the remaining inventory? With this comes a deeper discussion of fragmentation of inventory and data, which will impact omnichannel planning and overall scalability for many teams. 

Advertisers are leaning into OTT streaming as a critical part of their digital media mix to extend their marketing reach and increase ROI. As competition for ad space elevates across streaming and OTT channels, we will see agile media brands continue to develop new, unique ad products that will be sought out by advertisers to bolster their omnichannel strategies.

Opportunities for OTT advertising success 

While all streaming media companies have their own content and audiences, not all can come up with new, innovative ways to appeal to advertisers. To succeed in an ever-evolving ad monetization market, media brands must develop new ways to package their content and reach audiences based on unique user data points like content consumption preferences, to avoid becoming commoditized.

Additionally, top OTT streaming companies are working to elevate their ad models to create non-intrusive and enhanced user experiences while also keeping their ability to scale advertising models and targeting capabilities, which helps ensure success for their advertisers. 

Advertisers that want to target niche audiences at scale, when and where they spend their time, will be looking to streaming and OTT companies to fulfill their needs. Ad-supported OTT streaming models are becoming increasingly more mainstream as consumers take advantage of the lower-priced option. This results in a larger user base, which in turn provides a better opportunity for advertisers to reach their target audiences at scale.  

Therefore, media executives need to remain agile and prepare to accommodate these shifting strategies of advertisers that will include an increased ad spend within the OTT streaming category. By implementing an ad-supported streaming model and developing new ways to reach segmented audiences and engaging content packaging, media companies will be able to do just this. And the result will be increased ad inventory and diversified revenue.

As OTT streaming media platforms enhance their capabilities with AI and automation of their workflows, their targeting and success rates will increase. This will make OTT the ideal platform for advertisers to leverage when expanding their omnichannel strategies. Ultimately OTT streaming ad-supported models present a prime opportunity for media brands to expand product offerings and diversify revenue through niche audience targeting, premiere ad space packages, and scalability for their advertisers.

Advertising | Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Industry-Research

LGBTQ+ representation impacts advertising

When brands connect to consumers through advertising content, it has an impact beyond selling products. Consumers are highly aware of what brands say, and what corporations do to support diversity, equity, and inclusion. Pragmatically, inclusive marketing makes sense, but how well is “purpose” integrated into the brand experience? A new report, LGBTQ+ and the future of CX from DISQO and Do the WeRQ, explores how people factor brand purpose into their purchase journey decisions.

DISQO and Do the WeRQ surveyed more than 9,000 people to explore the consumer experience with LGBTQ+ advertising content.

Marketplace

LGBTQ+ is the fastest-growing minority segment in the U.S., with an estimated $1.4 trillion in annual spending. The Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRC) used U.S. Census Bureau data to estimate that at least 20 million U.S. adults identify as LGBTQ+. That’s nearly 8% of the adult population. Additionally, about 21% of Generation Z in the U.S. identify as LGBTQ+.

Getting involved 

This research shows that nearly three-quarters (74%) of people believe brands should get involved in social issues like DE&I, racial equality, gender equality, and social economics. Brands involved in diverse communities are recognized by consumers. Approximately 37% of participants in this research recall seeing LGBTQ+ ads outside of content made specifically for the community. Forty-seven percent of participants recall seeing ads within LGBTQ+ content. Those identifying as LGBTQ+ are more likely to recall seeing ads in content made for them (57%) but are less likely to recall seeing them in mainstream content (33%).

Almost half of those surveyed (46%) agreed or strongly agreed that advertising is adequately inclusive. More than half (52%) said LGBTQ+ ads felt “authentic.” Notably, 64% of people identifying as LGBTQ+ agreed that ads depicting their community felt authentic. However, older consumers are less likely to say that more LGBTQ+ content should be created.

Consumers recognize that brands are influential, and many want to see them exercise this power in support of the LGBTQ+ community. Eight in ten (81%) participants identifying as LGBTQ+ said that brands have some or a lot of influence. Close to half report that brands are essential in bringing about LGBTQ+ progress.

When asked if they ever think about a company’s social and political activities when making a purchase decision, 85% said they did. Less than 15% of people said they never considered this when purchasing.

Generationally, those under 44 years of age are more likely to align a brand’s social influence with their wallets: 18-24 (58%), 25-34 (58%), and 35-44 (57%). Further, 22% of those under 24 said they “always” think about where a brand or company stands when making purchase decisions, 24% for 25-34 and 25% for 35-44. The percentages decline as age increases, with only 12% of people 65+ saying they have these considerations.

Targeting content to LGBTQ+ is growing; this year, fewer people report “not seeing” any LGBTQ+ advertising versus last year (7% versus 20%). The line of cultural margins is shifting, and representation across media platforms offers more racial equality, gender equality, and social economics. LGBTQ+ visibility goes far beyond shout-outs in June. More representation of LGBTQ+ in advertising shows consumers that you see and value them.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Holiday blues? 7 tips to boost affiliate and advertising revenue

We’re in the busiest — and traditionally, the most profitable — weeks of the year for retailers and publishers alike. And while we’ve seen plenty of unusual conditions over the past few years, the 2022 shopping season is creating a whole new set of challenges.

Publishers can typically rely on strategic diversification to broaden their earning opportunities and mitigate the effects of economic uncertainty.  However, the current market conditions are wreaking havoc on two of the most common income streams for publishers: programmatic advertising and affiliate marketing.

  • Advertising: Our research found year-over-year programmatic ad rates were down across the board in Q3 2022. In the US, CPMs were down 15%-20% versus 2021. The drop was even sharper in the UK, where the death of Queen Elizabeth in September prompted many brands to pause their ad campaigns.
  • Affiliate: During the same period, affiliate conversion rates in the U.S. were 25% lower than 2021 and a full 50% below 2020 levels. Earnings per click were similarly affected, as inflation continues to shrink consumer wallets.

7 tips to maximize revenue through year-end

Despite these challenging conditions, there’s still a wealth of opportunity for smart publishers this holiday season. After all, Deloitte is projecting a 4%-6% increase in holiday retail sales for 2022.

The keys to success this year? Start by understanding the current market conditions, then optimize your advertising and commerce efforts to help capture every revenue opportunity.

Here are seven tips to get you started:

1. Embrace the extended shopping season

Don’t bank on Black Friday alone to capture the best affiliate revenue opportunities. Nearly three quarters of consumers believe the best deals will come throughout November; Walmart’s month-long shopping event is a good example. Additionally, Adobe predicts discounts will continue through year-end — so keep your content fresh throughout the extended shopping season to bring your readers back again and again.

2. Leverage price floors in programmatic bidding

To maximize the value of your ad inventory, you need to optimize your pricing strategy. But first, you must understand the factors that buyers use to shape their bidding strategy — including ad attributes, page attributes, and user attributes. While each individual buyer will weigh these factors differently, knowing which variables they consider will help you set an appropriate price floor.

3. Focus on promotions

Discounts are expected to hit record highs in 2022 as retailers attempt to offload surplus inventory and attract consumer spending. With brands deliberately lowering prices and consumers looking for deals, you’ll likely find more affiliate success by offering popular products at reduced prices rather than specialty items or limited-edition merchandise.

4. Maintain high ad quality scores

Don’t dilute ad quality for the sake of increased frequency.Adding more ad units to the page or employing aggressive refresh practices will impact the rates you can earn, both short-term and long-term, as buyers will price down your inventory. Even worse, you could find your side blacklisted from future campaigns.

5. Test different commerce strategies

With constantly changing market conditions, it’s hard to predict what will resonate with readers this season. Experiment with different content strategies and be prepared to pivot quickly when you find something that works. Test a variety of content elements, including link placement, product photos, and content length. And give your audience convenient, flexible ways to shop — like shopping galleries and price comparisons — to make holiday buying as painless as possible.

6. Grow ad deal revenue

If you have existing relationships with ad buyers, leverage them to maximize revenue. Ask demand partners which audience segments, context, and inventory most appeal to them, and then package up deals to hit their objectives. If you don’t have direct buyer relationships, talk to your SSP partners. Make sure they add you to all applicable deals based on either their own measurement criteria or signals you can send from your site.

7. Keep up with ever-changing affiliate deals

This year, merchants will be pulling out all the stops to entice consumers to buy, so deals will change often during this critical time. Make sure you have up-to-date information on all the latest promotions, deals, and coupons to optimize your affiliate efforts this holiday season.

The takeaway

Whether your monetization strategy is focused on advertising, affiliate marketing, or some combination of tactics, the 2022 shopping season offers plenty of opportunities — if you know where to look. Stay nimble and keep on eye on the data to maximize your revenue opportunities. Here’s to a successful holiday season and a profitable New Year!

About the Author

Rebecca Cole is Vice President of Marketing for Sovrn, a publishing technology platform that provides advertising tools, technologies, and services for content creators to build their businesses, remain independent, and thrive on the Open Web. Rebecca has more than two decades of experience driving increased attention through purpose-driven content. She has held communications positions in tech, energy, and consumer brands and was a journalist and editor. Rebecca has an undergraduate degree from The University of Iowa and a master’s degree in journalism from The University of Colorado Boulder.

Advertising | Marketing | Perspectives | Revenue | Supporter Spotlight

How sponsored content can strengthen revenue in a downturn

Amid growing uncertainty about the economic environment, it is wise for publishers to consider how to thrive and strengthen their revenue during the potential downturn. With economic uncertainty ahead, it is vital to understand how brands look to invest in marketing during 2023 to build a portfolio of offerings that support these strategies.

The situation

Typically marketing budgets decrease during an economic downturn. However, based on research done by Deloitte earlier this year, marketing spend has grown substantially over the last year. And, despite uncertainty at present, some bright spots stand out.

In the same Deloitte study, marketers stated they plan to increase their spending on DEI initiatives by 10.8% on average. And Hubspot reports that 83% of marketers are investing in higher-quality content. They also report that 80% of marketers expect to maintain or grow their budget for various inbound marketing activities – including content marketing, SEO, social media, and more – to reach and influence consumers at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

This data shows us that publishers would be wise to strengthen their content offering. These can include native advertising, sponsored content and even contextual targeting, all of which are ideal to help brands deliver their stories across publisher channels to reach these audiences.

The consumer perspective

Even at a potential downturn, brands seek opportunities to attract, delight, and engage. Therefore, it is essential to consider the reader and consumer preferences to support these efforts. So we must ask ourselves: what do consumers prefer? Ultimately they want to focus on the content they are trying to consume. 

According to an eMarketer report, over 40% of American adults think online ads seem to be aggressively following them. And this has led consumers to take control of their digital experience, with close to 47% of internet users now using ad blockers because they think there are too many ads online, according to GlobalWebIndex. 

However, according to a survey by Time Inc, close to 90% of younger internet audiences from Gen Z, millennials, and Gen X say that they prefer custom content, including native ads online, instead of traditional ads. This is an opportunity. 

This data shows that consumers are actively seeking ways to improve their web browsing experience and limit the distractions from the content they are seeking. We believe this will lead advertisers to start looking for strategies that do not distract from the reader experience to reach these consumers and improve campaign performance. 

A crisis of trust

Unfortunately, these days display ads just aren’t that effective: click-through rates are at just 0.05% across all platforms. This decline started years ago, and it is because consumers have lost trust in display; in fact, over 54% of users say that they don’t click banner ads due to a lack of trust.

Now, let’s look at social media. One reason that platforms like Facebook have come to dominate digital advertising is that they are able to provide advertising experiences that are seamlessly integrated into the consumers’ content. They offer opportunities for long-form editorial engagements, lower funnel activities like click-to-download, and short-form top-of-funnel branding executions, such as Instagram stories. 

But the reviews of social channels are not all bright either. Consumers increasingly distrust social platforms. According to Statista, 66% of consumers express concern about the accuracy of the content they see on social media. 

Even with this in mind, however, marketers are looking to invest more in short-form content. Hubspot found that 33% of B2C Marketers already invest in short-form content. While another 33% have yet to, but plan to do so for the first time in 2022.

What we see is that there is an appetite for this content. And, given growing distrust in social media, brands may be actively seeking ways to scale their efforts on the open web.

What do publishers offer to the industry? Trust

Publishers have built a robust ecosystem and relationship with their audiences. As we have said before, this trust can be utilized as a point of differentiation, especially when competing against programmatic offerings. When ad dollars are invested into more strategic initiatives, publishers must lean into the inherent trust they have built with their user base.

In a study by OpenX, 77% of people say they trust articles they see on open web websites more than those they read on social media channels. Pair this with the fact that 70% of consumers prefer to learn about new products and services through content rather than traditional advertising, publishers have the winning formula to provide high-value solutions to advertisers.

The winning formula

To thrive during any potential downturn, publishers need to create offerings that support the strategies brands are investing in for 2023. At the same time, they must maintain the inherent trust they have built with their audiences. To do that publishers must consider the following:

Privacy First 

Focus on solutions that don’t rely on third-party targeting. Rather than using invasive data practices, use content to attract, delight, and engage. This allows you to provide contextually relevant advertising solutions so brands meet their customers where they are in the purchasing journey.

Prioritize Premium 

Brands will look for unique ways to reach their customers, break through the noise, and remove the blindfolds of banner blindness. For digital publishers, that could mean leaning heavier on executions, such as sponsored content that allows brands to tell their stories, from new products to use cases and any DEI initiatives. Give brands the ability to scale their story beyond their audience and benefit from the trust publishers have built with their readers.

Integrate Short-form Content

As mentioned above, brands seek to invest in short-form content. To build a diverse revenue portfolio, publishers can offer solutions to run executions similar to Facebook and Instagram stories or TikTok’s short-form videos. This will allow advertisers to scale these strategies outside social channels within trusted environments.

With a downturn ahead, or not, aligning to meet brands where they are seeking to invest in 2023, will result in a win for publishers. Understand that content moves the needle for consumers. Advertising that places quality messages within trusted content will rise above the clutter. In particular, short form content offerings will allow publishers to integrate the social environment brands are seeking into the publisher site experience. 

Advertising | Industry-Research | Video

TV ads create stronger brand memories compared to other contexts

The age-old question of advertising effectiveness remains front and center in today’s media ecosystem. Given the breadth of content distribution options, how do different platforms such as streaming, mobile, and on-demand compare for building advertising engagement? Comcast Advertising partnered with MediaScience to investigate the impact of watching ads in a traditional TV environment compared to other video environments, like YouTube or Facebook feed on mobile devices.

The report, TV Makes Memories, uses three factors from academic research on memory influencers: attention, connection, and repetition. The research analyzes these three conditions to provide a framework for understanding how effectively TV and mobile environments influence brand memories. 

Methodology

MediaScience recruited 188 participants to view 30-second ads in TV and mobile environments. The TV environment consisted of live TV or a streaming environment with a typical ad load viewed on a large screen. The mobile environment consisted of participants watching short-form video clips on YouTube or in a Facebook feed with ads embedded on a mobile device.

The study exposed viewers to an even mix of well-known and unknown brands, and measures included:

  • Biometrics Eye Tracking to quantify the visual attention to the ads by tracking where viewers are looking on the screen. 
  • Cardiac Deceleration (slowing heart rate) to identify cognitive attention and links to memory formation.
  • Neurometric Intensity to gauge emotional response linked to improved memory formation.

Attention 

Overall, premium content viewed in a TV environment rated more favorably than short-form video and feed-based digital. Additionally, ads viewed in the TV environment had a greater unaided recall and purchase intent than ads shown in a mobile environment. Like this study, earlier Halo Effect research and The Benchmark Series show that ads in a premium environment significantly improve advertising effectiveness scores.

MediaScience’s analysis also showed that cognitive attention improves when participants view an ad in a TV environment preceding the same ad in a mobile environment (versus two digital ads).

Ads viewed in a TV environment receive more visual attention among full TV screen viewers (71%) versus those viewing digital mobile (30%). One reason suggested is that larger screen viewing may be subject to fewer distractions. Interestingly 36% of digital viewing participants never looked at the mobile ad compared to only 6% of TV viewers. 

Connection and repetition

Strong creative messaging is an essential component of memory building. The research found that participants viewing an ad in a TV environment preceding an advertisement in a digital mobile environment rate the creative message better than viewing ads exclusively in a digital environment. 

Ads viewed in a TV environment in their first exposure have 3.4 times better recall than ads viewed in a mobile environment. Addition exposures build upon the original memory and experiences the viewer has about a brand. Notably, while unaided recall increases with a second exposure for both TV and digital mobile, the TV environment viewing experience outperforms mobile. Viewers of one exposure on TV were 40% more likely to recall the brand versus two exposures on digital mobile.

This research offers new empirical data on ad performance in premium content environments, especially in a lean-back TV setting. With advanced media distribution expanding, marketers must know that not all video environments perform similarly. Importantly, ads viewed in a premium TV environment have greater unaided recall and purchase intent than ads in short-form, mobile environments like Facebook or YouTube.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

How publishers can take advantage of the holiday spending boom

Despite a looming recession, this holiday season looks bright for marketers and consumers alike. And there are definitely opportunities for publishers. A third of marketers plan to ramp up promotional efforts between now and December. On the consumer side, forecasts point toward spending upwards of $150 billion worldwide on Black Friday alone, with holiday online sales climbing 3% year over year. For publishers eager to sell valuable holiday inventory, Q4 2022 presents an opportunity to capitalize on retail’s biggest season.

2022 has also seen the continued expansion of Universal Identifiers, data clean rooms, and other cookieless targeting solutions that support privacy-compliant identity-driven advertising. Privacy concerns have led marketers to embrace these technologies to keep consumers’ information safe while ensuring they have access to the latest targeted product offerings. 

At the forefront of these developments is cookie-less advertising. As much as 40% of mobile web traffic is unaddressable without cookie-less solutions, making their adoption an urgent opportunity to expand the impact of marketing efforts. 

To take advantage of strong consumer tailwinds building up to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and beyond, now is the time for publishers to amplify their marketing efforts with the latest in privacy-friendly, identity-driven targeting. 

Strike deals to capitalize on high demand

Q4 is the time of year when advertisers will be most eager to buy, and publishers most eager to sell. In addition, the quarter offers a unique opportunity for publishers to leverage their inventory to meet the pent-up demand of a post-pandemic economy. These circumstances come with benefits for both parties.

Brand marketers will be looking to hit their annual goals during a quarter when a large percentage of their sales are expected to come through. Retailers will have valuable inventory they need to offload before the season ends. These pressures incentivize deal-making and could help publishers snag highly valuable direct deals that could turn into lasting relationships with advertisers.

Publishers can accelerate deals and stand out from the competition by taking measures to capitalize on higher ad spend during the holiday season. For example, they may try out media formats that they would generally avoid, such as sticky ad footers that better capture audience attention. Publishers may also consider packaging custom audiences, day parts, or ad products to lure brands. By laying out how they can help advertisers hit their year-end goals, publishers can benefit from this holiday season and beyond. 

Use first-party data and transparent metrics to stand out

Some marketers are facing tighter budgets given uncertain economic conditions. On the positive side, challenging times shine a light on measurable, cost-effective and privacy-friendly marketing tactics and channels. Digital media companies with first-party audience relationships and metrics have the opportunity to make the case that they offer this channel — in which case, concerns about marketing spend could become a business driver and competitive differentiator.

The key to standing out in the ad market is for publishers to make the most of the information available to them. Equip advertisers with the tools to accurately analyze results, proving to their CFO and other internal stakeholders that spending with your company is part of a strategy that drives meaningful ROI. Also, make the case that effective advertising is not just about reaching audiences at scale; it’s about reaching them in the high-quality, trusted environments that publishers provide.

Plus, if economic conditions do lead to a decrease in ad spend, there are benefits to some brands pulling back. In the past, aggressive organizations have gained lasting market share by getting in front of customers when rivals fled. In the event of mixed economic messages this holiday season, publishers who can make this case to advertisers will be the most prepared to succeed.

Experiment with cookieless audience targeting 

New anti-tracking rules and regulations are an opportunity for publishers to get ahead in digital advertising. First-party data sets them up to provide audience targeting and analytics around content themes. Solutions like creative data partnerships, data clean rooms, and identity recognition can help scale offerings. These tools can allow publishers to be their own best advocates, helping advertisers target audiences in the market for their products, consensually measure impact across channels, and prove ROI. 

Importantly, these solutions are not only available to digital media companies that focus on fulfilling programmatic demand. Organizations that focus on direct sales – which are enjoying a resurgence given the increased value of first-party audiences – can also incorporate identity-driven targeting and cross-platform measurement into their ad products. 

With regulations like the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) taking effect in the new year, now is the time to start testing solutions and take advantage of the forecasted spending boom in Q4. Publishers can prepare by arming themselves with the tools to help advertisers understand the impact of their dollars. If they do that, they’ll be able to maximize the value of their rich content and first-party audiences while earning the Q4 budgets advertisers are eager to spend. And they’ll get ahead of competitors who will be scrambling to get compliant for the CPRA in January.

Advertising | Supporter Spotlight

How not to lose your audience: build community 

There’s bad and then there’s intentionally-bad. Know this: intentionally-bad backfires. 

Partners in blame

While fraudsters are primarily to blame for the rise in deceptive advertising, publishers’ desire to fill inventory during times of economic uncertainty also contributes to the problem of bad ad experiences. GeoEdge research revealed that 54% of publishers feel pressured to run poor quality ads to meet quarterly revenue goals. According to our survey, 47% of publishers’ AdOps teams were told to leave an ad up that they would have preferred to take down.

Yes, they bring in revenue. But those fill rates come at a high cost. Bad ads damage publishers’ reputation, prompt user churn, and impair publishers’ ability to enhance user experience. It is critical that publishers take steps to ensure that they can combat economic volatility without compromising their integrity. 

Optimize value exchange

Since the widespread adoption of programmatic, much of the media industry has chased short-term profits, often at the cost of hard-won audience trust. Programmatic channels regularly serve users clickbait, inappropriate ads, and brands that poorly align with audience preferences. 

In 2022, 76% of publishers revealed that their users reported clickbait ads on their sites. And 24% shared that their users were scammed due those ads. 

These deceptive and off-brand ad experiences cause users to question where publishers’ values really lie. And to many, the modern value exchange is insufficient. Publishers must redefine reciprocity or risk losing their audience. 

When media professionals think revenue-first rather than user-first, they alienate their audience, fail to transform readers into subscribers or grow relationships with new readers. The ensuing loss of trust leads to user churn and a tarnished reputation. The solution is to create a better value exchange and uphold standards. 

Ask your audience 

Publishers have done nearly everything to understand their audiences’ ad quality preferences except for the one thing that makes the most sense of all – asking them. Creating positive ad experiences is often based on guesswork. Publishers assume audiences’ preferences and set their ad quality policies accordingly. 

Optimizing the value exchange demands new technologies to pinpoint which ad experiences audiences enjoy and requires automation to reinforce those standards. 

When it comes to bad ads, publishers can’t expect users to seek out an email address and send a complaint. The ad unit itself must include a functionality that lets both readers and editorial teams report bad ads directly to AdOps teams, and not to Google or third-party ad platforms.

Allowing users to directly report inappropriate ads differentiates a publisher from the competition, It also builds connections with audiences. This is especially vital in an era where audiences expect publishers to share their values and respect their preferences. 

Engaging your community 

Audience preferences change over time. User ad reporting provides a listening channel that’s always open. It creates a direct line of communication that’s far better than finding out about bad ad experiences on social media where a negative call-out can go viral in minutes. Actionable data allows publishers to fine-tune their ad quality policies, and to adapt ad experiences as preferences evolve.

A “Report by the User” social listening tool provides publishers the chance to reclaim audience relationships and build a positive, involved community. When readers feel they’re part of a community, they naturally share and engage more. 

The more users interact with the ad reporting tools, the more publishers learn about what their readers like and don’t like. This data informs both the ad strategy and editorial decisions alike.Every click further refines publishers’ understanding of what ads interest their audiences, creating increasing engagement. 

Stop ignoring your audience and they’ll start engaging with you.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

3 learnings from the world’s first self-serve advertising conference

The digital advertising industry is in a very interesting place right now. We’re coming off the back of a record-breaking year (2021 saw roughly $490b in digital ad spend) and we’re heading into an uncertain period with record inflation and advertising layoffs. At the same time, the digital landscape is undergoing transformation: while the cookie’s death has been slow, it is inevitable. We’ve also seen major streamers like Netflix and Disney embrace ad-supported streaming, which amplifies the booming trend of an increasing number  of industries seeking out new revenue streams through advertising.

Against this complicated and dynamic backdrop, digital leaders of some of the world’s foremost publishers gathered in New York City for our first Self-Serve Advertising Summit in October.

Self-serve is a revenue model whereby the publisher sells their own inventory directly to the advertiser via an automated marketplace or campaign manager, similar to how Facebook sells its inventory.

Representatives from Disney Advertising, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, DISH Media, and more spent a day in Chelsea discussing the transition from programmatic to self-serve, the growth of small business advertising, and the transformation of OTT and linear TV. There was an abundance of takeaways from the Summit. Below, however, I have summarized what I found to be the most urgent and fascinating themes and learnings that emerged from the event.

Efficiency and accessibility

Out of all the potential benefits of embracing self-serve advertising technology, the one which speakers and attendees most universally agreed upon was the need to create efficiencies.

Andrew Grillo, Director of New Product Revenue at Boston Globe Media, said: “Priority one for us is to create efficiency. About 40% of our accounts are SMBs [small to medium sized businesses] but they only make up about 10% of our revenue. They spend between $5000 and $10,000 with us annually… We want to make a platform that lets them buy in a more streamlined way so our reps can focus on larger deals.”

The sentiment was echoed by Stephen Jutras, General Manager, Products and Programs at DISH Media: “We started with creating efficiencies internally – everything from report automation to relieve our data science teams, and let sales teams go to market faster, to audience segmentation. Internal efficiencies lead to external efficiencies.”

The takeaway? Publishers want tools that reduce manual work and create a baseline of efficiency from which to seek out new revenue streams, such as being able to serve the growing SME (small to medium enterprise) advertiser segment. Sylvester Phifer, Vice President, Self Service Platform – Hulu Ad Manager, Disney Advertising, agreed. He said, “We built self-serve with the goal of giving small and medium-sized businesses the chance to advertise within a streaming environment.”

Alternative to search and social

Another topic that came up again and again was the standoff between traditional publishers and big tech. It’s no secret that platforms like Facebook and Google have eroded the advertising revenues of news media over the past 15 years. At the summit, many publishers conceded that news media had been slow to learn the lessons of search and social. Affordability and ease of access are the way to win over smaller advertisers.

Julia Belanger, General Manager at The Washington Post’s Zeus Technology, laid out her thoughts: “We’re trying to give publishers an alternative to search and social. If you’re going to search and social just because it’s easy and fast, we want to give you a way to do that with us.”
If publishers can match the accessibility offered by big Tech, with the added value of trusted brand contexts, it might shift the current power balance. More on the topic of brand value in the next section…

Support journalism and reach real audiences

In recent years, everything from government subsidies to newsletter subscriptions have been touted as ways for journalism to survive financially. One of the most interesting points of discussion was the way in which self-serve advertising can support quality journalism.

Touching upon the need for quality, well-funded journalism, Andrew Grillo said: “We want to create the association that buying with The Globe is supporting journalism. It’s in a trusted environment, and it’s a very real audience. We’re a subscription-based online property so it is a real audience, not just scrolling in a feed.” There was agreement that when news publishers control their inventory with self-serve, their ability to leverage that trust and reputation are much stronger than with programmatic.

The theme of audience quality was also covered by keynote speaker and ad fraud researcher Dr. Augustine Fou. Highlighting the myriad of ways in which advertisers are duped into buying fake audiences through programmatic loopholes, he stated succinctly: “real publishers have real audiences.” He continued: “Self-serve is a great way to bring advertisers back to the publishers, because for the last 10 years, I’ve seen too many middlemen take too big a cut of the pie.”

Final thoughts

It’s hard to draw one overarching conclusion from an event with many varying and insightful perspectives. But if there was one area on which consensus could clearly be found, it was the need for industry standardization. Self-serve is still in its infancy, and each publisher approaches it differently. This is an exciting phase, but ultimately a resource-heavy process – one which will itself benefit from efficiency.

When publishers start to find those best practices, and make advertisers more comfortable with their platforms, it will be a lot easier for others to get started. Everything from audience segmentation to creative formats are features that can be streamlined and standardized. The fewer looming question marks and the more successful use cases are out there, the easier it will be to get other publishers, brands and agencies onboard.

The flipside is that those early first-movers who are already integrating self-serve into their revenue model have the opportunity to set the standards that they want to see. Whether that means an always-on, fully automated marketplace, or a consultative, managed-service process, it is up to them to find the balance that best suits their business, their audience, and their customers. Ultimately, the beneficiaries will be publishers and the advertisers who work with them.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

How publishers can build visitor relationships to drive more revenue

Over the years, technology has enabled many in the digital advertising ecosystem to sit behind the proverbial curtain and collect visitor data to drive everything from monetization to UX. Oftentimes these interactions are conducted without the user’s knowledge or permission, which for years has been par for the course. One advantage that publishers have over others is that they already have a direct, trust-based relationship with their audiences. 

And, without a doubt, relationships are key to navigating this new ecosystem. Relationships matter. Building and managing relationships with visitors will lead to revenue continuity and growth for publishers. Based upon our experience working with thousands of publishers, we see distinct advantages for publishers who build relationships with their audiences. Following are insights and best practices every publisher can employ to drive more revenue per visitor through better relationships.

Identify and build valuable audience segments

Publishers should recognize that site visitors are not homogeneous. They must work to identify segments of traffic to better understand and leverage the potential value of specific cohorts and how to engage and communicate with them. 

For example, if you don’t have an email newsletter, now’s the time to invest in one. If you do, focus on growing it and leverage it as a marketing tool to sell paid subscriptions and memberships, or solicit donations. Users of Admiral’s Transact subscriptions module have found, email newsletter subscribers are two to three times more likely than non-subscribers to purchase a paid subscription. 

Here’s a possibly surprising example: adblock users may be your most valuable visitor. Publishers who are empowered to ask users to turn off an ad blocker to support the content actually deepen their relationship with audiences. Users that elect to allowlist consume three to four times more pageviews than standard visitors of the site. The act of allowlisting is a purely altruistic show of affinity and a big thumbs up for your content and brand. 

Communication is key

It’s often said that the basis of a healthy relationship is good communication. If you have a great article worth sharing with your audience you don’t bury it at the bottom of the page. Rather, you place it on the homepage, top-of-fold, and amplify it on every social channel. The same goes for every value exchange that you’re putting in front of your visitors. 

This becomes abundantly clear when looking at results from engagement based adblock recovery (asking users to allowlist) vs. ad-reinsertion based recovery (serving an ad-lite experience). One of our publishers was already using Acceptable Ads reinsertion, however they realized that running engagement based recovery in tandem with AA would yield a significant increase in recovered revenue and achieve the added benefits of full-stack recovery.

Unlike Acceptable Ads, which is limited by the AA’s ad-lite standards, engagement based recovery unlocks the publisher’s entire ad stack including high-value ad units. For example, engagement is the only way to unlock video ads as there is no AA standard for video ads. Adblock users who allowlist are monetized at 100% CPMs, and for publishers who spend time, resources, and effort to maximize yield, this is a critical point of difference. Acceptable Ads is also limited to users of AA supported blockers and among this audience, only users that have agreed to see Acceptable Ads. 

Most importantly, engagement relies on trust and transparency through building relationships to achieve the end goal of monetizing adblock users.

Start engaging 

We worked with the publisher to employ an engagement strategy that targeted adblock users with a configured CTA to allowlist the site to show support. The Engage message offered a continue-path for users who elected not to allowlist at the time. For any users that decided not to allowlist (and were using an AA compliant blocker + agreed to being served AA), Acceptable Ads was enabled.

  • The combo of Admiral + AA monetized 200% more impressions per day than AA alone 
  • Engagement recovered 55% more revenue per day than AA
  • Engagement delivered 1,500% higher RPMs than AA

Frequency of engagement is another question often asked by our customers when deciding how often they should be asking a visitor to take action. 

Another client who was reluctant to engage their adblock users, built their user journey to ask adblock visitors to allowlist the site every 30 days (not recommended). Once they became comfortable with the idea of making the ask, by simply increasing the frequency to every seven days resulted in tripling the recovered revenue. Emboldened by the results they increased the frequency to once a day (which is still an ultra conservative time interval) resulting in a 5x revenue recovery increase from the initial settings.

As we head into Q4 during uncertain economic times, publishers are carefully evaluating both near and long term monetization strategies. Converting relationships into revenue can start immediately or pay dividends far into the future. The first step is to come out from behind the curtain. It is essential that publishers step up their communication with visitors, which allows them to establish and improve the value exchange.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

How clean rooms can avoid the hype – and stop over-promising

Many industry insiders believe the honeymoon phase is over for data clean rooms. In the face of third-party cookie deprecation, clean rooms were supposed to solve the data scale issues brands and publishers predicted. If your first-party data is limited, just combine it with your business partners’ data, in a secure and privacy-compliant environment. That makes sense, right?

In reality, it’s never been quite so simple. And it certainly hasn’t helped the reputation of clean rooms that so many vendors positioned them as a cure-all for a smattering of issues the industry is contending with – identity, targeting, measurement, attribution, analytics, and so on. The results brands and publishers are seeing generally don’t, and can’t, match the hype.

The hype and the backlash threaten to diminish the role data clean rooms can and should play in today’s digital ecosystem. They have a purpose, but the industry could use some clarity on that purpose, and the value clean rooms deliver, so stakeholders don’t get taken in and disillusioned by snake oil peddlers.

The reality of data clean rooms

First, let’s clear up what clean rooms are not. They are not a comprehensive replacement for third-party cookies. They are not a data solution. What they are is a tool – or, more specifically, an environment. They are a place for two or more trusted business partners to compare data sets, without entirely sharing their data – each business ultimately retains ownership of its data, and contributes only the data it wants to contribute. The data is scrambled to keep personally identifiable information private, and the partners in the clean room need to comply with each other’s policies for consent.

A potluck dinner only works if enough guests bring enough food to satisfy everyone’s appetite, and it’s best when the food is good, and there’s an interesting variety. A clean room works the same way. Every participant must take care to make sure they’re bringing what others need and to remember the best data provides the best leverage.

A data clean room will not somehow clean anyone’s bad data. It’s a “clean” room because the data is supposed to go in clean — with personally identifiable information (PII) and sensitive data scrubbed, parameters for comparing data sets established ahead of time, and identity solutions highlighted. This makes the data actionable and helps give it value. If the data can’t be used to follow consumers or audiences across the buyer’s path, across datasets provided by different clean room participants, it won’t be able to replace the cross-channel tracking capabilities currently enabled by third-party cookies.

But if participants embrace the spirit of collaboration, and bring data to the table that can connect the dots and help to meet each other’s business objectives, the possibilities are endless. Two or more publishers, for example, can bring together data that strengthens their audience profiles and collectively raises the value of their inventory. Or, an e-commerce site and a publisher can compare data sets to track customer journeys and understand the performance of referral programs.

The different data clean room environments

Several high-profile launches of clean rooms — from the likes of Google, Amazon, Disney, and NBCUniversal — have added to the hype. But we need to remember that the term “clean room” describes multiple types of environments:

  • Walled garden clean rooms deliver their value by allowing a business to layer additional data onto the data of what already sits within the owner’s walls.
  • Clean rooms within independent environments deliver the most mutual value for participants.
  • Centralized clean rooms, where the terms are set by the platform’s owner, are less collaborative and are more of a means to make the data within walled gardens available to the clean room owner.

Stakeholders exploring the possibilities of clean rooms need to ask: Does entering this particular environment enhance the value of our own data sets, or would we simply be handing our data over to a platform’s owner?

Ensuring interoperability across stakeholders won’t be a cut-and-dry process. It will likely call for industry-wide initiatives. For a precedent of what that might look like, consider the state of customer data platforms (CDPs). CDPs also went through a similar hype-followed-by-reputation-management cycle, until the CDP Institute was established to ensure the CDPs delivered what they promised.

Before industry-wide trust and satisfaction in clean rooms overall drops further, the legitimate, trustworthy clean room providers should get in front of the issue, highlight the technology’s intended use cases, and decry the trend of dubbing any privacy-compliant data platform a clean room.

Clean rooms — with the right combination of participants — bring too much potential value to risk becoming victims of their own hype. They need to be marketed and promoted appropriately, promising only what they can deliver. And industry stakeholders need to seek out those unbiased, independent environments and interoperable solutions that will drive toward a collaborative, privacy-forward digital future.

About the author

Eliza Nevers drives Lotame’s global strategy and product roadmap to serve the evolving data enrichment needs of marketers, agencies, and publishers. Fluent in the full product life cycle, from strategy to development and build, she brings nearly two decades of hands-on experience in tech to her role as Chief Product Officer at Lotame. Prior to her tenure, Eliza served as VP of Product for Verizon Media. During her 12+ years there, she steered the development and launch of AOL’s first DSP, SSP, and DMP, driving the evaluation and product integration of multiple strategic acquisitions as well as developing and launching AOL’s unified Advertising platform, ONE by AOL for Advertisers. Most recently, Eliza launched her own consulting business where she defined product strategy and product development agile processes for various companies in and out of adtech.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

TV advertising has evolved. It’s time to think like a viewer

The advanced TV landscape—including video-on-demand (VOD), connected TV (CTV), OTT and addressable linear TV—has experienced rapid growth and change. We’re also seeing the rise of ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) and free ad-supported streaming services (FAST). As a result, more premium video inventory is becoming available to ad buyers. Luckily, innovation within the advertising ecosystem is beginning to make this more accessible. So, what’s up next for this evolving space?

Seven in 10 UK marketers believe their advanced TV budgets will increase in the coming 12 months, according to the latest survey from AudienceXpress, FreeWheel’s premium video sales house. What’s more, almost nine in 10 respondents intend to spend more on AVOD and FAST.

Ad buyers are investing in the channels where the eyeballs are. But now the industry must go a step further and truly think as audiences do. Content, quality, and connectivity appear to be front of mind for viewers. So, how can marketers also make these a priority?

Audiences only have eyes for content, so ad buyers should too

When viewers tune in to TV and premium video content, they can now access it through a diverse selection of platforms, channels, and devices. The fact that audiences have become more and more fragmented proves that what they watch is significantly more important than how they watch it. 

If ad buyers plan to succeed in the TV advertising landscape, they need to adopt this attitude. By taking a unified approach to advanced TV and premium video, they can shift their focus away from fragmented endpoints and towards what matters most: the audience and what they enjoy watching. To help buyers achieve this, the advertising ecosystem is refining its tools for unified campaign planning, ad buying, and performance measurement. 

New technologies and best practices, such as ad podding, are improving both efficiencies for buyers and the premium video experience for viewers. Advanced contextual advertising, meanwhile, is allowing buyers to connect with audiences through specific topics and genres, as well as combine semantic analysis and keyword targeting to maximize ad relevance. 

While further collaboration is required to accelerate this progress, advanced TV is enabling advertisers to engage typically hard-to-reach audiences through quality content.

Why aggregation is the answer to precise ad targeting

The key drivers of advanced TV spend emphasize marketers’ goal of reaching the best viewers however they consume TV and premium video content. Our AudienceXpress survey found that respondents considered sophisticated audience targeting capabilities as the top growth accelerator for advanced TV, followed by the opportunity to reach viewers across screens. 

Enabling precise ad targeting and allowing buyers to be agile as their audiences move between platforms and devices are therefore highly important for capturing investment. While it may seem paradoxical, aggregation is necessary for this to happen. By aggregating a bigger pool of premium video inventory, the advertising ecosystem can facilitate efficient, streamlined ad buying and deliver desired audiences at scale. 

This again requires buyers and sellers to treat advanced TV channels as viewers do—that is, equally—as they unify their approach to TV advertising. 

Joining the measurement dots

Consolidating measurement across endpoints is as critical to the future of TV advertising as consolidating inventory and audiences. Buyers need a single view of how impactful their ad campaigns are, both while they are running and after they are wrapped up, much like any great TV show. 

Unfortunately, legacy measurement tools and newer alternatives currently struggle with capturing performance across screens and providing ad buyers with a full understanding of campaign impact. Buyers need this to pinpoint the elements of their strategies that are generating the best results and carry out informed campaign optimizations. Additionally, accurate measurement solutions are necessary for effective frequency management, which safeguards against ad fatigue and maintains the quality viewing experience for audiences. 

Greater standardization of advertising metrics is a crucial next step towards unifying measurement. This provides clarity between buyers and sellers, allowing the former to plan, purchase, and optimize all forms of TV inventory and the latter to better communicate the value of their offerings. 

Connectivity will solve complexity 

Speaking the same language across the ecosystem also lays the foundation for better interconnectivity between all players. In turn, this will help tackle complexity, which has become a concern in the rapidly evolving advanced TV landscape. 

Alongside building a shared language, interoperability must be a priority in the year ahead. Technological innovation is critical for overcoming the challenges buyers face with planning, executing, and monitoring advanced TV campaigns. But ensuring these innovative solutions are widely compatible will help make TV and premium video advertising available to all. This will drive growth and progress throughout the ecosystem, letting buyers purchase from bigger pools of aggregated inventory, increase efficiency, and extend their reach, while also allowing publishers to streamline their advertising business models and maximize yield. 

Connectivity is enabling viewers to consume TV and premium video content how they want, when they want. It is also the key to enabling ad buyers to purchase the inventory they want, how they want. Not only is this beneficial to the future of advanced TV advertising, but also to audiences by ensuring they receive the most relevant ads and a quality viewing experience.

©2024 Digital Content Next. All Rights Reserved.