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Advertising | Marketing | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

A healthy advertising ecosystem begins with contextual suitability

The media industry is undergoing a massive transformation due to rapid technological disruption, changes in global privacy regulations, as well as increased audience fragmentation. Compounding these factors is the cookie deprecation, leaving brands and media buyers exploring new ways to place their messages in front of target audiences. 

To drive advertising campaign success, brands and media buyers need to holistically consider the ad experience while factoring in contextual suitability. 

Prioritizing contextual suitability

Contextual advertising, or the ability to optimize an environment with aligned messaging for maximum impact on target audiences, is arguably one of connected TV’s (CTV) most important capabilities. The ability to place ads in or around content with relevant messaging to leave a positive imprint on consumers strengthens both brands and publishers – if done correctly. 

Most buyers and marketers understand contextual advertising on a basic level. Consider a hospitality brand looking to attract young and trendy professionals. They may consider placing an ad in a TV episode which features a road trip or spring break vacation in its storyline. This is a great first step in building a relationship with its target audience – but it’s not the end. When it comes to the precise alignment of messaging with target audiences, you can’t speak about contextual suitability without mentioning brand suitability, and by extension, brand safety. 

The characteristics that make content suitable for a brand – or a brand suitable for the content – is totally subjective. A good place to start is a company’s mission and brand story. While programming with risqué content may be a fit for an adults-only resort, it may not be for another that boasts vacation packages for the whole family to enjoy. These types of guards are not only fair, but are recommended when it comes to protecting brand safety, and should be vetted with an advertising partner. The subject of contextual suitability and brand safety are especially important in these times when brands may want to shy away from any references to COVID-19 or divisive politics.

In this same vein, publishers have a vested interest in protecting their brand identity. This can inform their decision to work with certain advertising partners over others. Advanced television viewers continue to tune into programming from specific media companies, channels, and shows because they trust that the whole viewing experience will be tailored to their interests. Additionally, publishers need to ensure the execution of advertisements are cohesive, well-placed and run at the right frequency to keep viewers tuned in. 

Marketers should also refrain from thinking about content in silos. Unlike linear TV, advanced television allows media buyers to effectively buy audiences and not just a singular show. When marketers step back to get the full picture, they will begin to analyze the typical audience and viewing patterns of a show and use this data to better inform media buying strategies. 

When prioritizing contextual suitability, media buyers can opt to buy into a carefully selected list of shows or content metadata that has been tagged with specific keywords, as opposed to buying the full portfolio of a media property. Using the combination of audience and contextual targets allows both publishers and advertisers to connect at a deeper level. 

Keeping viewers tuned in

It is not a secret that the last couple of decades have introduced many new technological innovations that occupy our time and attention. However, therein lies advertisers’ dilemma. Imagine you’re watching a TV show, whether it be on demand, live, or on an ad-supported streaming service. When the show goes to break and the commercials begin, what do you do? Most likely, you fast-forward through them if you’re able, take a bathroom break, or divert your attention to your phone.

With so many ways to occupy our time, we spend it on what we consider to be enjoyable. Maximizing enjoyment and pleasure is something that marketers take into account when using contextual suitability to strategically place advertisements into content. When relevant ads are thoughtfully and strategically integrated into content, consumers will begin to engage with the ad as opposed to simply tolerating it. This is how advertisers can effectively contend with various distractions and devices that are also competing for its audience’s attention. 

Perhaps the most important element of any advertisement is the storytelling format, which can be specifically tailored by advertisers to fit the content. Depending on the given context of where the ad is being placed, advertisers are able to change the mechanisms of the narrative in order to maximize its relevance. For example, in news surrounding politics or global health, the message can be focused on supporting the organization delivering the content, reminding audiences that “we’re all in this together.” Advertisers also have a myriad of digital tools, such as QR codes, as well as psychology-backed formats that are proven to optimize and drive deeper engagement.

Driving a higher ROI

Due to advances in CTV technology in recent years, contextual suitability allows marketers to get the attention of high-value audiences where they want to be. Attention equals profit. But attention alone is not enough. A product needs to be seen in an optimal environment to leave a lasting and positive impression on target audiences. 

In order to capitalize on the advantages of contextual suitability, marketers need to work with advertising partners that can provide deep and holistic insight into target audiences. The status of today’s current media landscape calls for relevant and seamless ad experiences that resonate deeply with consumers. 

About the author

Mike Richter is the Vice President of Global Revenue Operations, at TMB, comprised of sales operations, ad operations, and programmatic revenue. TMB is a leading global media company that reaches hundreds of millions of consumers via our dynamic portfolio of media properties. He offers best-in-class insights and data-driven marketing solutions that reach engaged communities across food, home, lifestyle and wellness content.

Perspectives

DCN’s must reads: week of June 23, 2022

Here are some of the best media stories our team has read so far this week:

DCN’s must reads: week of June 16, 2022

Featured Post | Perspectives

One year later: Who won the pandemic newsletter boom

The newsletter gold rush is well under way. Media companies large and small are focused on their newsletter strategies. And the frontier towns of Substack, Revue and Ghost are packed with hopeful writers and journalists hoping to strike a rich vein of subscribers. But—as with real world gold rushes—there will be big winners and a wider array of also-rans, whose grand plans didn’t pan out.

Just as we are progressing from web2.0 to web3, the editorial newsletter has moved to the next level, driven in part by the emergence of integrated platforms. While the email inbox is still the destination for the final product, the ability to integrate sign-ups across social platforms and dedicated newsletter ad tools have propelled the medium to its next stage.

Between the development of those new tools and the recognition that completable, digestible news formats have value in the constantly updating nature of digital news, it’s small wonder that so much time and effort is being poured into newsletter strategy. And, driven in part by the pandemic, last year saw a raft of newspapers and magazines doubling down on newsletters for community development and revenue purposes.

The revenue models

Paid subscriptions to Substack’s newsletters exploded to more than one million late last year. Mid-2019, that number was closer to 50,000. And it isn’t just the newsletter platforms that have reaped the benefits of a bumper year for sign-ups.

The New York Times, which has around 17 million subscribers to its newsletters, announced last year that it is to make a third of those subscriber-only. Its decision around which were to be paid-for products was based largely on which newsletters it saw as being better for discovery and which had revenue potential. Its editorial director of newsletters Adam Pasick attributed that potential to growth in newsletter sign-ups from people desperate for news about the pandemic and the U.S. election.

Of course The New York Times is not alone. Organizations like The Financial Times and Axios also so their investment in newsletters pay off during the pandemic.

Perhaps the best measure of the maturation of the space is the level of experimentation that has gone into newsletter revenue strategies. Mel Magazine, buoyed by subscription success, launched a trio of paid-for newsletters in March 2021. In January of this year, the newsletter Dirt launched DirtDAO which allows its subscribers to use branded NFTs to vote on and commission stories for its writers.

On the other end of the scale, the Manchester Mill is a local newsletter published to a few thousand people in a Northern UK town. Its founder Joshi Hermann told me that 2020 and 2021 outpaced his expectations for signups: “In the first year, we’ve picked up just over 1000, which is really promising, probably slightly more than I expected given the notorious difficulty of building up subscriptions in the first place for massive content and stuff. So, I’m really delighted with that.”

Beyond paid-for newsletters, ad-supported formats are increasingly popular. Andreas Jürgensen, CEO and co-founder of newsletter ad platform Passendo, said: “There’s… a whole resurgence of publishers who are email first, and are basically building strategies around email. Then web becomes secondary, or might not even exist in the mix for them. These guys have seen the light, in regards to this as a trusted channel of the future.”

But that gold rush can’t last forever. There is increased competition amid a range of newly launched newsletters from individuals and newspapers alike. With a potential impending economic crunch, sponsors and advertisers will have to cut spend, and the public won’t necessarily prioritize newsletters. So while publications might be looking to newsletters for post-Covid revenue growth, they will have to contend with growing headwinds.

However, as bad as that might be for major publishers, it will be far worse for individual newsletter creators.

Squashed by the giants

Larger publications have the resources to keep newsletters going through a slump or take the time to transition the strategy, such as for discovery over direct revenue. Individuals who have launched newsletters will be first to feel the pinch.

Neal Freyman is managing editor of Morning Brew, which preempted much of the discussion around newsletters as an editorial product when it launched in 2017. He explains: “I think it was a bit of a pandemic blip kind of thing, as we’re seeing a lot of the pandemic winners kind of fall back to Earth.

“It’s an insane amount of work to put out a newsletter every day. So, I do think you’ll see the level of individual newsletter creators fall back down to earth and realize that you know, a support system is really needed. You might see some of these writer collectives start forming, but then you’re basically looking back at a media company, again, with sales and all that.”

One early piece of evidence for that was the closure of a long-running freelancer-focused newsletter in the UK. In the announcement, the sole creator Anna Codrea-Rado noted: “There are lots of reasons for this difficult decision, but they can be summed up quite simply: it’s just not working. Most pressingly, the maths doesn’t add up anymore. The number of paying subscribers isn’t high enough to make this one-woman newsletter business sustainable anymore.”

Some of that pressure comes from the fact that the majority of consumers who choose to be informed through newsletters signed up via major publications rather than individuals. According to the latest Digital News Report only 16% of that cohort are signed up to newsletters run by individuals. Meanwhile, 53% are signed up via “mainstream media organizations.”

The Report also notes that, to some extent, the newsletter boom is a US-centric trend: “The ‘Substack revolution’ for news is still primarily a U.S. phenomenon and it is not guaranteed to catch on elsewhere, especially given the difference in market size and context.” It is notable that most of the non-U.S .publications that launched paid-for newsletters did so with modest aspirations in terms of subscribers: Mel Magazine’s three paid-for newsletters had a goal of 10,000 subscribers within their first six months.

The outlook for individual-based newsletters, then, is iffy and exposed to volatility in the wider economy. But for bigger publications, newsletters are set to retain their primacy as a tool to entice readers into their ecosystems. There might the massive market for subscription newsletters the industry might hope fore. However, newsletters still offer unmatched value as a way to connect with audiences and add value for subscribers.

Perspectives | Revenue | Supporter Spotlight

Most paid subscriptions are for streaming services. Learn how they win customers

In a recent survey about the impacts of the pandemic and the overall sentiment of U.S. subscribers, Recurly found that 87% of respondents have a subscription to at least one streaming video service and 46% have a subscription to at least one streaming audio service. The increasing ubiquity of streaming subscription services leaves little to question about their popularity among consumers, particularly the Gen Z and Millennial generations. In order to rank among the highest-rated streaming subscription services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+, it’s important for subscription businesses to understand consumer behaviors and motivations that promote retention and preserve subscriber loyalty. 

In this article, you’ll learn how streaming subscription services and changing consumer habits have existed harmoniously and how they continue to thrive in an economy captivated by recurring revenue businesses.

Streaming service industry trends

At the core of any successful subscription offering is the subscriber experience, and an ideal subscriber experience starts with studying subscriber wants and needs for informed decision-making. One of the most important survey results concludes that consumers subscribe to goods and services because of brand preference, access to discounts as subscribers, help to manage a budget, and more. However, the prevailing motivation is content, and not just any content – exclusive content, as well as value and convenience. 

Our survey results reveal that 40% of consumers rank exclusive access to content or services as the main reason for signing up for a subscription service. Unlike a box of the month, streaming subscription services may give subscribers special access to coveted content such as a highly anticipated series or film. When consumers evaluate a purchase, they consider the value they will receive in exchange for a recurring payment. In this case, the value of a streaming subscription service is presented in the form of content, and the more exclusive the content is, the higher the value is to the subscriber.

How consumer sentiment affects demand

As a consequence of the pandemic, 91% of U.S. consumers are concerned about inflation and its impact on the cost of goods and services. Coupled with the recent news of Netflix losing 200,000 subscribers, many streaming subscription services are struggling to get a grasp on subscriber churn. However, despite climbing costs and unpredictable consumer behaviors, 68% of consumers still signed up for another streaming video service and 31% signed up for another streaming audio service in the last year. Furthermore, the same subscribers expect to use streaming video (78%) and streaming audio (36%) subscriptions the most this year.

Pertinent value remains a strong factor in subscribers’ purchasing decisions. For streaming services, this is an opportunity on which to capitalize. From promotions and free trials to the freedom to pause as a subscriber, streaming subscription services can strategically adapt to developing consumer behavior trends via stronger value manifestations. Rising costs may be inevitable, but how these changes are packaged and delivered plays a vital role in influencing consumer perceptions of your business. 

The smartest streaming subscription services don’t let value decline as the pandemic shifts the economy. Instead, they create value in novel ways. Recommended content and complementary goods and services in new forms are just a couple of ways to retain subscribers and remind them of the value they receive from your streaming subscription service.

A change in consumer expectations

Nowadays, with just a few simple clicks to manage an account, streaming subscription services have proven that convenience is more impactful to the subscriber journey than many initially thought. While traditional subscription convenience is typically defined as routine home deliveries, in the streaming space, convenience can also refer to the ease of setting up, changing, or canceling a subscription. 

A majority of survey respondents (62%) value this accessibility when considering a new subscription. Streaming subscription services, which are largely self-managed by the subscriber, make account changes as easy as possible – an intelligent response to changing behaviors and motivations. As a result, the subscriber experience faces little disruption. These considerations should extend into thoughtful dunning strategies and even the renewal or cancellation experiences for a seamless ordeal throughout the journey. While the decision to continue with a subscription is ultimately in the hands of the customer, the touchpoints throughout any subscriber journey contribute to the overall perception of a service.

The success of streaming subscription services

Streaming subscription services are one of the few businesses that can repeatedly present exclusive content as its main value driver. From a consumer’s perspective, this is one of the most enticing reasons to subscribe to a service, alongside relevant value and flexibility. Undoubtedly, streaming media subscriptions have a competitive advantage over their counterparts, and that edge only remains intact when the subscriber is placed at the center of a thoughtfully planned customer journey.

About the author

Theresa Mcendree is the Chief Marketing Officer at Recurly, a subscription management and billing platform that maximizes subscriber lifetime value with expertise, technology, and insights for global brands.

Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Multichannel experience: the key to surviving the media attention recession

The pandemic saw a historically high surge in media consumption and media audience growth. However, data heading into 2022 painted a bleaker picture. After two years of easy wins in the attention economy, media companies now face an attention recession. 

Getting it right in the attention recession 

Today, we face a difficult environment for media companies to prosper. That said, a few companies are getting it right and provide valuable lessons. The New York Times is one of them. The NYT managed to harness the temporary surge in media consumption and direct it into unprecedented growth for its new subscription services. While it has long been a leader in capturing subscriptions, the NYT was able to take the boom of the last two years and build upon it as part of a long-term revenue strategy. 

The key to their success? An ambitious and high-quality multichannel strategy. The NYT didn’t just farm its audience’s surging interest for clicks and ad revenue. Instead, it created a unique brand connection by remaking their product offering into a complete, multichannel media experience. They added new subscription services for games, cooking, sports and more and evolved the brand into a kind of one-stop shop for media engagement. 

And while The New York Times’ success stands out, it is also replicable. Media companies simply need to apply the core lesson: Gone are the days when customer attention was cheap and easily won with ad spend. Instead, the products that will drive revenue in the future will deliver a multi-or omnichannel experience that creates unique, differentiated value for the consumer.

Building for that kind of experience for your audience might seem daunting. But it can be done. 

Valuing customer’s attention

It starts with constructing a revenue model that values your customer’s attention as much as they value it themselves. Too many media companies are afraid to transition to premium content providers. They worry if they develop content consumers have to pay for, they’ll be left behind for whoever can afford not to set up a paywall. 

But that fear is misguided. Time and time again, consumers have shown they are more than willing to pay. However, they have to feel they are paying for something worthwhile. Most value their time, and the quality of how they spend it, more than they value saving a few bucks per month. 

So, don’t be afraid of the subscription model. Instead, focus on developing the kind of unique, premium content that makes a subscription worthwhile.

Creating strong customer relationships

That said, embracing the subscription model won’t be enough if consumers don’t feel connected to your brand. There’s just no getting around it: Strong customer relationships matter. Seventy-six percent of consumers say they would buy from a brand they feel connected to over any competitor. To succeed, you need to be more than just a content provider; you need to become a brand that customers feel connection and loyalty toward.

Creating that brand connection is one of the key components of today’s omnichannel experience. Almost three-quarters of consumers already use multiple channels when interacting with brands. Each channel presents the consumer with a swarm of touchpoints with your brand; you need to be reaching them across each one, and weaving a coherent brand story and image into each of those touchpoint encounters.

Exceptional customer experience is key

Finally, a key takeaway for any media company is to optimize for customer experience and not just views. In today’s media ecosystem, plenty of consumers are experiencing digital fatigue with how their attention is used and abused. Media consumers aren’t just downshifting their consumption patterns; they’re overloaded and overwhelmed. 

Attention-grabbing tactics won’t work any longer, and consumers are getting tired of clickbait. You want to optimize, not for views and clicks, but for a daily habit of interaction. Getting there starts with a media experience that can be enjoyed daily. And that starts with creating an owned media content experience that is high-quality and differentiated. 

Consumers today constantly engage with a wide array of digital products and services across multiple channels, devices, and platforms. Compelling customer experiences that leverage multi-channel engagement can build lasting, continuous relationships with consumers. And these relationships will form the backbone of revenue streams that will outlive the attention recession. 

About the author

Chris Hansen is the Senior Vice President of Communication, Media, and Technology at 3Pillar Global. 

Perspectives

The critical role of data clean rooms in today’s digital ad ecosystem

The disappearance of third-party cookies and identifiers is reshaping digital advertising as we have come to know it. Add regulatory requirements related to personal data processing into the mix with evolving user attitudes toward advertising targeting and we have a challenge on our hands. Thus, publishers and advertisers must rapidly transform to continue to understand audiences, personalize content and ads, maintain the monetization, and preserve and measure the profitability of their investments. Luckily, there are already solutions to help meet these challenges.

The first possible solution relies on taking full advantage of first-party data. However, in the context of collaborative use cases, concerns related to security, privacy, and confidentiality beyond the technical limitations linked to their sharing remain. So, how can an advertiser enrich, share, or activate its data on external sites without risk? How can a publisher make its data available to an advertiser for audience extension outside its proprietary environments? Data clean rooms provide one possible solution.

What are data clean rooms?

Data clean rooms are platforms that allow advertisers and publishers to compare their proprietary data without one party having direct access to the other’s data. More concretely, the different stakeholders have access to a secure, virtual environment in which their data is matched with others’ data. Even if none of the participants has direct access to the data, the results of these “matches” allow them to enrich their understanding of their audiences, refine their segmentation and activate this data — safely and on a large scale. Without cookies and complex integration into the existing technology stack, this is done automatically.

It is important to note that each player remains in control of their data and can change their settings. Participants specify who can access the virtual room, which data is accessible and activatable, and over what period.

Targeting and activation capabilities of walled gardens on the open web

Data clean rooms are not new. They have already contributed to the success of online platforms operating in walled gardens. Web giants like social media networks who have amassed massive repositories of first-party data with the aim of giving advertisers a way to reach users behind their wall. 

As our industry enters a privacy-centric era, driven by more data regulation and advances in technology, we’re quickly seeing interest in data clean room capabilities spread across the open web. 

For content and service publishers, this technology represents an opportunity to offer data similar to walled gardens, increase the value of their inventories, and win back market share. In addition, advertisers can benefit from the same targeting (precision and volume) and activation (retargeting and prospecting) capabilities offered by the major platforms in premium and brand-safe environments.

Better data activation

A collaborative data strategy – one that is based on first-party data – allows advertisers to manage their advertising investments in a secure, privacy-conscious way and ultimately achieve  better results. To optimize their budgets and increase the performance of campaigns, advertisers need to understand their audiences in detail while respecting the confidentiality of personal data. To do this, the use of their proprietary data is an essential first step. Second, advertisers and publishers must seek to  enrich this data with similar and/or complementary audiences. For example, to communicate with car enthusiasts, a car manufacturer is interested in combining its own data with a publisher whose car section attracts a large audience or specializes in topics related to bank loans.

The most common uses of data clean rooms are to retarget users and increase the reach of a campaign. In the first case, the advertiser’s data is compared with a publisher’s to retarget everyday users. Machine learning and predictive analytics technologies built into the data clean room model the two parties’ data using a “lookalike” or “statistical twin” method. This method creates new prospecting opportunities as the advertiser can find new audiences with similar behavior to existing targets.

The use of data clean rooms is a win-win approach for all stakeholders. However, data clean rooms require a sufficient volume of data and an independent and reliable technological partner. 

The bottom line is this: the digital advertising industry is being reshaped and rebuilt. It’s a new world where no one approach will suffice. Only a portfolio approach that is made up of multiple solutions – clean room data matching, first-party data, persistent IDs, contextual targeting, etc. – will ensure success without third-party cookies. 

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Perspectives

How media brands are honoring Juneteenth this year

DCN is proud to support our members and the health of the digital media industry overall. Thus, we are pleased to share some of the incredible work our members and other media companies are doing to recognize Juneteenth and its cultural significance in the American experience.

·       Adweek | Dear Marketers: Don’t Profit From Juneteenth

·   Adweek |  In MTV Entertainment Group’s Juneteenth Spot, a Black Creator Subverts Common Media Imagery

·       BET | Juneteenth 2022: The Most Blackity-Black Black Guide For This Year’s Festivities

·       CBSNews.com | “Grandmother of Juneteenth” Opal Lee reflects on her journey to secure a national
holiday

·       Chicago Tribune | Cake, cobbler and cocktails: Black-owned businesses across Chicago gear up for
Juneteenth

·       CNET | Juneteenth 2022: How the Holiday Is Observed and 6 Ways You Can Celebrate It

·       CNN | Ways to celebrate and serve Juneteenth

·    Digiday | Vice, The New York Times join other publishers in making Juneteenth a company holiday

·       Economic Times | Juneteenth is now an official holiday in the U.S: What is its significance, and importance? Why is it called Juneteenth?

·       MediaPost | Hearst Interview Series Timed To Juneteenth Features Leading Black Thought Leaders

     ·    MediaPost | Marketing Daily: The Juneteenth Wake-Up Call: Why Brands Still Get It Wrong

·       NBC4 Washington | Celebrating Juneteenth in the DC Area: 2022 Events and Observances

·       The New York Times | So You Want to Learn About Juneteenth?

·       The Root | 7 Books to Help Teach Kids About Juneteenth

·       The Root | Days Before Juneteenth, State Leaders Make Call For Reparations

·       The Root | Why One Man Sees The Need To Trademark Juneteenth In Order To Protect Black Culture

·       The Washington Post | How to celebrate Juneteenth in the D.C. area

·       Thrillist | 12 Ways To Celebrate Juneteenth In NYC This Year

·       USA TODAY | ‘What does it mean to be freed?’: How parents are teaching their children about
Juneteenth

·       Vox | Juneteenth isn’t just a celebration of freedom. It’s a monument to America’s failures.

·       Vox | Vox and Capital B announce partnership for a new editorial initiative examining
Juneteenth

Perspectives

DCN’s must reads: week of June 16, 2022

Here are some of the best media stories our team has read so far this week:

DCN’s must reads: week of June 9, 2022

Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

How to drive registered users to become paid subscribers

Getting a user to register is far easier than getting a user to pay—users shown a registration offer have a 1.69% median conversion rate, vs. 0.26% for a paid subscription offer.

The good news is that registered users are more likely to become subscribers. But it can take some time for them to convert. The best practices below can help you attract more registrants and ultimately push them down the funnel to become paid subscribers.

Asking the right users to register

The first thing to recognize is that a registration offer may not be the right path for all user segments. So publishers must be strategic on how to segment audiences and determine who to convert quickly as registered users, vs. those who should only see the paid subscription offer.

Email is the leading referrer when it comes to acquiring subscribers, according to Piano data, which validates the registration experience for anonymous users who are coming from lower-performing referral sources (search, social, etc.). Those coming from email could be more apt to convert, so you might show them a paid subscription offer right away. However, you should consider introducing a guest pass or trial for users who arrive on-site from lower-performing referral sources.

Another way to segment the appropriate users to show a registration offer is algorithmically, or through machine learning. If you can determine a user’s likelihood to subscribe, you can ask those who aren’t as likely to instead register. It’s a common “first ask” in the customer journey and a solid tactic to engage the user with your publication and content.

Converting registered users to paid subscribers

When you do get someone to register, how do you keep them engaged and ultimately to become a paid subscriber? It’s not uncommon to wonder whether registered users will ever subscribe, but a smart strategy can ensure that the registration experience does not impact your conversion rates for users who are more likely to become a subscriber.

Some users convert quickly on their first day or first week as a registered users, but many more users will take a month or more to become paid subscribers. These numbers can help you model potential subscriber growth over time.

Some tactics you might implement to encourage paid subscription include:

Collect first-party data

By analyzing your registered user group, define how many have hit a content lock and have not subscribed. Do they warrant a different journey? There are always going to be users that just won’t pay, so collecting more first-party data to build those users’ profiles can help you tap into more advertising opportunities and generate revenue outside of subscriptions.

Make a ‘“crazy” offer

Offer a great deal at a steep discount because it just might be an offer your audience can’t refuse. Not all users will warrant this offer. However, by segmenting those that visit often but never subscribe, this may push them across the conversion “finish line.”

Target logged-in no-access users

Running promotions outside of your content lock is a good tactic to target users who are logged-in but aren’t subscribed to your site. Less intrusive on-site messaging can show users an offer while they’re reading “free content.”

A few more registration best practices

Whatever your strategy or how a user registered, treating registered users the right way will help lift conversion rates:

Create a clear value exchange

Whenever possible, connect the registration to the user benefit. It’s not just about registering, but becoming a member, getting these exclusive benefits, getting something tangible in exchange for providing your information. This messaging tends to increase conversion rate and make user consent more likely.

Minimize friction

Utilize email-only registration or social signups for ease of registration and collect additional information over time. You might consider a passwordless initial option to get users in the door, then you can capture other data later on in the user journey.

Be transparent

If you are collecting additional information, tell the user how you’ll use it and what the benefit is for them. For example, don’t just use their email address for ongoing subscriber acquisition emails. Give them something they want and will engage with, like an email newsletter.

Treat registered users like customers

It may take time, but registered users are likely to subscribe, so treat them as you would a valued customer. Create an onboarding experience for registered users as you would for a new subscriber.  Encourage engagement, highlight user benefits and provide relevant content recommendations.

A registration experience can unlock a lot of additional value for your publication, but only if you proceed with caution so you don’t impact your existing paid subscription offer. Treating these users like customers with a clear value exchange will ultimately help audiences cross the finish line to become paid subscribers.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Why publishers need to get taxonomies right to succeed

Taxonomies have long been a not-so-sexy – but totally important – part of our industry. They help bridge the buy and sell sides of digital advertising through a common standard. As a concept in the digital ad world, they refer to naming conventions or “naming groups” that apply structure to groups of data such as audiences or content. For publishers, correctly mapped taxonomies lead to increased buyer opportunities and an improved user experience for those reading their content. For buyers, they can enjoy better brand safety and brand relevance.

The importance of taxonomies today and in the future

Recent developments have put a renewed importance on the accuracy and robustness of taxonomies, as well as the ease of the data flow from seller to buyer. As has been well documented, we are living in an era where user identifiers are being removed from the digital advertising ecosystem. From cookies to MAIDs, the audience targeting capabilities cherished (and sometimes abused) by the buy-side are slowly – but surely – slipping away.

Some Advertisers and Publishers are looking to newer solutions, such as clean rooms and identity solution partners, to express their targeting. But questions remain about how to securely and accurately communicate those identifiers down the chain. So, others are investing in contextual data as a targeting methodology.

Whatever the targeting method, advertisers and publishers need a way to speak the same language so that advertisers know what they’re buying, and publishers can accurately package and sell their content.

IAB taxonomies

Having standardization in programmatic has always been important. Standards are what helped drive programmatic ad spend to $100billion+ annual industry in the United States. That’s why the taxonomies offered by the IAB have long been a staple of our industry. These can be broadly bundled into three sections: content, audience, and the ad product taxonomies (the product being sold within the ads). The IAB taxonomy with the widest adoption is content categories, boasting strong support among both publishers and demand side partners (DSPs) alike.

As we (at ArcSpan) have experienced first-hand, [publishers are now putting more emphasis on the accuracy and breadth of IAB content taxonomy, as many see contextual targeting as a way to “bridge the gap” until they can accurately – and safely – pass first party audiences through to buyers again.

Having previously worked as a trader on the buy-side, I’ve run campaigns then compared the performance of targeting third party content taxonomies vs the IAB taxonomies. On a CPM basis, the IAB would typically perform better (which makes sense, given the third parties charge a fee). However, third-party vendors often yielded stronger engagement.

This might be chalked up to the fact that publishers sometimes mislabel their content. This is an easy mistake to make, given content is constantly updating and ensuring categorization is accurate can often be an arduous, manual process. However, buttoned up publishers will reap the rewards, especially given the renewed importance of addressability without third party cookies.

Google taxonomies

Another argument for the renewed importance of the IAB content categories is that Google has integrated them in their Topics API functionality. For those that are unaware, Topics is Google’s approach to targeting once cookies are deprecated. Within Topics, a user is assigned three topics for targeting purposes in Google’s Chrome browser, and these topics are then passed downstream to the buyer for targeting. Although some see this as a behaviorally-driven approach, the actual set of topics used will be pulled from both the IAB content taxonomy and Google’s own audience taxonomy.

Seller Defined Audiences

Finally, I’d be remiss to not mention the very buzzy topic of “Seller Defined Audiences.” These audiences not only leverage the IAB taxonomies, they also require a publisher to pass first party addressable identifiers into the bid stream.

Publishers may initially hesitate to adopt this strategy, as they don’t want their valuable first party data being scraped by bad-actor vendors. However, this approach, although not yet widely adopted, will be one to watch, as it’s an important concept for both publishers and advertisers.

Beyond the IAB

Even within the adtech industry, the idea of taxonomies doesn’t stop with IAB content categories. There are numerous types of vendors within AdTech that have their own taxonomies. For example, advertisers and publishers alike might have their own, customized taxonomies. A common use case for a custom taxonomy would be when the IAB or Google taxonomies aren’t granular enough to capture the content an advertiser wants to target, or that the publisher is looking to surface.

If a publisher has nuanced, but seemingly high-value segment of content that they want to offer to buyers, they will need to go beyond the IAB’s categorization and offer their own custom categories to buyers. Take, for example, Trusted Media Brands: they recorded 110% growth in 202,1 due in part to their overhauled taxonomy, to focusing on better insights for buyers. Likewise, advertisers’ needs are constantly evolving, so certain advertisers have their own custom taxonomies.

As a final point on the topic of taxonomies: in this article I’ve spoken mostly about taxonomies as it relates to web-based buying. While this is certainly the most developed area here, other taxonomies do exist. For example, both mobile in-app and CTV employ custom taxonomies but it’s a bit more difficult to understand content in these environments, as standardization is harder to achieve in CTV and in-app environments.

Invest now

Given the dynamic nature of content, ensuring the heath of both publisher and advertiser taxonomies will require some level of investment. Ideally, the process of creation and updating said taxonomies would be automated and scaled, either by investing in an in-house team or outsourcing to industry experts.

We’ve seen some publishers are going even further by combining their correctly mapped taxonomies with behavioral audiences for advanced segmentation, then serving it to buyers via deals or passed via Open RTB in a seller defined audience. Either way, developing deep taxonomies now will benefit publishers now, and in the future, as buyers look to replace the granular targeting methods they once had with cookies.

Perspectives

DCN’s must reads: week of June 9, 2022

Here are some of the best media stories our team has read so far this week:

DCN’s must reads: week of June 2, 2022

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Publishers hold a strong hand for the future of advertising; now they must play it wisely

Concerns around consumers’ online privacy, particularly how businesses can collect, store, and utilize consumer data, have captured regulators’ attention. The resulting regulations are causing platform-level changes that will force the advertising ecosystem—and the adtech that supports it—to evolve and be more responsible with consumers’ data. The good news is that publishers have long had benefit of their close, trust-based relationship with consumers. If well-managed and wisely leveraged, this gives them a data-advantage in the evolving ecosystem.

Certainly, when platforms such as Google, Apple, and Facebook address their data practices, it impacts the entire ecosystem. The cookie-blocking changes that Apple has made in Safari and the anti-tracking movement across its app ecosystem are already having a significant impact on how advertisers track and target consumers with relevant ads.

In April of this year, Google reengineered the consent pop-up message throughout Europe to make it equally easy for users to “reject all” cookies as it is to “accept all.” As a result, some publishers have seen a 55% opt-out rate. As this opt-out culture among consumers grows across regions, including the U.S., publisher data becomes even more valuable. Eventually, we will see a global shift toward data privacy that prioritizes user consent.

User opt-in is key

Much of the advertising industry debate to date has focused on the upcoming deprecation of third-party cookies, However, the issues around consumers opting out of sharing data for advertising purposes are much broader and require urgent consideration. This is significant for the entire adtech community, advertisers and publishers. When a consumer hits “reject all,” the ad tech that support programmatic advertising—targeting in particular—stops working.

We have already seen with Apple ATT that over half of iOS users opted out of being tracked by apps and marketers when presented with the choice. This, coupled with the opt-out rate publishers are experiencing in Europe, demonstrates that consumers are actively controlling what data they share with companies.

The next era of ad tech is about user opt-in. Meta has recognized this too. The recent Meta breach, which suggests their ad business is likely non-compliant with GDPR and upcoming privacy regulations, shows that walled gardens aren’t immune from the impact of privacy regulation despite being closed ecosystems.

The regulatory requirement is full oversight and understanding of the data within these walls and enforcing users’ preferences. It’s why publisher data, made up of contextual and audience first-party signals, becomes an extremely valuable commodity in advertising. 

The value of publisher data

Advertisers will find the most effective way to reach customers is by working with publishers who have and can continue to collect first-party data, plus contextual insights that are not impacted by consent.

These include behavioral signals, such as time of day, clicks, scrolling, and video engagement, which are gathered when a user browses a web page; and contextual data, through the content being consumed and metadata, such as locations searched, description, topics, and keywords. Publishers can also gather insights from declared data, which is provided directly to a publisher by users and subscribers, data such as the purpose of visiting, industry, or preferences about certain topics or content.

In this ecosystem, publisher first-party data increases in value because it provides advertisers with the opportunity to target consumers based on consented data and contextual insights. Publishers that recognize the value of their data assets and educate advertisers on what’s possible and privacy-compliant can unlock new, sustainable revenue opportunities.

Fortunately, we are already experiencing a move from the open to a more direct relationship between the buy- and sell-side. When publishers and advertisers work closer together and view adtech as an enabler rather than an intermediary, they can responsibly activate audiences.

Moving forward responsibly

The current disruption we see has always been about more than third-party cookies; it’s about the demand for consumer privacy. Going forward, the ability to track and enforce user consent of first-party data at a granular level can’t just be a bolt-on–it must be treated with the highest importance. When publishers and advertisers work together and build direct relationships, they are in control of how audience data is used, be it for insights, activation, or collaboration. Adtech provides the tools to foster collaboration with controls and permissions. When this happens, publishers regain their place in the advertising ecosystem and the industry moves to a more responsible web. 

About the author

Katie Millington is the Head of North America Publisher Sales for Permutive. In her current role, she is responsible for leading Permutive’s North American Publisher Sales Team. Katie has previously held roles at the likes of Vox Media and Mediacom and has a decade of experience in the digital media industry. An agent for change, Katie is driven by innovative technologies that disrupt the status quo, evident in her background as an early proponent of publisher first-party data and programmatic advertising

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