This is the Catch-22 era for publishers. Magazines, newspapers and other media companies must evolve their businesses into the digital space to survive. But the digital world has already disrupted their industry. Survival has been at the cost of doing more with less, including fewer editorial and operational resources. Google and Facebook dominate digital advertising. Ad revenues at traditional media like newspapers dropped 62% from 2008 to 2018. Layoffs, exacerbated by the global pandemic, continue to hammer the media industry.
But it’s not all doom and gloom for publishers: 81% of consumers say they trust content on a publishers’ sites. So in the near future, how can publishers survive and thrive given the inherent trust they have developed with consumers, and what technologies will enable that?
To figure out what publishers need, let’s start with what they are missing. Publishers lack a clear means to establishing a foothold in digital advertising that allows them to compete with the volume and efficiency of the industry giants. They lack the technology to provide reliable, data-driven paths to revenue. And increasingly, they lack the people-power to get it all done.
The power of automation
Automation will be key to turning weaknesses into strengths. Automation will also build on the advantages that publishers retain amidst all the digital change happening in their industry. Publishers still have the most premium audience, customized content against which to advertise, plus a deep understanding of their audience and its preferences. And unlike on the assembly line, automation won’t replace staff. Instead, it frees up more human time for higher-level, more creative problems.
Publishers will have to learn or acquire the knowledge to automate in a few areas if they want to stay in the game. Automaton supports:
Sales and planning support
Pricing and bidding calibration
Reporting and relationship management
Identifying opportunities for growth and new business lines
Sales and planning support
Pre-sales activities, like vetting, scheduling, and negotiation, take a lot of time. Automation along each of these chokepoints can keep the sales funnel unclogged and new leads coming in, contributing to more stability in revenue flow. Even the process of creating mocks or proof of concept-level examples can be largely automated. This frees up time in the sales journey for real relationship building and, well, sales. Streamlining that demo experience can impact both sales and dev teams and will be pivotal as publishers move to scale exponentially in the digital world.
Pricing and bidding
Automated pricing and bidding is nothing new in digital publishing and advertising. But as the demand for more customized, alternative pricing models such as engagement-based pricing arises, publishers will spend more time on manual processes to adapt these models to work alongside CPM pricing models.
Now, technology has caught up, and these calculations can be automated within the bidding process. This offers publishers the ability to charge a premium for alternative pricing models as well as frees up Ad Ops teams, enabling them to work and think more critically and carefully (rather than wasting time on tedium) and offers customers greater transparency into fee structures and profitability — a feature that is becoming more important for brands and consumers alike.
Reporting and relationship management
Whether you run QBRs or provide end-of-campaign reports, the full planning and execution cycle for these deliverables can be a seriously time-consuming process in and of itself. This is another place publishers need to focus to bring the technology of automated reporting in line with the expectation.
Anyone in advertising has probably spent time battling reporting processes or templatizing minutiae deep into the night. Nailing automation here is both a time-saver and a stress-saver. It’s also one of the best ways to continue to grow your relationship with a customer, providing them with regular insight and feedback and enabling you to work together to make campaigns work better or hit their specific goals.
Opportunities for growth and new business lines
It’s not uncommon for major companies to make decisions based on screenshots of reports imported into Powerpoint templates. Let’s face it, insightful decisions require ready access to the breadth of a publisher’s data across campaigns. You can’t improve what you can’t measure. So, some well-placed automation of these processes can be game changing.
Streamlining company-wide reporting and data-driven insights, if done right, can guide a company on where to expand next or what they should be focusing on. These are strategies that advertising giants have used for years — now this technology is available for smaller players to understand and exploit to create more dynamic decision-making.
Bottom line
The bottom line is that we’re not going to compete with the Metas and Alphabets of the world through volume. However, we stand a good chance doubling down on our core audiences and building streamlined, efficient advertising machines. These can be built to incorporate automation that provides more accurate insights, and frees up our human staff to keep bringing that personal touch to the business.
The subscription economy is firing on all cylinders and across all verticals. However, an avalanche of subscription offers turns up the competition for audience attention. Content companies must find innovative ways to drive customer connection and conversion to rise above the noise.
The stakes are high and so are the profits. The 2021 Subscription Economy Index published by subscription technology platform Zuora, reveals an impressive 21% uptick in subscription revenue growth in Q4 2020 alone compared to the previous quarter. That’s yet another data point in a growth trajectory that has seen subscription revenues increase 6x over the last nine years.
But cashing in on the boom requires publishers to embrace flexibility and customer convenience, even for cancellations. It’s not enough to build the capabilities to sell as a one-time transaction to readers. Publishers must reach potential subscribers in the right context, and at the right stage of the customer journey, to reinforce the decision to commit to recurring costs.
Personalize pricing and paywalls
Each customer is an individual, not a generalized demographic. Their willingness to subscribe also differs widely. Most efforts focus on moving consumers from free trials to the full-meal deal. However, an increasing number of content companies are experimenting with flexible pricing and new subscription billing models.
Some publishers offer readers the option to commit to smaller, more frequent payments instead of annual subscriptions. Others remove friction by providing options that allow consumers to manage or upgrade their accounts quickly and easily. While these efforts to convert consumers deeper in the funnel can yield impressive results, they bypass the business benefits publishers can gain from customizing pricing earlier in the consumer journey.
Publishers are “leaving money on the table by not changing subscription offers and upsells based on acquisition source,” according to Andy Carvell, CEO and partner at Phiture, a mobile growth consultancy that specializes in app engagement and retention.
Keynoting at CleverTap Quarterly, Carvell advised publishers to use data to optimize pricing and advertising based on acquisition source. At a basic level, this means showing consumers a different offer or pricing depending on whether they come into the app via paid advertising versus if they discover your app organically.
Customize for customer wins
Different platforms attract different audience segments. But publishers should resist giving away discounts based on generalizations. “The theme here is: Go in high and then drop prices after they [consumers] have resisted a few of your paywalls,” Carvell says. However, rather than assume a GenZer exposed to your content via a TikTok ad can’t afford a subscription, check the data. Metrics such as low time-to-install or time-to-conversion suggest high intent and signal a strong willingness to pay.
Consistency across the funnel is critical. Align the pricing on the paywall with the ad campaigns and copy currently running on your acquisition channels and ad networks. That way, Carvell says, “the user feels like the subscription is right for them because you’re speaking the same language as you did in the app.”
Cancellations and connections
Customizing top-of-the-funnel communications can attract and convert subscribers. But what do you do when your audience makes the conscious decision to cancel?
This is the cue for most publishers to show apologetic pop-ups or send emotional emails asking for a second chance. Granted, a sincere message to remind consumers their subscription matters or helps support quality journalism can be convincing. But if publishers are delivering this nudge after consumers click the button and prepare to make their exit, it may be a moment too late.
A better approach is to preempt the decision altogether by playing to FOMO fears and showing consumers upcoming content they don’t want to miss. It’s the strategy Sasha Kurdiuk, head of customer experience at Shahid MBC, has followed. Shahid is the leading Arabic language video-on-demand service globally known for the largest library of Arabic movies, shows and dramas – including two Emmy–nominated series.
In a podcast interview, Kurdiuk told me how he uses personalized perks and content shorts to stop churn before it starts. “Rather than pop-up and ask you not to go, which is a message that could enrage you if you are determined to cancel, we asked ourselves what might happen if we showed you a bit of the top content you haven’t watched.”
Drawing from behavioral and analytics around what subscribers view and enjoy, Kurdiuk’s team personalizes messaging to influence them at this critical moment. “Contextually relevant communications convince many subscribers to think twice and then press resubscribe,” Kurdiuk says. It’s also the well-timed and highly customized nudge that has allowed Shahid to “reduce voluntary cancellations by more than 20%.”
Given the pressure on content companies to compete for advertising, it is only good news that the subscription economy is booming. However, as an increasing number of products, entertainment, and information services compete for subscription revenue, companies must work hard to stay competitive. They will need to stretch their models and personalize offers and experiences to drive connection and conversion across the subscriber lifecycle.
From political races to red carpet award shows and global sports competitions, there are very few “franchises” that aren’t being stretched longer and longer to capitalize on the public’s interest. We find ourselves once again at the time of year when industry prognosticators offer their curated lists, social media hot takes, and opinion pieces in an attempt to memorialize the most important events of 2021 and to make predictions for 2022.
In tech and internet policy circles, this cycle seems ironic, given that forecasts are delivered daily – often several times a day, depending on the latest news cycles. But as we head into the final stretch of 2021, I have a few thoughts about how we need to avoid the distractions and stay focused on the one big change likely to occur in the new year.
Reality check
To start, I’ll set the table on what I am skeptical about focusing on as we move forward: anything “metaverse” or “creator economy.” And I’ve got some good reasons to hope that, as we head into a new year, we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past.
Amidst the current hype around virtual worlds, augmented reality has certainly emerged as a powerful tool. And it is entirely possible that virtual reality will have practical applications beyond gaming (and not akin to never-quite-there 3D TV).
However, I feel compelled to remind everyone how the pivot to video became an industry obsession. That massive shift was not because of consumer demand; it was driven by Mark Zuckerberg’s 2016 prediction that nearly everything on his kingmaker platform would be video within five years.
So much has happened in the ensuing five years, not the least of which has been a steady and escalating series of revelations of how utterly deceiving this particular CEO and his company have been. And, unsurprisingly (at least in retrospect), we learned that this prediction was at least partially built on a Facebook deception. And, while we can ask ourselves why we had so many years when Facebook said “jump” and publishers and marketers blindly responded, “how high?” – perhaps the most enduring and meaningful lessons are learned from mistakes.
Facebook is not alone in the self-serving prophecy business though. Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages also became an industry obsession, not because it was in the consumers’ best interests as Google claimed. Rather, it was simply a function of another industry-take-all-platform shaping the market to its liking. As we recently learned in unsealed antitrust allegations, it was a means for Google to bolster its advertising interests by slowing down competition.
Creative control
The hype cycle is also obsessed with the “creator economy.” There is an absolute flurry of innovation in providing platforms for individual creators. Though this isn’t entirely new. Google’s YouTube, for example, has both inspired and capitalized on it for ages. The same can be said more recently about TikTok.
Yes, it is very exciting to watch. However, these creator models are essentially comprised of typical vendor services: subscriptions, newsletters, distribution and, more recently, audio services. It’s not a coincidence that much of the investment and press hype—bordering on industry obsession—can be tied back to Facebook or its board of directors. Don’t forget that the company has its own Substack-like “creator platform,” Bulletin. Neither the hype nor the investment is surprising, though, given Facebook’s longstanding interest in disrupting media institutions.
What you should really be watching in 2022
The most important industry story of 2022 will continue to be the at-times dull, but critically important, accountability around antitrust and data policy. We can thank Facebook and Google for adding a sprinkle of excitement to these conversations through whistleblowers, code names (Project NERA, Bernanke, Jedi Blue, and Poirot to name a few) and improperly filed redactions. As an increasing number of privacy laws come into effect, regulators may want to consider more Star Wars-inspired naming conventions to spice things up a bit.
Names notwithstanding, we are going to see regulation continue to intensify next year. In the near term, Europe appears set to finalize two landmark regulations: the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act. If these prevail, Europe will be first to have a purpose-built “gatekeeper” law for the 21st century.
The Digital Markets Act addresses the imbalance in negotiating power in a networked economy that results in both individuals and businesses lacking autonomy and choice, which harms the public at large. It recognizes that no individual publisher or consumer can truly opt-out of Google’s search engine that scrapes the entirety of our lives via the internet. Almost as impossible to avoid are Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, which connect people to communities. And then there’s the binary mobile and app store marketplace, delivered by Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android.
With this level of market power, publishers and consumers have little to no choice in negotiating rights to their data and consent with these powerful gatekeepers. The European approach mirrors the work of Australia’s competition and consumer protection regulator — and it looks like U.S. authorities are headed in the same direction. In a market dominated by superpowers, regulation follows to govern how that market power is used or abused.
The Digital Services Act will then modernize the rules for content liability and possibly how advertising can be targeted when based on surveillance capitalism by companies that, in many cases, consumers don’t even intend to interact with. The DSA and DMA have two main goals: First, to create a safer digital space in which the fundamental rights of all users of digital services are protected. And second, to establish a level playing field to foster innovation, growth, and competitiveness, both in the European Single Market and globally. Not many can argue against these goals, it’s only a matter of whether the legislation will achieve them.
Bringing it home
In the U.S., California’s CCPA is currently the strongest data protection law for digital advertising stateside, followed closely by Colorado’s new law. However, as state and federal laws are negotiated to carry the baton, all eyes and minds are on Europe. There is an acute concern about making sure to address market power and create a sustainable path for publishers going forward, one that isn’t determined for us by industry gatekeepers like Facebook, Google and Apple. This likely requires laws that directly integrate competition and data policy rather than developing rules in the same room as the industry titans, which has failed to result in anything fair if even legal.
So, as we look forward, let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past. When the dominant digital power players press their self-serving agendas, we do not have to buy in. We don’t have to follow their lead. We don’t have to amplify their messages. And for goodness’ sake, we do not need to pivot.
Instead, we should stand our ground, steady on the bedrock of consumer trust and responsible business practices. If 2021 showed us anything, it is that consumers value great content. It’s what we do. And we will continue to do it well. Nothing meta about that.
The world is estimated to produce about 175ZB of data by 2025. That’s a big number. It is also a big opportunity for brands and publishers looking to better understand and engage their consumers. But the sheer volume of this information in and of itself can be a barrier for organizations. Data is often collected in silos across organizations, leading to disparate tools to manage it and, as a result, inaccurate information.
Having the right data, technology and personnel can help businesses turn data into insights that drive business performance. The way to get there is with a data governance strategy. Simply put, data governance means being in control of the data you have. It ensures the data you collect is good, allows you to democratize it so it’s accessible by everyone who needs it and keeps you compliant as privacy legislation evolves.
For digital media executives in particular, the opportunity to unify and extract insights from rich data spanning subscriptions, ad revenue, content engagement and customer profiles can strengthen direct user relationships, which boosts loyalty and retention down the line. In addition, organizations that effectively implement data governance have the potential to save millions of dollars and enable equally valuable digital and analytics use cases. Here’s how you can ensure your data governance strategy leads to insights that drive this type of business performance.
Business first, data second
Data governance entails managing data so your organization has the business intelligence needed to meet its revenue targets and business goals. It might sound counterintuitive, but focusing data governance on the data itself rather than business needs can actually disintermediate you from this objective. It can also cut you off from the stakeholders you need to buy into the data governance program in the first place.
Instead, link data governance policies and procedures to business priorities and their corresponding KPIs. This way, you’ll engage in more meaningful discourse with the rest of the business and be seen as a contributor to overall company success by enabling insights to be harnessed. Align data governance metrics with overall business metrics — such as increasing digital subscription revenue — and tie them to stakeholders who can own their ongoing optimization and become champions of the program. These stakeholders can then use data governance to pinpoint analytics and data use cases that should be prioritized as measured by the value they can bring to the business.
Don’t go too big too soon
When you start on a path to data governance, it’s easy to want to explore all the data in your organization. But this type of ambitious approach often ends in scope creep. It also means you are not prioritizing which data sets and projects would most move the needle on overall business needs.
Instead, start with two or three areas of data (for example, transactional data and product data) that you can build a roadmap against to fully operationalize and measure performance. Then, within each, identify the most important data elements used for analytics, reporting or operations that should be monitored across the organization.
Share the data wealth
Data democratization makes data accessible to any and everyone who needs it within a business. To support this effort, you will need to inform all departments about all the data managed within the company: Where it’s located, how to access it, and its meaning, context, use case, quality and reliability. As a digital publisher, collaborating with the audience insights, editorial and development technology teams will be critical to evolving the full picture of your users.
But it doesn’t end there. How this data is being used across different teams and for new use cases is worth communicating across the organization to enable knowledge-sharing and innovation. Let the entire business become aware of how data is used to tell stories about solving key business challenges and exposing new opportunities. For publishers, this can help balance an overarching subscription strategy with editorial and advertising strategies to ensure all teams can work together to meet their goals.
Good data is the foundation of good decision-making. Organizations that fail to use a proper data governance strategy to drive insights will face an uphill battle to meet their business objectives. Those that instead pursue data governance in a way that maps to business goals, holds stakeholders accountable and enables true collaboration and knowledge-sharing will be on their way to building a truly data-driven organization.
The cannabis industry is currently the fifth largest and fastest-growing consumer industry in the U.S. More than 200 million Americans – about 70% of the population – now live in states with legalized medical or recreational cannabis use. However, despite medical and recreational use likely being the two things that most readily come to mind when mentioning cannabis, the industry encompasses so much more. Expanding legal access has resulted in record levels of investment capital pouring into the industry. And all this investment leads to product growth. The first half of 2021 alone saw $7.9 billion invested in cannabis deals according to New Frontier Data.
Consumer perceptions around cannabis are shifting. These days, it is found in everything from beauty products to machinery lubricants. In addition, larger brands are beginning to experiment by incorporating CBD and hemp into their products. Recently, PepsiCo in Germany made their first foray into the category with the launch of their Rockstar Energy+Hemp beverage (which does not contain any THC). Some additional examples include Unilever subsidiary brand Schmidt’s Naturals, which sells a line of hemp-oil deodorants and Colgate-Palmolive’s recent acquisition of Hello Products, which offers a CBD oral care collection.
As more mainstream brands test the waters, it’s likely that shifts in advertising spend will follow. In fact, advertising spend is already growing in the category. In 2019, Kantar reported cannabis advertisers spent $370 million on digital display ads. That’s an increase from $238 million the previous year. Brands and marketers are eager to expand their advertising presence beyond just the endemic sites. However, they are struggling to find platforms and partners willing to help them spend their budgets.
Lost in the weeds
Because cannabis advertising is still new and quite complex, it’s understandable to feel a bit confused by it all. The rapidly evolving regulatory landscape can pose potential risk, especially as each state has established their own set of laws and regulations. Ensuring an ad is run only in the state it was created for is often the first and largest concern when it comes to accepting cannabis ads. Add in the challenges of age gating and privacy compliance and things get tricky fast.
Running cannabis advertising on your sites may also present some reputational risk. It’s important to realistically consider the potential impact the decision may have on your brand. There’s always a chance that running these types of ads may deter other brands from working with you. Certainly, there’s still a lot of consumer education needed around cannabis, CBD, and hemp before the messaging becomes truly mainstream. This will take time. But soon enough, any digital publisher not accepting cannabis advertising will be in the minority.
Preparing as a publisher
If you’re not quite ready to accept cannabis advertising, begin by researching and building relationships with advertisers in the meantime. In this fast-growing market, it will be beneficial to stay informed on the latest category innovation and regulation. This way you will be able to more quickly and effectively craft a strategy that supports your revenue goals when the time is right for you to enter the category.
For those who wish to begin accepting cannabis advertising, identifying the right tech partner is an important first step. A provider who understands the nuances of the space and is willing to work with you is critical to navigating the sea of state laws which vary widely. The right programmatic partner can help you easily and confidently ensure that you meet compliance standards. They will also provide access to a unique stream of demand in order to get your share of revenue in this rapidly-growing market.
With the amount of marketing dollars at stake in cannabis, there’s no time to lose to make sure you’re prepared to embrace the revenue opportunity when it’s right for you.
The discussion and debate about measurement in online advertising is rife at the moment. However, one thing is clear: For too long viewability has been used to paint an incomplete picture of ad impact.
We’ve known for a while that viewability is an imperfect metric. And, while standards have improved, the next step in online measurement for brands has been overdue. Media agencies have been working on this problem for a while. They rightly seek to build more sophisticated models in order to spend their clients’ ad dollars within environments that are truly delivering value.
Though some studies have been done, dentsu international has just released one of the most comprehensive to date. Their Attention Economy research is the product of a three year study involving multiple media partners. The goal is to truly understand the drivers of attention and create a real metric for advertisers to use going forward.
What delivers attention
Critically, the study demonstrated that attention is three times better at predicting outcomes than viewability. They uncovered four key factors that deliver attention:
1. User choice
Forced ads gain more raw attention vs. ads that are easily ignored. However, when a consumer voluntarily views an ad, it results in a significant impact on brand lift metrics, whether they viewed for 2s or 20s. Formats that earned attention yield better, and much quicker, outcomes than outcomes than forced formats.
2. Creative
The importance of creativity on ad effectiveness has been well documented. However, it was important to measure its impact within their Attention Economy framework. The study showed that ads optimized for the Teads platform gained a 49% boost in attention vs the original. This is a result of optimizing TV ads for a mobile experience. These grab attention from the start through use of techniques such as contrast, addition of text, animation, or bold colors.
3. Relevance
The dentsu study showed that placing ads within relevant context for the reader gives an uplift of Attentive Seconds Per 1,000 of 13%. Recently, IAS conducted a study with Neuroinsights in the U.S. that demonstrated 23% more detailed memory and 27% more global memory for ads that were aligned with the contextual content, compared with those that were not. We have also observed superior branding impact for ads that are contextually aligned.
4. Time in view
Finally, viewability on its own isn’t enough. However, time in view has been confirmed as an important factor for attention by the study. Both video and display ads quantifiably benefit from quality, viewable time.
Good news
All of the above is fantastic news for publishers. The study clearly shows that premium publishers drive high engagement of users with quality content. and that induces a slow scroll speed. When this is tied in with in-article, outstream video ad formats, it delivers an average of 12.2s of time in view (even higher than instream) and twice the amount of attention compared to social media.
Ever since viewability became a priority, publishers have suffered. They’ve also been forced to include ad formats that provide sub-standard user experiences, purely because media buyers are focused on it as a metric. But the quantification of attention can shift this balance. Ad buyers will increasingly be able to focus on media plans that are based on attention and deliver clear business outcomes.
This will bring back to the center stage not the importance of the quality of the content. It also aligns ads within the context that they’ve been placed.
There are many factors of digital media that are changing for the better. Advertisers, agencies and media owners are all embracing an online ecosystem that’s free from third party cookies. They are aware of its impact on both society and the environment and focused on the quality of ad experiences, rather than the quantity. Attention can be a cornerstone of this new landscape, where a range of brand metrics can be more clearly attributed to certain campaigns.
This is where premium publishers can excel, showcasing greater value to brands than ever before and securing a greater portion of online ad revenue that is currently held in silicon valley. This can be done whilst simultaneously creating even greater trust with their engaged readership and therefore helping develop a truly sustainable media ecosystem.
Privacy is rewriting the rules of adtech, causing seismic shifts to the way media is bought and sold.
Over the past 10 years, digital advertising has run on personal data and identifiers that connect consumers across domains. Today, tightening privacy regulation and heightened consumer awareness about how their data is being used has triggered global changes. We already see the effect. The third-party data that fuels digital advertising is continuing to disappear. And Snap’s shares dropped by 25% because of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature in iOS 14.5, requiring consent from users to track them across apps and websites. It’s also reported that Snap, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are set to lose nearly $10bn due to ATT.
As privacy disrupts the way digital advertising has operated for years, we’re seeing two seismic shifts in the ecosystem. Firstly, there is a transfer of power in digital advertising towards first-party data owners. Secondly, there’s a move to processing data on-device. Digital advertising increasingly requires privacy at its core. Therefore, first-party data owners will need the infrastructure to control, connect and scale their data while planning and buying campaigns.
The shift to first-party data and on-device
Data that was once accessible by ad-tech is now deprecating because of privacy. Control of this data has returned to its rightful first-party owners. This includes publishers, advertisers, and other businesses that have first-party data.
First-party data owners are able to build businesses from their data because they have a direct relationship with their users. Publishers such as Penske, Insider, Future plc, and others are launching successful first-party data platforms and packaging up their consented audiences for advertisers. For example, Future’s first party-data platform, Aperture, has increased the addressable inventory sold to advertisers by 150%. And Insider sees 19 out of its top 20 advertisers using its first-party data platform SAGA, at a 95% renewal rate.
Advertisers are also bringing their first-party data to publishers to match and model audiences and businesses like Instacart, Doordash, Uber, and Amazon see tremendous advertising opportunities because they have first-party data.
First-party data is made useful by on-device technology, but not at the expense of people’s privacy. This is because on-device makes it possible for data processing to happen in real-time. And user data stays on the user’s device instead of being sent to the cloud. It’s the direction of travel for the industry, moving adtech from an era that leaks data to a privacy-first era that protects it. In fact, other tech companies such as Apple, Facebook, and Google have and are re-architecting their technology for on-device processing.
Rebuilding for privacy
We believe that privacy is a force for good in advertising, and on-device is the future of digital advertising. However, we need to rebuild and provide first-party data owners with the necessary tools to scale.
For advertisers, the supply paths can be inefficient today because they need to build it publisher-by-publisher. Publishers also have no consistent way of making their data available to advertisers in a privacy-compliant and sustainable way. To seize the opportunities ahead of them, first-party data owners require a privacy-first infrastructure for digital advertising to be immune to any dramatic regulatory or browser-level changes,
This infrastructure will help publishers and advertisers to connect safely. It’s a way for personalized advertising to continue for first-party data owners, a place where digital advertising can continue to thrive — without the data leakage we see happening today.
Building on a privacy-first infrastructure is a long-term, sustainable strategy for publishers, advertisers and other first-party data owners. It will bring much-needed transparency, scale and privacy to digital advertising. It’s no longer the time for band-aid solutions to the impact of privacy on digital advertising. Any solution that isn’t grounded in privacy won’t stand up to oncoming regulatory, browser changes, and consumer scrutiny.
About the author
Joe Root is co-founder and CEO of Permutive. Following a BEng Computing at Imperial College and MSc Computer Sciences at Oxford, Joe started Permutive with his co-founder, Tim Spratt, joining Y Combinator in 2014.
The classics are so well-known they’ve become punchlines: acai berry treatments, one simple trick to get rid of belly fat, get rich working from home. Newer scam ad verticals like bitcoin and crypto schemes, home solar energy savings, and nutritional supplements for diabetes sufferers are slamming consumers on every corner of the Internet.
And yet scam and deceptive advertising is simply accepted as an ugly part of digital media and advertising. And it’s only getting uglier. Since the beginning of 2021, The Media Trust has detected a 50% increase in scam campaigns hitting publisher properties. Still, too many AdTech companies and publishers look the other way as the scams roll through the programmatic pipes, hoping their audiences have the good sense not to be bamboozled.
The Media Trust detected unique scam campaigns ramping upwards throughout 2021 with a major spike in July.
Unfortunately, there have been virtually no consequences for sites running scam ads. There’s the occasional massive fine, like when the Federal Trade Commission came down hard on Clickbooth for its acai berry barrage. However, for the most part, scammers advertise with impunity and AdTech and publishers become their accomplices.
However, consequences may be coming—and the fallout may be dire—judging by the developing online regulatory situation in the UK and increasing attention elsewhere.
The scope of online safety measures
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised to present the Online Safety Billbefore Christmas. The bill would require publishers, social networks, and many communication/messaging apps to deter, remove, and mitigate the spread of Illegal and harmful content—particularly when aimed at children. The bill threatens fines as high as £18 million or 10% of global revenue, and possible criminal sanctions.
Beyond content that sexually exploits children (which must be reported to law enforcement), the harmful content in question includes malicious trolling and racist abuse—with the added goal of “protect[ing] democracy,” presumably through stemming online disinformation. The UK Office of Communications (Ofcom) will enforce the proposed law, which will also give the regulatory agency the ability to completely block access to a site or platform.
However, advocates like famed British personal finance advisor Martin Lewis think the bill doesn’t go far enough. That’s because it’s laser-focused on user-generated content and doesn’t regulate online advertising—most notably scams. Lewis, whose likeness is often exploited in scam ads pushing bitcoin schemes, has been on a crusade against online scam ads for years, including forcing Facebook to settle for £3 million over a 2018 lawsuit regarding more than 1,000 scam ads featuring his appearance.
Drowning in scam ads
The data backs up Lewis’ claim that the “The UK is facing an epidemic of scam adverts.” In 2020, 410,000 cases of fraud reported to the UK police represented a 31% jump from the year prior, according to consumer group Which?, with £2.3 billion fleeced. Including anxiety and psychological damage, Which? puts the actual total suffered by UK consumers at £9 billion.
And the greatest frustration among consumers and public advocacy groups is the lack of recourse and sense that scammers act with impunity—aided by AdTech and digital media. In another Which? report, 34% of consumers said a scam they reported to Google was not taken down, while 26% said the same of Facebook.
In 2020, The National Cyber Security Centre removed more than 730,000 websites hosting scam advertising landing pages featuring the likenesses of Lewis, Richard Branson, and other celebrities. Despite that effort, The Media Trust has seen a 22% increase in these types of scam (aka “Fizzcore”) content throughout 2021 that use similar landing pages.
Fizzcore attacks, which typically feature celebrities and hawk bitcoin scams, have grown 22% over 2021 despite crackdowns.
Fizzcore is more nefarious than other scams because it employs cloaking to hide malicious creative and/or landing pages from creative audits and other detection techniques. The vast majority of these have been pushing bitcoin investment scams, often with the same Lewis and Branson content.
Personal finance advisor Martin Lewis and billionaire philanthropist Richard Branson are common faces in scam ads directed at UK citizens.
Even if online scam advertising fails to make the final Online Safety Bill, a reckoning for scam ads could come in other forms. The UK’s Department for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport (DMCS) is developing the Online Advertising Programme (OAP), a framework that enables regulators to address potential consumer harms from digital advertising, including scam ads.
And just to pile on, UK. Home Secretary Priti Patel announced a relaunched Joint Fraud Taskforce on Oct. 21. Addressing the significant rise in scams during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, the taskforce will focus on addressing scams and fraud through private-public partnerships and refurbishing of government reporting tools.
Fallout beyond the British Isles
The ramifications of all this regulatory (buildup) ought to make the industry anxious. The Online Safety Bill would put heavy new burdens on publishers and social media in moderating user content in the UK, but the inclusion of scam ads might directly affect revenue. In the absolute worst-case scenario, publishers would need to vet all specific advertisers running on their sites as well as be familiar with all creative to avoid liability. That could mean many risk-averse publishers shut off programmatic advertising.
Scam advertisers are notoriously hard to pinpoint. They use any and every buying platform available, and then tools like cloaking in code to hide their malicious motives. When it comes to rooting out scam campaigns, the proof isn’t completely in the ad code. While creative and domain patterns can be identified and blocklisted, finding scammers also requires investigation into the elusive end-advertisers, their motives, and their histories. It’s not impossible, but it requires dedicated teams always on the pursuit.
Beyond stopping scammers cold at the source, the next best way to stem proliferation of scam ads is to bring culpability to publishers and their AdTech partners. However, publishers are the low-hanging fruit. The website was where the consumer was attacked, so they’ll always be the prime regulatory target.
Despite the intense pressure in the U,K., regulators in other countries are also most definitely paying attention and looking for a potential roadmap. In the U.S., reform of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—which shields online media companies from legal liability regarding user-generated content—appeals to both major political parties. Really, what politician would say no to the easy win of protecting consumers from online scams? According to the Federal Trade Commission, consumers lost $3.3 billion to fraud in 2020, up from $1.8 billion in 2019—and that’s only the 2.2 million reports filed.
Self-regulation to the rescue?
The IAB UK is conversing with the DMCS on the OAP, but ultimately the trade group believes industry self-regulation is the answer. While self-regulation on the data privacy front became a mockery of itself, self-regulation of scam ads doesn’t need to meet the same fate. First off, trade groups like the IAB need to establish stronger ad quality guidelines that offer standards for handling malvertising, scam, and other harmful ads.
In addition—or short of that—publishers need to take control of their own destinies regarding scam ads. Every ad quality provider should be identifying scam ads and enabling publishers to block them. Slapping down redirects simply isn’t enough for a bad-ad-blocker—a publisher serving scam ads is violating the trust of its audience and leaving consumers vulnerable.
Not only is blocking the scam ads the right thing for publishers to do, it is a way to get ahead of—or perhaps helping avoid—a regulatory onslaught that will have catastrophic revenue consequences. Failing to mitigate will come back to haunt the industry.
