All forms of digital video advertising are growing rapidly. According to the IAB, the digital video channel has grown over 50% since last year. This is largely being driven by the surge of users who are now enjoying a variety of streaming and digital video offerings online, with CTV being the most recent beneficiary. And with Nextflix planning to get in on the game with an AVOD offering, this space is only going to get hotter.
Brands hoping to reach these audiences are spending more than ever. But continued growth relies on transparency and measurement becoming a core pillar of how these channels operate. Publishers looking to capture higher CPMs and brands seeking increased exposure through CTV and video must advance measurement efforts to improve optimization opportunities and performance.
Online video measurement shows the path CTV must take
Some progress has been made on the measurement front. Through VAST, and later VPAID and Open Measurement development, new measurement standards and tools have become available that improve performance and revenue. While there is still more work to be done, it’s clear that measurement has helped this channel mature to drive results for buyers and sellers.
The measurement challenges for CTV are not new. As we’ve seen with online video over the past decade, measurability improvements have led to ad performance gains over time, benefiting buyers and sellers alike. If history were to repeat itself, publishers benefit most when they expand their tech stack and data tools to benefit from improved measurement as it becomes available.
CTV limitations highlight opportunity for publisher adoption
While millions of users flock to CTV, the industry is building out the required infrastructure to ensure additional advertising inflows. One of these has been particularly difficult to implement: viewability.
VPAID, which enables viewability measurement in online video, is still not fully adopted by the industry. Less than 40% of desktop and mobile impressions support VPAID and it is not supported at all on CTV, mostly due to its own limitations that the industry wants to move away from. New standards for viewability such as Open Measurement are not yet supportive of CTV as a channel. We’re working on this, through tools like Fully On-Screen measurement, which is designed to help buyers more roughly understand whether their ads are actually being seen. However, is more work to be done before brands feel comfortable moving large portions of their budgets to CTV.
Case Study: How audibility and viewability work together to improve ad recall and brand awareness
As just one example to illustrate how measurement advances can benefit the industry, let’s look into the case of audibility measurement for video advertising. A Google study based on YouTube indicated that an audible and viewable ad saw a 1.6x improvement in brand awareness over an ad that is only viewable, and a 3.8x improvement over an ad that is only audible.
Given these results and what we’re hearing from clients, we’ve learned how audibility measurement can improve publisher revenue when it’s properly taken into account and optimized against. By expanding access to these metrics in alongside CTV metrics such as fully on-screen insights, buyers and sellers can expand the shared language of data that accomplishes performance and revenue goals.
In these nascent stages of measurement innovation on new channels, publishers have an opportunity to provide value to brands looking to feel more secure in their ad spend. Whether it’s through fully on-screen measurement, audibility or other metrics, publishers can begin optimizing performance today.
In DoubleVerify’s work with advertisers and publishers, we are developing more video-level transparency for toolkits on both sides of the industry. Since standardization is set to follow new measurement technology, buyers will look to these tools as a way of measuring KPIs. Instead of waiting for this to take place, proactive teams can use these tools to improve ad quality and performance before the competition.
A mid-sized digital media outlet dropping its paywall is not usually the stuff of national news. But when Quartz, the digital business outlet, scrapped its paywall earlier this month, the move was promptly written up in the New York Times. What gives?
The degree of attention paid to Quartz’s decision has something to do with the media environment of the moment. As we’ve written aboutmore than once, digital subscriptions are on the rise across the industry, boosting profits for everyone from the New York Times to local papers in Buffalo and St. Louis.
Still, while subscriptions are generally trending upwards, nothing in the media industry stays static. In fact, just a few weeks later, Quartz announced it had been acquired by G/O Media, whose suite of sites is unpaywalled. It’s possible Quartz was just getting in line with its soon-to-be owner. It’s also possible that it is suggestive of a trend. Either way, it might be worth it to take a step back, assess your current paywall policy, and explore other methods of expanding your revenue strategy.
The power of community
In recent years, the rise in paywalls has grown in tandem with another trend: a renewed interest in community on the part of publishers.
The focus makes sense. Even the biggest publishers—outlets that receive tens of millions of visits per day—see only a fraction of the traffic of the big social platforms. On the internet, it seems, there’s no bigger draw than conversation. Give people a place to be heard, to connect with like-minded individuals, and they will repay you with regular visits: this is one of the main lessons of Web 2.0. It’s no surprise that publishers would want to siphon some of that energy for themselves.
For publishers looking to beef up their owned communities, a fully-paywalled site can be a complex proposition.
On the one hand, people who actually pay for a subscription are some of the likeliest to comment anyway. A thriving community can absolutely be built exclusively with paid subscribers. Substack’s a great example of this. Many Substackers only let you comment if you subscribe, and nonetheless host sprawling, engaged comments sections. There is also the fact that only letting paid-up members comment almost guarantees a more civil discourse, as it’s unlikely that a troll would actually pay money to annoy people.
On the other hand, comments are an incredible tool for growth—and paywalling all your articles can negate that function.
There is no question that it’s your content that matters most when cultivating readers. But as mentioned: online, community that creates stickiness. Community keeps readers reliably coming back, day after day. Un-paywalled articles allow first-time or occasional visitors to shake up the conversation, keeping things fresh and luring in still more readers (and participants). This can still be possible with a paywall—some percentage of readers, after all, will opt for a free trial and find the conversation that way—but the process might be slower, the growth less explosive.
To paywall or not to paywall?
Obviously, few sites deploy a paywall for every article (though some do—such as The Washington Post). Most, instead, paywall some content and open other content to anyone who wants to read it. Countless strategic concerns go into the decision of what to paywall. What we’d argue—given the importance of community for growth—is that one of those concerns should be: How likely is this article to generate conversation?
This consideration doesn’t have to be incompatible with a normal paywall strategy. In a normal paywall strategy, the articles that are paywalled are those most likely to drive clicks—juicy scoops or exposes, say, or epic longform features. But the articles most likely to generate clicks are not necessarily the ones that will generate the most conversation. They can be, absolutely. However, the truth is that evergreen, lower-stakes content is just as if not more likely to generate vibrant discussion.
Think, say, a list of the best albums of 1999. Or a quick primer on the best way to cook a steak. Or a write-up of last night’s big prestige-TV finale. Content like that can generate discussion at a surprisingly high volume. It draws in new readers and, in the slightly longer run, subscribers.
All of that said—and despite the Quartz move—there is no real indication that paywalls are on the way out. The beauty of this moment in media is that publishers don’t have to choose. They can grow their audience with paywalls while they can grow their audience with community (and with social media, live events, ecommerce, etc. The options right now are endless, as discussed in our recent guide).
What an engaged community can offer, more immediately than many other revenue concepts, is engagement. Higher engagement means more pageviews and––when leveraged to sell subscriptions or place ads––stronger, more diversified revenue for publishers.
Since Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework came into effect, the company has started confronting users with daunting warnings about favorite apps tracking you across apps and websites owned by other companies, and inviting consumers to opt out of this tracking. The impact on measurement has been material. Tim Cook would call such opt-out language “merely descriptive” — and would neglect to recall that Apple invented IDFA for sound and pragmatic reasons (including privacy). However, it could be argued that the language is scary and intended to persuade people to opt-out. It is important to note that app publishers are not permitted to include their own justification at the point of decision. Only Apple’s framing is available.
Since the changes were made in April of 2021, estimates of opt-out rates have been all over the map. Our initial models (chart below) used 80% (meaning 80 people opt out of tracking and 20 people permit it). Since that time, we’ve seen estimates ranging from 95% to 60% opt-out rates. But credible players in mobile infrastructure who see data on thousands of apps across all hardware types have noted that the opt-out rates have been declining since the initial surge, and an estimate of 60 to 65% is probably more accurate today. But Apple not the only company to keep an eye on when it comes to tracking and measurement.
Two key players to watch in terms of evolution of measurement are Facebook and Snap. Both companies are mobile-forward, and both have built material businesses around delivering measurable advertising for customers on phones. Facebook has acknowledged that the changes in iOS would have “on the order of” $10 billion impact on sales in 2022. Analyzing the 2022 revenue impact from Apple’s privacy changes, Lotame estimates that the IDFA change will have a total impact on the companies of almost $16 billion (+9%). Again, with the lion’s share of that impact (81%) coming from Facebook.
Both companies have spoken extensively about the impact of the iOS changes on tools and capabilities, and both are adapting rapidly. For SNAP, the company has said it is adapting by a combination of pushing customers to use Apple’s SKAD Network (“SKAN”) and by developing and enhancing native tools such as the Snap Pixel and their Advanced Conversions (“AC”) tools. Snap also acknowledged that many of its customers would have to move their focus “up the funnel”.
The issues are that the native tools may have limitations and may require Snap to interoperate more with other ad tech players. As for Apple’s SKAN tool, it provides only aggregated data, and it delivers with a 24-hour delay. These are very material limitations for conversion-oriented marketers. Snap has said it will take time to work through all of this.
Facebook, equally frustrated, even used the term “rebuilding”: we’re rebuilding a lot of our ads infrastructure so we can continue to grow and deliver high-quality personalized ads. Facebook called its new tools “Aggregated Event Measurement.” But at the same time Facebook also threw Apple under the bus for providing data that is both delayed and aggregated. The suggestion is that Facebook — which does not play well with the rest of Ad Tech — will have difficulty providing measurement better than Apple’s dumbed-down SKAN utilities.
One major initiative at Facebook did become highly salient: its focus on ecommerce infrastructure for its marketer customers. This was described by Sheryl Sandberg as one of seven key initiatives, and it was mentioned numerous times in the 4th quarter earnings call. The idea is for Facebook to continue to deliver and enhance end-to-end tools for its ecommerce seller. From the first marketing impression, to the ecommerce store and experience, to financial fulfillment, customer retention, and remarketing, Facebook wants everything to happen on Facebook.
The issue is that any time any part of the chain moves outside of Facebook’s app, Facebook can’t deliver the measurement and attribution its customers require. This became painfully clear with the iOS changes. Facebook’s mission to fix it will lead it to the erection of higher walls around its version of the internet, and more firmly bunkering its marketer customers inside.
When you consider how other players may be future-proofing mobile marketing strategies, initiatives will be similar to those of Snap and Facebook: using the SKAD network while holding their noses, building home-grown measurement tools that often won’t work as well, and relying on the ad tech industry to provide adapted tools, such as the Lotame Panorama ID which can link identity across devices and platforms without the IDFA. App developers will also be looking to those partners that provide tools and infrastructure, such as AppLovin or MoPub to deliver new tools and techniques.
And all this enthusiastic turbidity and debate leaves all of us wondering: “What will Google do?” Keep in mind that Google doesn’t have the fire to lock down mobile phone ad IDs that Apple does. Apple uses the cover of “privacy” to make these changes. But others feel that Apple is restricting the ability of others to monetize traffic on its devices without its direct involvement (and economic participation).
Google, on the other hand, for the infrastructure it delivers, has benefited by providing tools and capabilities that are open and used by everyone. In June of 2021, shortly after Apple made its changes, Google announced it did not plan to bother users with a push demand for opt-in on each app (both Apple and Google always have allowed global device opt-out). After that, Google was quiet until it capitulated a few weeks ago. As of mid-March, Google is saying that it will “replace” GAIDs (Google’s version of the IDFA) on phones with its web-based “privacy-sandbox” tools, and then phase out GAIDs in about two years.
What does that mean for cross-application tracking today? Well, even if we lay aside second-best workarounds that are progressively emerging, there is still a lot to do with mobile ad IDs. In the U.S., iPhones have about 58% market share, but some reports are seeing 40% of users opt-in. Android phones have about 42% market share and will have GAIDs available for at least two more years — an ocean of time. Considering this collectively and scoped to the U.S., that still leaves marketers with access to a mobile advertising ID on about two-thirds of inventory. Have fun while it lasts!
Once seemingly unstoppable, subscription-based digital media services like Netflix now look vulnerable. Netflix reported seeing a drop in subscribers for the first time in 10 years, prompting a recent selloff that shaved more than $50 billion off the company’s market cap. Other streaming services, from Disney to Roku, also reported similar drops. Many worry that we’re witnessing a phenomenon known as “peak subscription,” where consumers facing an increasingly uncertain global economy are growing weary of committing to a laundry list of ongoing subscriptions.
Some publishers have felt the repercussions of peak subscriptions and competition from free alternatives. Quartz reported that some readers subscribe just to read one specific article and then quickly unsubscribe afterward; behavior that hindered real growth. Although metered paywalls have proven effective at driving subscriptions for many publishers, some believe it is a “blunt-force instrument” that won’t work for everyone.
Even as the total number of subscriptions is still high across publishers and creators, there are concerns that the supply of content sources outstrips demand, particularly when we consider more commoditized content. Despite the fact that the global subscription economy is projected to grow by $51 billion dollars in 2022, competition is fierce – even for the likes of Netflix.
As subscription fatigue becomes a growing concern, and competition among subscription-based content of all kinds continues to intensify, media companies seek ways to go beyond pure subscriptions and increase their revenue. The good news is that various solutions already exist.
Redefining the journey to becoming a subscriber
One of the key solutions to combat subscription fatigue is to let audiences become paying readers and members at their own pace. Instead of asking people to lock themselves into a subscription model off the bat, some companies monetize the subscriber journey in smaller steps.
To move away from relying solely on the one-size-fits-all subscription model, streaming services like Disney+ have opted to offer a lower-cost version of their service that includes ads. The potential rewards of this move are clear: Disney’s own Hulu streaming service has turned commercials into a $1 billion revenue stream. Comcast’s Peacock and AT&T’s HBO Max now both come with ad-supported and ad-free versions. Even Netflix, which stood clearly opposed to integrating ads in the past, will now launch an ad-supported version sometime in the future.
Publishers such as Vox and The Guardian have also moved to a membership model, believing that readers will want to voluntarily support their publication even without the added pressure of a paywall.
Quartz also offers a subscriber-only newsletter that gives paying members exclusive access to additional content and various other benefits. However, it has made content on its main site free to access. Vice News has opted for an even more reader-friendly approach by adding a “tip jar” to its website, in case readers want to voluntarily make a contribution to the publisher.
The demand for incremental revenue streams to reach readers averse to committing to a subscription is why à-la-carte payment solutions emerged for publishers and content creators. These solutions allow users to buy paywalled text, audio, or video content with one-off payments or make voluntary contributions for open content.
Publications understand that having multiple monetization solutions builds engagement from different audience segments. This also feeds the subscription funnel with loyal users. Instead of asking casual visitors to commit to a subscription with discount offers, they are given the chance to engage in incremental steps.
The new era of reader revenue
The shift from relying solely on subscriptions signifies a clear acknowledgment of the need to give consumers flexibility and freedom. For audiences, this is a sure boost to their overall experience.
Digital publishers and content creators will benefit as well. Overall, a growing number of people are willing to pay for content. According to the 2021 Digital News Report from Reuters, 17% of people surveyed stated they were ready to pay for media content — a definite increase from the previous year.
Offering multiple reader-revenue solutions like exclusive memberships, micro-bundles, ad-supported bundles, à-la-carte payments, and even a tip jar makes it easier for publishers and content creators to monetize different audiences segments and capture rich first-party data. Alienating large swaths of audiences with an all-you-can-eat subscription offer will no longer suffice in a world where users are spoiled with choices.
It is also imperative to understand users’ willingness to pay for different types of content. For example, the exact same content bundle might be worth $10 per month to half of your audience and worth $5 per month to the other half. The one-size approach is to offer a $7.50 bundle to everyone. However, the maximum revenue approach entails creating two separate bundles for each of the audience segments. Unbundling content to understand user willingness to pay for each type of content can actually pave the way for publishers to resurrect the appropriately priced recurring payments.
If you’re a subscription-based digital publisher, the message is clear: the time to look for incremental ways to monetize and engage with a wider audience — including the elusive “never subscribers” — is now. Learning from the examples set by the companies above will save you from wasting time forcing one, rigid monetization strategy on an audience that doesn’t want it.
About the author
Dushyant is a Co-Founder & Chief Commercial Officer at Fewcents, a plug-and-play solution that helps digital publishers and creators monetize content with cross-border micropayments in the form of pay-per-content or tips. He spent 13 years at Google where he led strategic partnerships, working closely with some of the biggest digital publishers in Asia. Prior to Google, Dushyant has worked at SAP Ariba, American Express, and two tech startups. He holds an MBA from the ISB, Hyderabad and is an active angel investor & advisor for startups in Southeast Asia.
Anita Zielina founded the Executive Program in News Innovation and Leadership at CUNY in 2019. Since that time, she has shaped the leadership skills of executives from local media, start-ups and major outlets such as The New York Times, Reuters, Bloomberg, and ProPublica.
“I just built the program that I wish I had a bit earlier in my career,” explains Zielina. Like so many in our industry, she says “I started out as a journalist and I never had the management training, the product training,” she says. “I never learned how to speak the language of the business and strategy side of things.”
An Executive MBA at INSEAD, addressed some of those needs, but “there was not one other person from media in my class,” Zielina observes. In a cohort of 120 people, all of her peers were from consumer brands, oil and gas consultancies, banks, and the like. Nonetheless, she says, “I loved the experience.” But she could see that there was a need for such a program tailored to the media industry.
Zielina has set out to fill this need at CUNY. She built a program offering elements of a traditional MBA – with classes on strategy and organizational change – alongside a “comprehensive leadership growth development program,” and a focus on media best practices.
Anita Zielina
In a wide-ranging interview, Zielina – who is returning to Austria to launch her own consultancy focused on digital and leadership transformation – shared her views on the key challenges facing the news and media industries.
Here are five of the core elements that emerged from our conversation, with a focus on supporting future leaders – and the challenges facing them – in the media industry:
1. Training the next generation of leaders
Zielina has extensive leadership experience in media including stints as Chief Product Officer & Editor-in-Chief Digital at the Swiss-based NZZ, Digital Editor and Deputy Editor-In-Chief at Stern the German current affairs magazine, and as an Editor at the Austrian newspaper Der Standard. Looking back at previous roles she says, “I think I did a decent job. But I had to teach myself a lot of the skills you need as a leader.”
Those skills include an ability to navigate the intersections of business product, audience, editorial, technology and innovation. They are not necessarily acquired in the newsroom, she suggests, and the media context is often missing from traditional business programs.
“Our industry has a tradition of people rising to leadership roles,” she says. “They were great journalists. Then suddenly they become managers, and they do not get the support that they need.”
The need for this type of support is clear when looking at the graduates from CUNY’s executive programs. “Half of the people in that cohort that just graduated have taken on a larger role throughout the year or immediately after the program,” Zielina told us, “either in their own organization or in a different organization.” The training CUNY provided has been crucial to enabling them to effectively step into these leadership roles.
2. Strategic vision and execution
“There are some similarities in organizations whether they are large or small,” Zielina says when asked to share the biggest challenges for participants in the CUNY’s Executive Program in News Innovation and Leadership. “Number one is strategy.”
Shortcomings in communication, as well as the need for strategy to continually evolve and be updated, are key factors. Even when strategy exists, she says “it’s not clearly communicated. In other cases, the strategy “is old, it’s faulty, it needs to be adapted to new challenges.”
To address this, Zielina encourages leaders to think about whether their organization is prepared for transformation. They must focus on which audiences they want or need to reach, and how to ensure that appropriate resources are prioritized. Integral to this is a “talent pipeline” as well as clarity about the type of work culture you want to instill.
“The difference between an organization that successfully manages transformation, and an organization that doesn’t, is not necessarily that one has a strategy paper or slide deck while the other does not.”
At the heart of this are leader who can turn strategy “into products, into audience work, into services, into organizational structures, and the daily execution routine.”
3. Detoxifying the workplace
Implementation is about more than just the products you build, and the platforms you use, Zielina reminds us. People, ethics, and culture must not be overlooked.
The workplace is an area in which she believes change is long overdue. If not, then talented people will leave. For good. In fact, Zielina says, many are already gone.
She notes a generational shift whereby Millennials and Gen Z “are not willing to put up with the not-so-great culture and ethics anymore.” “They are opting out,” she says. Unfortunately, “these people are never going to come back if we lose them now.”
According to Zielina, the size of this issue is one that too few industry leaders grasp, although she believes the trend is “becoming more obvious.”
“Younger colleagues in this industry, are waking up to the fact that they don’t have to stay in places that are toxic. They don’t have to stay in places that don’t let them have impact.”
“I think it’s the big the big issue that we’ll have to tackle the next few years,” she says.
4. Making DEI commitments a reality
“A lot of tensions obviously revolve around women, people of color, [and people] from different socio-economic backgrounds, finally saying, ‘I want a seat at the table. And if I don’t get a seat at the table, I’m going to leave.’ So really prioritizing DEI is so crucial.”
Zielina feels that “there was a certain reckoning after the murder of George Floyd and we see movement there.” However, many organizations are failing to deliver on their DEI promises.
Too often, she says, we hear companies say “yes, we are prioritizing, but it was so hard to find a woman and it was so hard to find that person of color. So we took another white man, but next time, we’re definitely gonna do it.”
“If we don’t tackle the big underlying cultural issues of this industry, if we don’t make this industry more attractive, if we don’t make this industry more equitable, if we don’t make this industry a healthier, better and more supportive space, we are going to lose all those people,” she adds.
5. Updating outdated modes of human capital
Making the industry more attractive, Zielina suggests, includes learning from the creator economy and the great resignation.
“More folks are realizing maybe I don’t want [to work for] an employer, maybe I want to do my own thing. But I don’t want it to be a kind of hockey stick startup with venture capital, I just wanted to work for me. I want to tell my stories. I want to serve my audience, who I care about.”
“We are going to see more of that,” she says, which means rethinking collaboration and working with creative/journalistic talent. She also believes we will see increased emphasis on impact, flexibility, and hybrid work – issues that matter to growing numbers of the workforce.
“There is a huge disconnect between the corporate world, and specifically corporate HR and applicants and employees,” she cautions. “And this disconnect is getting bigger.”
“You can start that tomorrow,” she says, urging organizations to ask “whether our incentive systems, our HR processes, our way of work is still adequate for this day and age.”
Future plans
After she leaves CUNY, Zielina plans to continue to focus on ensuring organizations have the structures, skills and talents they need, “in the space of digital leadership and product.”
Zielina sees signs that a famously myopic industry is starting to look beyond national markets for solutions. “It makes me optimistic that it seems that we are getting a bit more global and a bit more international as an industry,” she says.
“Those best practices are really starting to be shared across borders, and that that I think is an a fantastic development. We need more of that,” Zielina adds, “and I hope to play a part in that in at least bridging that gap between the U.S. and Western Europe.”
If your media company is directly monetizing its audience in any way or form, odds are, your registered users and subscribers are your biggest money-makers. Even so, the largest portion of your audience is probably made up of unknown readers who aren’t contributing much to your overall reader-revenue growth.
According to recent research we conducted at Viafoura, a shocking 99.6% of publisher unsubscribed audiences, on average, are anonymous visitors. While most of these visitors are passive readers who are less committed to a company’s content than known audience members, you can still get tremendous value from them.
In reality, your anonymous audience is far from worthless. It’s an untapped goldmine of information and revenue just waiting to be activated. But before you can extract the full value of your unknown visitors, you need to know exactly why and how they can become loyal and lucrative audience members.
Prioritizing anonymous to known audience conversions
Naturally, known audience members give your organization far more data and monetization opportunities than anonymous visitors. Viafoura’s research finds that engaged registered users offer publishers five times more return visits than non-registered users.
Rather than waiting for registered users to appear magically, successful publishers have recognized that the key to better monetizing audiences is to actively nurture their anonymous audiences and encourage them to log in. After all, each of your registered and subscribed audience members first started off as unknown visitors.
Keep in mind that almost every anonymous user can become effectively monetized once they are registered. As Greg Piechota, Researcher-in-Residence at the International News Media Association (INMA), explains, “[we] see reader and ad revenue strategies converging as publishers refocus on registering and logging users.”
Ultimately, converting your anonymous visitors to known users online is an essential step on the road to building audience loyalty and growing your company’s revenue streams.
Registration as a means of improving content performance
Logged in users are not just more readily monetizable, they provide a raft of information that allows you to improve their experience and increase engagement.
You can begin piecing together your users’ profiles as soon as they create profiles on your website or app. The more they interact with your content and fellow users, the more you’ll understand who they are, their needs, and the types of content topics and writers they favor.
This valuable data can be harnessed to segment your users into different groups with similar interests. Then, they can then be targeted with relevant content — including advertisements.
Of course, content that aligns more with your users’ interests is more likely to draw their attention and keep them engaged on your website or app for longer. “Once you understand your target audience’s needs, you can develop personalized content that addresses their biggest concerns and pain points,” Gartner reports. “But timing is everything.”
To make the biggest impact on your audience and win over their loyalty, your media company must serve its users the content they want when they crave it, even as their needs and interests change. While you can’t get this information from unknown visitors, you can extract it through the data and comments of your known users.
Turning anonymous users into engaged subscribers
Giving anonymous users the chance to log in to your website is not only key to getting their data, but it can also make your anonymous users become dedicated to your brand. The reality is that once you get anonymous visitors to register, you’re halfway to getting them to subscribe.
In fact, Viafoura data reveals that registered users are significantly more engaged than their unregistered counterparts. They spend an average of 15 times more time on-site after registering. And all that extra time your registered users spend on your company’s website means they have more opportunities to connect with your company’s content and other users.
“News brands that see more known users see more subscribers, and brands that see longer session duration see lower rates of churn,” according to Piechota. He says that research proves that you earn one subscriber for every 10 registrations.
The Telegraph recently shared that its audience growth goal is framed around this research. The company is aiming for 10 million registered users and one million subscribers as of 2023.
This reinforces the fact that you can unlock significant value — including engagement and (eventually) subscription revenue — from a large portion of your anonymous audience simply by getting them to register.
So, if the majority of your company’s audience is anonymous, what’s stopping you from encouraging that massive group of people to become registered, known and returning users? From there, you can use their available data and growing loyalty to your advantage, further enhancing your organization’s engagement, content, subscription and ad revenue strategies.
Both the immersive web and Web3 are coming. Publishers need to make sure they are prepared for any changes that will inevitably impact their data.
But before we start, it’s important to make the distinction between the immersive web and Web3. They are not the same thing.
As a new iteration of the web based on blockchain technology, Web3 will, according to many, revolutionize the internet by transferring the ownership and power of private data to users. It aims to “decentralize” management. As such, it promises to reduce the control of big corporations, such as Google or Meta, and make the web more democratic. It is defined by open-source software. It is also “trustless” (it doesn’t require the support of a trusted intermediary) and is permissionless (it has no governing body).
Meanwhile, the immersive web or metaverse (which many conflate with Facebook’s new branding as “Meta”), is a version of the online world that incorporates advanced technologies to enhance user engagement and blur the line between the user’s physical reality and the digital environment.
But what are the implications for data-driven companies?
With Web3, the most obvious data implication is that publishers will now have to deal with distributed data and new applications, which will require new connectors. It will also impact yield management. The simplest example is downstream royalties (i.e., publishers rewarding customers for the resale of their data and passing that cost along to advertisers).
Meanwhile, the immersive web’s key impact will be the explosion of data volumes, which by some estimates will push global data usage by 20 times by 2032.
The jump from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 was massive enough. But the leap to the immersive web is likely to see an exponential increase.
So, when moving from terabytes and petabytes, to exabytes and beyond, what components do you need to unify your data?
Velocity and scale
Everywhere you look, there are data automation solutions promising access to “real-time” or “near-real-time” data. But the question shouldn’t just be: how can I get real-time access to data? Things are a bit more complicated than that.
Rather, you should be asking:
1. How can I scale ongoing operations by having a data integrity engine that I can trust to continually scale, as my disparate data sources increase in number, and as my data sets explode in volume?
Building one data pipeline manually is manageable. But having the flexibility to add more pipelines, and connectors, becomes unsustainable without automation. For example, it can take up to a month to build each new connector manually. Unfortunately, that means the data from each new integration (Facebook, Snapchat etc) is out of date by the time your teams can access it. And if you need multiple new APIs for multiple different purposes – all at the same time – chaos reigns before you know it (and with no clear end in sight).
Any publisher attempting to keep up with the influx of new and ever-changing APIs on the horizon in Web3 needs to build a strong and workable data unification platform, now.
2. How long will it take to build a strategic data asset in the first place, before my teams get access to the data?
There’s no use in having access to real-time data in six months’ time. To make informed business decisions, your teams need that data right now. However, in reality, the majority of publishers embarking on building (or buying) their own data unification platform accept that they’ll need to wait for months before they can get close to any actionable data. For example, it might take six data engineering personnel a period of three to six months to code a bespoke platform that is useful to their individual business teams.
In an age of automation, where real-time data is key to keeping up with the competition, these time frames are no longer acceptable.
Smart data pipelines
Typical data pipelines are “dumb.” That means that they’ll pull all the data you need, but also a whole lot you don’t. For example, you might only need to access 100GB of your 1TB dataset to transform into actionable data. But without building a smart API for the job, it will end up pulling the full terabyte, which you will then need to store in your data warehouse.
The costs of exponentially larger data volumes can soon spiral out of control if left unchecked. Instead, you need to build APIs for specific cuts of the data that your teams need. This is what we call a smart data pipeline.
While the pace of adoption of Web3 is still unclear, the immersive web is just around the corner. It’s imperative that data-driven companies are prepared for what’s coming. That’s not just a few more rows of data to process and store, but a tsunami of new and larger data sets that will become overwhelming overnight without the right infrastructure in place.
For any publishers still attempting to carry out their data operations manually, they need to look to automate, wherever possible, before it’s too late.
About the author
Navid Nassiri joined Switchboard as Head of Marketing in 2021. Switchboard’s data engineering automation platform aggregates disparate data at scale, reliably and in real-time, to make better business decisions. In his role at Switchboard, Navid is focused on driving growth and brand awareness through innovative marketing strategies. Navid is a seasoned entrepreneur and executive, including leadership roles at PwC and NBCUniversal.
Netflix’s earnings report last week sent a chill across nearly every company with a business model tied to a direct-to-consumer relationship. There are real concerns about the global economy and speculation about whether the massive increase in streaming viewing habits seen during the pandemic will prove to be enduring. However, I wonder whether the insights gleaned from the Netflix situation are unique to Netflix and not a strong indicator for other media companies, most of which are just starting their streaming ventures.
First, let’s acknowledge the macroeconomy. Inflation registering over 8% will impact nearly every consumer market; this is especially true if inflation leads to higher interest rates and the dreaded “R” word. Unfortunately, this will be an ever-intensifying concern.
There has been a great awakening around the globe after two years of Covid, during which we had requirements and excuses to stay home and avoid socializing. There were countless stories in the trade and mainstream press as we witnessed streaming viewership’s outsized growth about isolation’s impact on our insatiable appetite for entertainment – escape. And binge-watching – which was already a trend after Netflix tossed a hand grenade into the linear schedule – only escalated during this period.
Certainly, Netflix finds itself with real competition for digital share of wallet for the first time in its history. Storied media companies have rolled out exclusive offerings that feature everything from hit television programs to blockbuster movie franchises: Batman, Star Trek, Yellowstone, Avengers from HBO Max, Paramount+, Peacock, Disney+, respectively. Many have regained rights to classic television hits that are endlessly bingeworthy. Meanwhile, Netflix has increased its price, nearly doubling its monthly cost ($15.49 from $7.99 when it first launched) while cracking down on password-sharing as it, impressively, has saturated the market.
But while Netflix may have led the way in streaming, it may not be the best proxy for the subscription market opportunity. The company faces its own issues with stagnating growth and should not be mistaken for marketplace indicators.
What is really happening
DCN’s 2021 research into the value of direct, trusted consumer relationships, brands as proxies for this trust, the needs and behaviors of Gen Z vs Gen Y, and the subscription market point to this lesson: Ignore Netflix and stay the course.
Most important are the lessons coming from studying the “next” generation. Consumer behavior is radically different in a world where payment and immediate gratification are merely a double tap of the thumb and face scan away on a mobile device. Paying for access to your favorite news or entertainment product, whether podcast, app or website, is no longer a foreign concept after hitting a “paywall.” Rather, it is little more than a friendly nudge along the way associating value with the products you love.
The number of people willing to pay for access to news and entertainment is increasing. In fact, Netflix’s greatest legacy for the market as a whole may have been leading the horse to the water. Netflix also worked with premium providers and helped build an appetite for great content and normalized paying for it.
What publishers seek
Now, distribution platforms from Apple to Google to Facebook are being pushed to finally act as true partners in driving subscription revenues and monetization for premium publishers. At times this nudge has had to come from regulatory threats in an effort to create more balanced bargaining power.
But what are publishers seeking? Publishers expect traffic to their owned and operated platforms and true ownership over the customer journey including the underlying transaction and customer data.
Publishers also want to take back control over the pricing, bundling, and messaging for their services from the distribution platforms. This allows a trusted publisher to extract and retain more subscription revenues by controlling their highly-valued brands and, importantly, the customer data from before, during, and after their subscription relationship.
Putting things in perspective
For decades, the vast majority of digital content was available for free.
Meanwhile, Netflix built its business on spending (many would say excessively) on licensing and creating content. It helped rebuild the consumer appetite for quality content and experiences worth paying for. However, when we consider the implications of the company’s recent subscriber losses, we should not be so quick to predict a ripple effect across subscription-based businesses as a whole.
While a couple of news publishers, and a handful of other streamers count their subscribers in the tens of millions, the reality is that most publishers count theirs in the tens or hundreds of thousands. Thus, the basis for comparison with Netflix’s 220 million subscribers is specious at best. That’s like comparing a slowdown in Coca-Cola’s beverage sales to my kids’ driveway lemonade stand.
And the behavior of younger consumers points to a healthy appetite for great content and a willingness to pay for it. Now is not the time to panic, pivot, or radically shift your subscription strategy in Netflix’s wake. Instead, trust in the value of quality content well-delivered in trustworthy settings and know that audiences will be right there with you.
It’s not hard to see that digital advertising is undergoing another paradigm shift. Spurred by pandemic-fueled online use and continued cyber-driven attacks, consumers are becoming more aware of internet dangers. From ransomware and credit card theft to scams and inappropriate content, consumers have had enough.
Recognizing this sentiment, brands seek to showcase how they contribute to building a better world as evidenced by multiple initiatives covering diversity, sustainability, and responsible programming. For publishers, this consumer-first mentality extends to the online environment, where brands are looking to safeguard consumer expectations of privacy and security.
Welcome to digital trust and safety.
A new era in digital
Digital trust and safety requires understanding and addressing the harmful content and/or conduct experienced by consumers when accessing websites/mobiles apps. This ranges from how digital products are built, managed, and promoted through to how they make consumers think, feel, and act. In effect, it’s all about putting the consumer at the center of decisions regarding their online experience.
This thinking is critical when you consider the different risks faced by different consumers, especially the more vulnerable members of society, e.g., elderly, children, technologically naive.
Layer on the reality of targeting and national security risks become apparent as government and military employees are consumers, too.
Accepting responsibility for the consumer experience transforms how the industry—brands, AdTech, publishers—approaches its contribution to the consumer experience. Instead of focusing on activity that affects a business (viewability, ad fraud or brand safety), you prioritize actions that impact the consumer to build trust. As Conny Braams, Unilever’s Chief Digital and Commercial Officer recently acknowledged, “The currency in Web 3.0 is not crypto, it’s trust.” It has become clear: Digital trust and safety is the next phase in the digital evolution chain.
The evolution is underway—just look at the new and growing crop of job titles on LinkedIn.
Factors driving digital trust and safety
Going beyond ad fraud, content moderation, bots and other brand-oriented initiatives, digital trust and safety is all about the consumer. It is driven by security, data privacy, and trusted content.
Security: Protecting consumers and their devices from malicious, anomalous, compromised, or non-compliant code that enables distribution of backdoors, credit card theft, ransomware, cryptomining, etc.
Data privacy: Guarding against unauthorized tracking of consumer activity, especially when performed by unknown parties
Trusted content: Ensuring the substance of the experience doesn’t endanger consumer well-being, e.g., false claims, misinformation, online scams, etc.
With digital at the nexus of companies and consumers, there’s nothing more important than safeguarding the user experience. It’s more than ad fraud and blocking ads. This focus on safety and security encompasses the entire consumer experience.
Adopting a consumer-first approach isn’t hard, but it does require unwavering dedication. Once executives agree that consumer well-being is important, this thinking will cascade to permeate all aspects of the business. All it takes is consistently asking and documenting the impact on consumers for key touchpoints and commercial initiatives, from product introduction and feature development to marketing promotions and customer service. This guiding principle will add clarity to and inform decisions. It can also serve as a competitive differentiator elevating your business in the eyes of the market.
It’s your move
Government leaders and regulators are listening. Various initiatives are underway to protect consumer online experiences: UK Online Safety Act, EU Digital Services Act, ban on surveillance advertising, more limits on data collection, and more.
Collectively, the industry needs to stop harmful activity as it enters the digital ecosystem and ultimately before it is served to consumers. Frankly, it’s the right thing to do. That’s how we engender trust, and a trusting consumer will buy more (90% of consumers would buy more from a brand they trust).
Ask yourself: Are you willing to put the consumer first when it comes to digital? I’m game. Are you?
