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Industry Research

Featured Post | Industry-Research

What the Australian Broadcasting Corporation can teach podcasters everywhere

Research presented at Australia’s fourth national podcast conference offers some good news for media outlets that have yet to put a toe in the podcast waters. Ozpod, convened annually by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia’s public broadcaster, commissions a national podcast survey each year to accompany the event.

ABC’s 2019 Podcast research found that nearly 90% of Australians have now heard of podcasting, although just 19% listen to a podcast once a week. However, the number of regular listeners – people who listen to a podcast at least once a month – is growing by about 30% year-on-year.

Kellie Riordan, head of ABC Audio Studios, says that represents enormous opportunity for growth. “Because once people do start listening, they listen a lot. For example, if they’ve listened in the last week, they’re listening to more than one show, and consume between six and 10 episodes, so that’s fantastic in terms of growth,” Riordan says.

She says that about 80% of people who start listening to a show go on to listen to it all the way through. This is a particularly promising statistic for outlets keen to scatter advertisements throughout a podcast.

Search and discovery

The survey also looks at discoverability. According to the results, the most popular way of choosing a new podcast is via word of mouth, with 71% of respondents saying this was their favorite method of finding fresh must-listen content.

Riordan says the ABC takes advantage of this by cross promoting its own podcasts. It also uses its broadcast and social media channels to ensure the audiences who are most likely to want to listen to a particular podcast hear about it.

This approach “makes it a very sticky platform for us. For example if you listen to Richard Fidler on Conversations and he tells you we’ve got a great new true crime podcast, or we’ve got Ladies We Need To Talk, you’re going to go and check it out,” she says.

Spread the good word

There are plenty of pathways to build word-of-mouth momentum around a new show, even for outlets that don’t have the advantage of being a public broadcaster, Riordan adds. “You can leverage it through social media, through newsletters, through making short-form videos – and if you’re an independent podcaster who can’t lean on the ‘network’ effect’, you can tap into communities and influencers in your genre.”

Riordan says the ABC has done this successfully with No Feeling is Final. To promote the award-winning show that explores suicidal feelings, ABC asked national organizations like Beyond Blue and the Black Dog Institute to let their audiences know about it.

She says some audiences are also underserved, particularly children. This is particularly the case at a time when parents “are increasingly looking for ways to get kids off screens, and also to share in co-listening experiences with their children”.

In response to audience research, the ABC launched a children’s ethics show, Short & Curly, in 2016. It’s remained one of the broadcaster’s most popular podcasts ever since, and has been made into a book and a collaboration with WNYC in New York in 2017. “Building on this success, the ABC has created a whole suite of family shows that both kids and adults can enjoy, from Fierce Girls, to Animal Sound Safari, Imagine This, and Classic Kids,” Riordan says.

Make a splash

Just over half the survey respondents said they felt ‘overwhelmed’ by the increasing choice of podcasts. And, at first glance, the finding appears to give weight to suggestions that the podcast market may have peaked.

Riordan acknowledges that creating a splash in a crowded market isn’t easy. She urges outlets preparing to get into podcasting to thoroughly research their target audience and design a truly differentiated product. “People get it wrong if they think they have to pump out a podcast every week. You really need to think what your true podcast value is, what the audience is, and whether a [time-limited] series is a better fit,” she says.

She also points out that the gap in podcast awareness and listening, particularly among older audiences – who comprise just 8% of regular listeners in Australia – means podcast creators still need to explain to potential listeners how to find, subscribe to and download their show.

That’s echoed by the Australia-based editor of Podnews James Cridland, who presented the survey results at the OzPod conference. “My biggest recommendation is to have a big bang launch, and I’m not talking about an ad on page 5. I’m talking about ads throughout the day on your website, a strap on your newspaper for the week. Or, if you’re a radio station, it means promos every hour for the whole day of your launch, and instructions that make it easy and obvious for people to find and listen to it,” he says.

“If you do this, then you almost guarantee yourself a good position in the charts. Because podcast charts are trending charts, there’ll be some momentum because lots of people are subscribing to you for the first time.”

Building on a legacy

Cridland also has advice for legacy brands that are considering their first move into podcasting. “Firstly, use your brand and your talent,” he says. “There’s a temptation to launch a new brand around podcasts, rather than using your legacy brand. But if you do that you end up not having any heritage, and more importantly no points of difference from all the other podcasts out there.

“So if you are, let’s say, ‘The Sun’, you might launch a podcast called Bizarre – which is their big show business page – or a podcast with a star columnist, because your brand is your main asset here.”

Cridland says there’s also work to be done by many advertising departments on how to sell podcasts. He recommends approaching an agency that can provide specialist advice on how to sell a new podcast product to potential advertisers.

“People who sell full page ads in newspapers find it quite difficult to go out and sell audio, so having sales people and teams that understand the specifics of selling this kind of content is absolutely essential,” he says.

About the author

Corinne Podger is the Director of The Digital Skills Agency, which provides consultancy and training in mobile journalism, digital multimedia, social media and digital return on investment for newsrooms all over the world. She serves as a judge for the WAN-IFRA World Digital Media Awards, and as an advisor to the European Journalism Observatory at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

Industry-Research | Perspectives

Mobile aggregators: The opportunity for referral traffic we’re not talking about

Referral traffic to content has risen in recent years due in part to a largely unknown channel — mobile-first aggregators. Here’s what we know about mobile aggregators, why they matter, and importantly, their growing influence over reader traffic.

What is the mobile aggregators story?

Mobile-first aggregators present a growth story — the referral traffic they send to publishers has doubled in the past two years. A significant portion of this growth is driven by Google Chrome Suggestions and Google News, which each grew more than 50% this year (and drives significantly larger shares of referral traffic than Twitter).

The field of global mobile aggregators is also growing. Tokyo-based SmartNews and China-based news aggregator TopBuzz have shown rapid expansion, driving an increasing amount of traffic to sites. More importantly, their growth has changed the traffic landscape. Smartnews and TopBuzz are both now sending as much traffic as Yahoo.

Why content creators should pay attention to mobile aggregators

Digital-first organizations are still in the early stages of understanding the primary drivers of subscriptions. However, effective strategies rely on identifying the behaviors content creators can (and want to) encourage that will ultimately lead to more reader revenue.

From our research thus far, publishers have had far  less success in converting readers from mobile-first aggregators compared to more traditional channels such as email. Connecting the dots is crucial.

Therefore, a deeper understanding of mobile-first aggregators can open up a whole new level of engagement, and by extension, a new reader revenue channel.

Next steps: Demystifying mobile aggregators

Based on what we currently know about mobile aggregators, here’s what content creators  should keep in mind:

Strategize around these new mobile referral sources

Overall, we see the mobile-first aggregators as more of a missed opportunity than an unsolvable problem. We believe content creators can take advantage of this mostly untapped source of traffic by understanding their unique impact and optimizing content accordingly.

Audience development tactics are needed

For too long, mobile-first aggregators have been categorized as a subset of the larger platforms (i.e., Google search) we know well. However, we believe they should be seen as their own channel, which would get publishers closer to segmenting (and therefore optimizing) key drivers of traffic.

It’s all about attribution

Segmentation of traffic leads to better attribution. The ability to uncover mobile aggregator-specific patterns and better track their impact. Moreover, it can clear the path towards leveraging the channel for higher engagement, loyalty, and conversions.

Our data shows that the growth of mobile-first aggregators has significantly upended the traffic source landscape. Publishers would be remiss to take this shift lightly, as they may be missing out on a major source of referral traffic in the long-term.

This also coincides with a trend we’ve long seen — the fact that mobile-first readers are demanding better experiences. Therefore, it’s unsurprising that aggregators have become this increasingly influential source of traffic.

Industry-Research

Curiouser and curiouser: Getting the story straight on Warren’s 70% statistic

I recently found myself going deep down an internet rabbit hole. 

Like anyone in charge of company communications, I get an alert any time our company is mentioned, linked to, or tweeted at on the internet. If you’re talking about Parse.ly, I want to know about it. 

Last week, I started getting alerts about articles involving Elizabeth Warren and a claim she made in March. In a blog post on Medium (which has since been updated), Warren stated: 

“Google and Facebook control websites that receive 70 percent of all internet traffic.”

The articles I was alerted to were tear downs of the statistic, claiming that she, in fact, didn’t have the right information. Which one was true? 

Down the rabbit hole

To figure this out, I dug in. Here’s how Warren’s team found this particular statistic, in reverse order: 

In late 2015, we released a blog post on external referral traffic stats from our network of media companies and publishers. The study looked at data from August through October of 2015. At the time, Facebook sent the most external traffic to our network (roughly 40% of traffic to sites came from Facebook). And Google search sent around 34% of traffic. This data excludes traffic that cannot be identified, including “dark” or “direct” traffic from email, SMS, private messaging apps, and other sources that strip referral information. We also exclude traffic from within the sites, known as “recirculation” or internal linking. 

Most people in the media industry now know this data and this storyline. However, Facebook no longer accounts for the most external traffic to media sites. Google again came to dominate referrals once Facebook changed its News Feed algorithm in late 2017/early 2018. This caused some massive upheaval in the media industry along the way. 

In late 2017, a programmer and writer, Andre Staltz Medeiros, wrote a blog called “The web began dying in 2014, here’s how.”  In it, he cites a number of sources regarding internet traffic and trends. He included a link to our 2015 blog post and an image made from our data. It’s not the main focus of his post, but Medeiros mentions the tension between media and the two dominant tech giants, without diving too much into the particulars. 

A few days later, Newsweek published an article titled, “Who controls the internet? Facebook and Google Dominance could cause the ‘Death of the web’.” Written by Anthony Cuthbertson, who was a staff writer for the publication at the time, the article mostly summarizes Medeiros’ blog post. (Cuthbertson is currently a Technology Correspondent for The Independent, according to LinkedIn.)

Cuthbertson writes in the Newsweek article: “Sites and services owned and operated by Facebook and Google—such as WhatsApp, YouTube and Instagram—now account for over 70 percent of all internet traffic, compared to a joint market share of around 50 percent in early 2014.” 

He also embeds a tweet by Medeiros (who also goes by simply “Staltz”) showing the data from the 2015 Parse.ly blog post. 

It’s slightly unclear which specific data point Cuthbertson meant to refer to in his quote. If it was meant to refer to the Parse.ly data, at a minimum it’s inaccurate, as our data separates Facebook traffic from Instagram. And WhatsApp traffic can’t be tracked through referrals (it would appear as “direct” or “dark” traffic.) 

Then, in March of 2019, Warren’s team posted the Medium blog post. It links the “70” in the statement “Google and Facebook control websites that receive 70 percent of all internet traffic” to the Newsweek article. (The updated text has more accurately changed to “70 percent of all Internet referral traffic.”) 

She also used this statistic in ads she ran on Facebook: 

So, to summarize: Warren’s statistic links to a Newsweek article, that references a blog post that talks about multiple sources of data including ours, that links to our blog post which includes data from 2015. Phew. 

Through the looking glass

Politicians and movements use stories and storytelling supported by data to promote their policies. However, this is a case study for just how difficult it can be for even the wonkiest policy maker to understand the minutiae of an industry that changes so quickly. 

In fact, when used correctly, our data still supports the argument that Google and Facebook account for an extremely outsized amount of traffic to media and content. As of this writing (10/11/19), roughly 82.5% of identifiable, external traffic referrals to media sites, arguably where most people get their information, are coming from those two sources.

Of course, in addition to traffic referrals, many people spend time directly on these sites getting news and information. Pew Research has also found that “More than half of U.S. adults get news from social media often or sometimes (55%), up from 47% in 2018.” They find Facebook and YouTube as the two top social networks that people find news on. 

With the change in Warren’s blog post to “70 percent of all Internet referral traffic,” the claim is certainly closer to accurate. However, we could still offer some clarification, perhaps to: “data suggests that over 70% of identifiable traffic to content and media sites comes through Facebook and Google Search.”  

For anyone making an argument to the American public, to governments, or even an internal business decision, this citation led us down a rabbit hole of “how accurate is our understanding of the statistics we use and the information we rely on?” It serves as a reminder to be clear about what data and sources you’re looking at, and of course, that Google and Facebook really do dominate a significant amount of our audience’s attention.

Industry-Research

Story labels alone won’t restore trust. But depending on your approach, they can help

An alarming number of consumers don’t trust the media. Since trust hit its all time low in 2016, the industry has been hard at work restoring this critical factor. The media industry and social platforms now employ a wide range of approaches in order to address the proliferation of inaccurate and misleading stories. Some media brands have undertaken marketing and educational efforts to help make the connection between brand and the quality of information more explicit. And labeling has been used as a means to help consumers quickly identify the source of, and type of, information they are viewing. 

This last approach — labeling — takes a classic print strategy and brings it into the digital medium. A new study from The Center for Media Engagement (CME) set out to evaluate the effectiveness of labeling stories. Unfortunately, the primary takeaway is that labeling alone does not improve consumer trust in the information before them. In fact, most of them don’t even notice labels or recall them accurately after reading an article. 

Labels alone will not restore trust

However, this is not to suggest that labeling should be abandoned altogether. Upon deeper inspection, the research found that some labels work better than others. The research also suggests that, when conceived of as explicit and even educational, labels may be effective as part of an overall trust-building strategy. 

The Center for Media Engagement’s research set out to learn:

  • Will labels affect whether readers trust a story?
  • Will readers notice and remember the labels?
  • Does the in-story explainer label work better than the above-story label?

Key findings from the research:

  • Labeling stories did not affect trust.
  • Nearly half of the participants did not notice whether the story was labeled.
  • Those who reported seeing a label were not particularly accurate in recalling the type of label. Of the two labels, recall was better for the in-story explainer label

What label?

Clearly, the research demonstrates that people glaze over most story labels (i.e. news, analysis, opinion, sponsored) if they notice them at all. Overall, 45% reported that they did not notice whether an article was labeled or not and that percentage did not vary depending on whether the article actually was labeled.

More concerning was the finding that, when asked, most people believed that the article was labeled news. This is a potentially problematic default assumption given efforts to use labels to prevent the spread of disinformation and to help consumers distinguish opinion, commentary, and satire from hard news and analysis. 

The research analyzed whether the effect of the story labels on the ability to recall the label varied based on participants’ backgrounds, including their age, race, ethnicity, education, income, gender, political ideology, and political partisanship. It is interesting to note that only one variable seemed to matter: age. The younger the participant, the more likely they were to recall the label correctly when the story was labeled news or opinion.

Explainer labels, explained

CME also compared the traditional above-story label to an in-story explainer label and no label at all. The in-story explainer label provided definitions of each label based in part on those proposed by the Trust Project.

Overall, the study found that in-story explainer labels increased the likelihood that people would recall the correct label compared to those who did not see the label and those who saw above-story labels. However, they still found that many people failed to recall whether the story they read was labeled or not. 

Sixty-three percent of those who saw an article without a label said they did not recall whether there was a label (25% correctly recalled that it was not labeled). Fifty- eight percent of those who saw an article with an above-story label could not recall whether the article was labeled (24% correctly recalled what the article was labeled). On a more encouraging note, only 24% of those who saw an article with an in-story explainer label failed to recall whether the article was labeled, and 66% correctly recalled the article label. 

More work to be done

Unfortunately, regardless of label type, the use of labels alone did not improve consumers’ view of the information’s trustworthiness. Past research from CME suggests that a combination of strategies to signal trust – such as story labels, author biographies, and descriptions of how the story was reported, can increase trust.

Given reader’s digital consumption habits, it is significant to reveal the low recall for labels, particularly those placed above the story. Other efforts, such as describing how a story was reported, in conjunction with the finding that explainer labels are somewhat more effective suggest that transparency and consumer education will be critical in restoring trust in digital information. 

Industry-Research

Understanding how young people consume news: It’s personal

The role of news for Gen Z and Gen Y appears to be individualized, rather than characterized by broad generalizations, which is tricky business for news providers. According to new research from Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, How Young People Consume News and The Implications for Mainstream Media, adults aged 18-35 view the news from the perspective of what it can do for them as individuals, rather than for society as a whole. The study took a multi-faceted approach of tracking news consumption in conjunction with in-depth discussions groups among 20 young adults, in the UK and US.

News values

Reuters identified two specific themes reflecting the motivations and values of this cohort regarding their engagement with news and news brands:

  1. Using news to progress your personal development:
    • Status: Provides value and allows you to feel confident.
    • Identity: Builds and communicate your identity. The news you engage with contributes to defining who you are, and your views.
    • Learning: Allows you to better yourself, increasing your knowledge and success.
  2. Consuming news to increases your enjoyment in the things you do:
    • Connections: Eases your daily conversations with others,
    • Entertainment: Provides fun and original moments.
    • Passion: Helps fuel your passions and interests.

While Gen Z and Gen Y recognize the positive role news can play, its value does not necessarily translate into greater relevance for traditional news outlets. Unfortunately, today’s 18 to 35-year-olds are more distracted and less motivated to seek out news.

Consumer news segments

To build engagement with Gen Z and Gen Y, it’s essential for news publishers to understand content interaction in each moment, medium and for the individual. Reuters identified four consumer news segments to provide news publishers with insight and opportunities to generate content with the intent to build a meaningful relationship with those under-35.

Heritage News Consumers

These users consume a little of traditional news brands. However, this kind of consumption is very limited due to the lack of time available in their busy lives. Their user profile shows high access to news brands but low news consumption. Newer technologies, like podcasts and social media feeds, are more desirable and a fit better with their packed schedules. News publishers should think about how to make news easier to access by using innovative technology.

Dedicated News Devotees

This segment consumes news throughout the day but mostly on alternative and third-party platforms. Their user profile shows high access to news brands and high news consumption. This segment is the most engaged with news brand apps, the most dedicated to appointment news consumption and they believe in the value of news. Given this segments relationship with quality news, they are more likely to become subscribers. Publishers should think about unique benefits to target and promote to this demo.

Passive News Absorbers

Members of this segment are not interested in a relationship with news brands. They receive their news with little effort and take in information that surrounds them. Interestingly, they do feel the need to be informed but do not look to premium publishers for their news. Their profile shows low access to news brands (self-led) as well as low news consumption. Publishers should find ways to increase brand fame and name recognition with this cohort. In addition, allow for easy access to bold headlines, news summaries and short videos to attract Gen Z and Gen Y to quality news content. 

Proactive News Lovers

This segment is committed to news consumption. While they know news brands, they prefer to curate across multiple sources than rely on a few specific branded ones. Proactive News Lovers often skim news content. Their profile shows low access to news brands (self-led) but high news consumption. Given this segments passion for curation, news publishers should seek to offer new technology to help them process a collection of news articles.

Building a future

Understanding Gen Z’s and Gen Y’s motivations and values in news consumption offers insight into how best to build their brand loyalty in news brands. News formats, native to mobile, may also help news brands reestablish their relevance with adults under 35 years old. Connecting to this audience, above all else, is critical to the survival of news publishers.  

Industry-Research

What to expect from disinformation during the 2020 elections (and how to respond)

Most academic, media and political analysts forecast the likelihood of disinformation playing a large role in the upcoming 2020 presidential election. The NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights echoes this projection in its new report, Disinformation and the 2020 Election: How the Social Media Industry Should Prepare. In fact, the analysis predicts that more disinformation will be generated state-side than the volume generated by foreign entities.

What to expect from disinformation

  • Deepfakes increase in volume. Deepfakes are easier to produce now due to advancements in deep-learning and editing systems. A deep-learning system produces a persuasive fake video by studying photographs and videos of a target person and merging them with images of an actor speaking and behaving in the same manner as the target. Once a preliminary fake is produced, a method known generative adversarial networks (GANs) makes it more believable. The GANs process detects any inaccuracies and corrects them. After a few rounds, the new fake video is complete and ready for amplification.
  • Disinformation spreads to the political left. While domestic disinformation comes most often from the political right, the left is also engaging in its creation and spread in social media.
  • Misled American staged events. Americans are now being recruited by Russian organizations to stage real-life activities to spread of disinformation. From deceptive IRA social media personas to anti-Muslim and pro-Muslim demonstrations, these events are promoted online to American followers to attend and draw media coverage.
  • Instagram, owned by Facebook, will be used more to spread disinformation. Image and video services are ideal for spreading disinformation via memes; photos combined with short, punchy text, and video clips.
  • WhatsApp, also owned by Facebook, will be used to amplifying disinformation. WhatsApp was used to send false content to large populations in the elections in Brazil and India. It could be a very active force in the U.S. 2020 presidential elections. 
  • Increased international activity. Not only is Russia involved in the creation and spread of falsehoods but Iran and China are also suppliers of disinformation.
  • Digital voter suppression continues as a threat in 2020. Election manipulation to continue in 2020. According to the University of Wisconsin, users tried to suppress voter turn-out in 2018 creating Twitter campaigns. One post tried to tell Trump opponents incorrect voting day information. Another tried to intimidate liberal voters by saying that NRA members and Republicans are bringing their guns to the polls.

Responding to disinformation

Social media companies put a few new measures in place since 2016 and 2018. They are now communicating more with each other, the government, and outside experts in an effort to address disinformation. Regardless, more has to be done to prepare for 2020. The NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights suggests the following recommendations for social platforms:

  1. Detect and remove deepfakes. Improve efficiency in removing deepfakes before they do their damage.
  2. Remove content that is provably false. Purge content that is definitively untrue.
  3. Hire a content overseer. Hire a senior official to oversee the process of guarding against disinformation.
  4. Make changes at Instagram. Act assertively to protect users from disinformation. Instagram doesn’t remove or down-rank a user’s main feed if disinformation is found. While the service does make it harder for new users to access the false content, it’s not a forceful enough action to stop the problem.
  5. Limit the reach of WhatsApp. WhatsApp now limits the reach of a message to 1,280 users (5 chat groups x 256 members in each) versus the previous maximum reach of 66,536 users (265 chat groups x 256 members in each).
  6. Defend against for-profit disinformation. Social platforms need to pay close attention to false content distributed by corporations, consultants, and public relations firms. Many companies specializing in clickbait manage successful businesses alluring naïve and intrigued consumers attracted to conspiracy theories and fake items.
  7. Support legislation on political ads and voter suppression. Push the Senate to approve the Honest Ads Act, to include political disclosure standards to online ads.
  8. Improve industry-wide collaboration. Form a permanent inter-company task force devoted to fighting disinformation.
  9. Teach social media literacy to the public. Educate users about questionable content and what to do if they come across it.

NYU cites findings from The Oxford Internet Institute and from four universities, Princeton, University of Exeter, Washington University and University of Michigan. This body of research shows a decrease in disinformation between 2016 and 2018. However, with the 2020 being a presidential election year, all anticipate intensified interference by both foreign and domestic U.S. actors. Continued efforts are needed to combat disinformation and protect the electoral process.

Advertising | Industry-Research

Malicious ads are down. But don’t rest easy yet.

Even among the largest SSPs, there is an enormous difference in quality: The worst performing SSP is 60 times more likely to deliver a malicious ad than the best. Premium publishers need to vet their SSP partners carefully and be aware of how each SSP deals with malicious, low-quality, and In-banner video ads.

Confiant recently conducted our fifth research study on malvertising and ad quality in the digital advertising ecosystem. Confiant’s Demand Quality Report analyzes a normalized sample of over 120 billion impressions and captures unique insights into the quality of ads served by the programmatic marketplace. 

How’s the industry doing in Q2?

The chart below shows malicious, In-banner video (IBV), and low-quality ads as a percentage of total impressions over the past five quarters. In Q2, we saw a significant drop in malicious ads and In-banner video (IBV) ads. Malicious ads are down from a high of 0.54% in Q4 2018 to 0.25% in Q2 of this year, the lowest rate observed in our five reports. In-banner video ads are also at an all-time low at  0.10% of impressions in Q2, down from 1.40% one year ago. We suspect that if this trend continues, IBV ads will be all but extinct by the end of 2019. 

However, this isn’t to say trouble isn’t lurking, given the highly dynamic nature of online advertising. Low-quality ads continues to be problematic with an increase from 0.14% in Q1 to 0.18% in Q2. 

What’s driving these declines? 

The decline of malicious and in-banner video ads defies a single explanation. However, trends suggest collaboration efforts from the following could be helping:

  • The near-universal adoption of ads.txt on top sites, which is driving out arbitrage and unauthorized resale. 
  • Increased vigilance on the part of the SSPs when it comes to ad quality issues
  • The use of creative-verification solutions to improve industry defenses
  • Industry initiatives like TAG’s Certified Against Malware program
  • Better coordination between publishers and ad platforms, which narrows the brief window of time that malvertisers have before their exploits are detected and removed. 

What challenges lie ahead? 

Even with these improvements, we found that one in every 200 impressions are marred by a serious security or quality issue. We also found that rates of malicious activity vary significantly based on the day of the week. Impressions served on Sunday are three times more likely to deliver a Malicious payload than those served on Thursday. 

Although we are seeing a decrease in malicious and In-banner video ads this quarter, security and quality issues continue to change and evolve. Our data identifies what’s on the rise and what publishers are monitoring and blocking in accordance with their business needs and expectations of their audience. The rate of ads that have audio on startup continue to be a top issue that publishers flag with 92% blocking them from their sites. We are also seeing a large increase of publishers blocking heavy ads (800kbs or higher), Audio on Click, and Audio on Hover. Lastly, Malicious ads remain a fairly concentrated problem, with over 50% of impressions coming from just five providers. 

It’s worth it

There are huge disparities in quality across top SSPs. Thus, it’s imperative that publishers thoroughly vet SSPs prior to integration and monitor them on an ongoing basis. Ad quality issues are often highly concentrated. So, an informed publisher can minimize user-experience issues by avoiding  poorly performing SSPs – often with little impact to monetization.

Industry-Research | Perspectives

The case for shifting CMO budgets from tech to creative services

Most marketers can agree that we’ve collectively reached the point of marketing technology saturation. Or at least diminishing returns on investment. After all, the ecosystem has grown from a few dozen martech vendors at the turn of the decade to more than 7,000 today, and tens of billions of dollars in annual spending. At the same time, advertising budgets have only grown by about five percent each year. So martech growth had to stabilize eventually, and a new study shows one way to squeeze more ROI from the CMO budget. 

The cost of losing creativity

In The Cost of Losing Creativity, Forrester Research makes an investment-based case for shifting dollars away from martech and into creative. Key takeaways are:

  • Martech Investments Are “Table-Stakes”: The proliferation of martech has resulted in a slew of homogenized brand experiences; technology is no longer a competitive differentiator
  • Creative-Fueled ROI Takes Time: More aggressive investment in the creative elements of the marketing operation will drive increased ROI but will require more than 24+ months to realize
  • A Team-Based Approach Is Required: There are too many moving parts in today’s marketing operation to handle strictly using in-house resources. So, CMOs have to partner with external specialists and other internal functions like the CIO and COO 

Implications for the digital media ecosystem

This kind of thinking bodes well for the marketing community en masse and has been ripe for at least a couple of years now. In many ways, it suggests that companies that focus on core marketing and communication tenets – ideas and the compelling presentation of those ideas – will win the day. 

For digital media in particular, this new research is consistent with themes we’ve been espousing, such as the appeal of premium publishers and personalization strategies. Elite platforms can take advantage of this movement by: 

  • Helping brands to understand the role of your unique channel to high value audiences, and how the medium used to deliver great ideas is as important as the ideas themselves
  • Providing creative support in the form of both unique packaging (online, events, co-sponsored research) and nuts-and-bolts design and production
  • Emphasizing ROI-based outcomes of campaigns and engagement; premium platforms cost more, but also deliver more

Forrester makes no bones about the fact that while a focus on creative capabilities and output will deliver superior ROI, it won’t happen overnight. This isn’t a quick fix. Publishers can put themselves in a position to ride this wave by helping to educate brands on the underlying proposition as well as articulating how premium platforms can play a role in the strategy. 

About the author

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

Industry-Research

Disinformation is profitable. That needs to change.

The business of publishing disinformation, inaccurate information spread purposefully and/or maliciously, is more profitable than ever according to a new study from the Global Disinformation Index (GDI). Analyzing website traffic and audience information from 20,000 domains it suspected of disinformation, GDI estimates the sites generated at least $235 million in ad revenue. GDI is a nonprofit that evaluates and rates websites’ risk of spreading disinformation.  

A fertile environment

The existence of disinformation predated the internet. However, social platforms offer a new level of amplification. Social media coupled with a programmatic marketplace provided the perfect environment for malevolent actors looking for reach, a target audience, and revenue.  

Ad-tech companies’ opaque practices make the environment even more attractive. Some connect buyers and sellers while others collect, aggregate, package and sell data. The result is a black box of operating systems. These shifts in the digital ecosystem offer a golden opportunity for marketers of fraud and disinformation. 

Focused approach

Disinformation actors rely on each another to amplify their messages. Interfering with one actor could potentially make it more difficult for the others to spread their disinformation. However, despite their inter-reliance, disinformation actors each have a distinct focus: 

  • State actors include governments as well as state-linked actors to spread inaccurate information and promote government propaganda. They are centralized actors using digital virality to amplify their message.  
  • Private influence operators are for-hire companies (e.g. Cambridge Analytica) that run commercial marketing and public relations campaigns that aim to disinform the public. They use targeted campaigns to identify a specific psychological, behavioral or politically affiliated audience to amplify their message. Their misleading and false content sites look professional. These ad-supported domains mimic traditional journalism. 
  • Grassroots trolls are individuals or groups that band together for a specific issue or cause. Their content and activities often focus on hate speech or try to push a false narrative. Their messaging often starts out on forums like 4chan or 8chan, move to other intermediate platforms like Reddit and then finally into mainstream media.  
  • Pure rent-seekers are all about clickbait. They churn out sensational disinformation to drive visitors (and bots) to click on their site in order to collect revenue. 

It’s not surprising that today’s digital marketplace offers an effective delivery system for disinformation actors. Unfortunately, the internet is filled with disinformation that is rapidly amplified via social media. And it is human nature to find drama attractive. Disinformation is loud content that demands our attention. It also claims advertising dollars in an efficient and expedited programmatic manner. As an industry, we need to de-incentivize disinformation actors by removing financial and amplification motivators.  

Industry-Research

Where are the world’s most loyal readers? Hint: It’s not North America

Publishers looking to understand how high reader engagement translates to long-term loyalty in 2019 should look no further than Northern Europe. For consecutive quarters this year, Northern European readers had the highest percentage of loyal pageviews compared to total pageviews, according to data compiled by Chartbeat. (A loyal reader is someone who returns to your site in at least 50% of days in a two-week period.)

We’ve documented how European publishers are experimenting with marketing to highly-engaged readers to take advantage of a short window to convert them to loyal subscribers.

However, the data shows that the Americas create more than enough engaging content that, by all accounts, should translate to higher loyalty figures. For example, readers in Latin America engaged with content for an average of 34.2 seconds, while those in North America engaged for 31 seconds.

What gives? Chartbeat’s second quarter international audience engagement insights indicate it could be emblematic of a broader industry trend: U.S. publishers finding it difficult to leverage strong reader engagement into revenue opportunities. 

More on global reader engagement data and trends from the past quarter below.

Africa and Asia drive mobile, social traffic

Mobile traffic has eclipsed desktop across the world, particularly in Africa*, where 77% of all pageviews are from mobile devices. This is closely followed by the Central Asia and Southeast Asia subregions, with 75% and 74% of pageviews coming from mobile, respectively.

Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East made up the greatest share in percent of all pageviews coming from social platforms, driven largely by their high use of Facebook.

By continent, the story remains largely the same as our subregion data. In Asia, 68% of pageviews in Asia come from mobile devices. This is followed by Europe and North America, where it is 61% and 60%, respectively.

Facebook dominates social referrals. The social giant drove over 4.5 billion pageviews for the past quarter. It’s trailed by Twitter, which was responsible for approximately 408 million referrals.

Asia leads referral traffic from search

Central Asia (28%) has the largest percentage of all pageviews coming from search engines, with China (26%) close behind.

Looking at search traffic across all Chartbeat publishers, Google leads by a wide margin at over 10.5 billion referrals this past quarter, according to Chartbeat data.

What this past quarter says about audience engagement

Our global audience engagement data gives publishers a snapshot into broader reader trends that supplement their long-term marketing strategies. Here’s a quick recap of the data:

Europe is loyal. Each of Europe’s subregions tracked by Chartbeat, led by Northern Europe, make up the globe’s most loyal readers. What does this mean? European paid readership models could be one of the first places to look as global publishers attempt to build revenue.

Africa and Asia are mobile (and social). This past quarter reminds us that content consumption via mobile devices is a global trend. Aggregators such as Google Chrome Suggestions and Flipboard are still serving as influential external referral sources. Shore up your mobile experience if you haven’t already done so. The high social referrals in these continents should also prompt publishers to identify regions that are driving social traffic. They should also evaluate whether they’re offering the right content to best engage these audiences.

The Americas are engaged. Readers in Latin America and North America are highly engaged with content. However, they fall on the lower end of the loyalty spectrum compared to the rest of the world. How publishers in the Americas bridge that gap will be key to their goals of unlocking more subscriptions revenue.

*Chartbeat’s dataset in Africa is not broken out by subregion to maintain data integrity
Advertising | Industry-Research

High quality content casts positive halo over ad perception

Over the last decade, behavioral advertising has become the dominant approach to digital media buying. Empowered by sophisticated data-driven targeting technology, advertisers have zeroed in on desirable audiences, tacitly assuming that context is of little relevance. Major adjacency scandals and other brand suitability mishaps have offered empirical evidence against this assumption since 2017.

Furthermore, media and data creation are now increasing at near exponential rates, compounding the challenges surrounding brand safety management. IDC estimates that annual data creation will nearly quadruple from 12ZB to 47ZB between 2015 and 2020. Much of this expansion is driven by a shift in media consumption habits, with the mobile share of time spent with media expected to take over TV at some point in 2019.

Research commissioned by Integral Ad Science (IAS) in partnership with Neuro-Insight, a global leader in neuroscience-based market research, highlights the impact of content over ad perception. Findings from the report showed that high quality sites produced significantly better engagement and memorability compared to low quality sites. More importantly, an ad running next to high quality content was perceived more favorably than when the same ad was viewed in a low-quality site.

The study measured the neurological reaction of participants during a 30-minute mobile experience across four key metrics: favorability, engagement, emotional intensity and long-term memory encoding. Each participant visited eight pre-selected mobile sites evenly split into high- and low-quality as defined by IAS’s proprietary brand risk score. (High quality sites include low brand risk properties and low quality sites include moderate brand risk properties. This excludes explicit adult and violent content.) Three ads from major brands spanning the auto, CPG, financial services, technology and retail industries were embedded into each site.

Quality content drives engagement

Consumers visiting sites deemed as high quality exhibited 20% higher engagement than on low quality sites. In other words, premium publishers were capable of delivering highly involved audiences, primed to engage with relevant advertisements of matching quality levels.

Publishers who offer high quality, engaging content and utilize the necessary verification tools to protect their advertisers’ reputations, stand to gain incremental media budgets over their competitors. Over half of US marketers plan to increase ad spend with partners who have taken steps to protect against brand risk specifically.

Higher quality, higher memorability

Findings from the report also showed that high quality sites produced 30% greater memorability, offering advertisers a more conducive environment for long term memory transfer.

Transference from short term to long term memory is key as it indicates brand breakthrough–i.e., brand recall. Brand recall correlates with decision making and purchase intent, thus increasing the likelihood of conversion among consumers. Wouldn’t your advertiser want to place their dollars against media that drives tangible results?

Same ad, different reaction

High quality content provided an engaging and memorable experience among consumers, thus casting a halo effect that positively influenced ad perception. Findings from the Halo Effect report show consumers perceived an ad seen on high quality sites 74% more favorably compared to the same ad running on low quality sites. Ads running were not only “liked less” when seen in low quality environments, they were actively disliked by the consumer.

You’re already producing high quality, premium content for your audience. Considering eight-in-ten US marketers plan to reduce spend with publishers who do not meet their expectations, it is crucial to make sure you have a clear brand safety strategy in place as well in order to maintain your contextual advantage. 

Featured Post | Industry-Research

Viacom dispels stereotypes and reveals actionable insights with its “Generations” study

As data and becomes more important for advertisers and other players in the ecosystem, media companies strive to provide more insights that illustrate their understanding of their audiences. One such company is Viacom, whose global insights team launched a research project this year called Generations.

The project includes videos that aim to dispel some stereotypes of Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Gen Z. “We’ve all heard the terms Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers,” begins a video introducing the research. “But what do you really know about these groups? A lot of what we think we know is based on opinions, assumptions or stereotypes, instead of real data.”

Insights for everyone

Research spanning generations is a broad topic. However, Colleen Fahey Rush, chief research officer at Viacom, said that the Generations project “helps our company and our partners to better understand how people of all age ranges and demographic groups see the world. Plus, they allow our brands and businesses to stay ahead of the trends to make sure the stories we tell are resonating with our audiences.”

The videos can be seen on Viacom’s website, though the company said it shares much more detailed research with advertisers, agencies, distribution companies, and other partners. “We see it as our mission to understand how our audiences see the world and how that affects their attitudes. This allows us to stay ahead of the curve and ensure that the content we create continues to resonate with our viewers,” said Rush.

Research that informs the business

Viacom, which owns Comedy Central, MTC, BET, CMT, and Nickelodeon, has done a number of large-scale studies, which have found emerging trends among its audiences around the world. “Viacom differentiates itself from other media and content companies with its longstanding legacy of data and insights, giving us a competitive advantage in the industry,” said Rush.

She added that Viacom also sees Generations as “one of the added benefits of collaborating with Viacom. We are committed to knowing our audiences and sharing that knowledge with partners.” This allows them to “craft messages, products and propositions together that best speak to consumers.”

A spokeswoman for Viacom said that Generations was conducted by Viacom’s Global Consumer Insights group, which is not exclusively tied to advertising sales. Therefore, the research is not solely focused on the needs of marketers, nor can the company quanity how it directly impacts ad sales. Viacom Velocity, which sits within Ad Solutions, is primarily responsible for driving the company’s Madison-Avenue related research.

This week, Viacom reported that ad sales rose 6% to $976 million in its most recent quarter, marking “the first growth in ad revenue for the home of MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central since the third quarter of 2014,” according to Ad Age.

Lessons to be learned

Viacom said that last year alone its research “connected with over 1.8 million kids, teens, young adults and adults through consumer insights, covering 79 countries globally, from Sweden to South Africa and Argentina to Australia.” 

Key takeaways from the Generations study include:

  • The stereotype in media and marketing is that Boomers are feeble grey-haired people living in retirement homes. “We know people are living much more active lives for longer than ever before,” according to a Generations video. Viacom also noted that the boomer stereotype that they’re all technically inept is false. In fact, many are much more tech-savvy than people realize.
  • As Gen Xers were growing up, new technology, communications, and cable TV channels like Viacom-owned MTV were spreading American culture around the world. The result is that Gen X a single global generation, with more cultural interests in common than previous generations.
  • According to Generations, the biggest misconception about Millennials is that they’re “lazy, no good for anything and that they’re spoiled,” according to Christian Kurz, SVP of Viacom’s Global Consumer Insights. Instead, he said, many don’t have much money, they’re very entrepreneurial, open-minded, and prospering in the face of adversity.
  • Born after 1997, Gen Z account for 25% of the U.S. population and 33% of the global population. By 2020, they will account for 40% of U.S. consumers. Since they are still growing up, Viacom said not much is known about them. However, they predict that events like climate change, Brexit, and the elections of Barack Obama and Donald Trump will surely impact their lives, the extent to which we don’t yet know. The Gen Z Generations video noted that growing up in an increasingly fractured world can lead to stress and anxiety. And, Viacom reports that Gen Z is the most diverse U.S. generation we’ve had yet.
About the author

Maureen Morrison is a writer and consultant, working with agencies, startups, publishers and brands on editorial strategies. She previously was a reporter and editor at Ad Age for 12 years, covering agencies, digital media, technology and marketers.

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