Tags containing: "digital advertising"

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Reaching a new value equilibrium between the buy-side and sell-side

April 8, 2022 Christopher Guenther, COO – ArcSpan Technologies

Why does there exist such a chasm between the buy-side and sell-side of the digital media industry? Despite all the personal work interactions, conference events, career longevity and deep relationships, media professionals seem to hone their skills on one side or the other with little thought of changeover. This has resulted in a communication and understanding gap that is likely holding back the opportunity to create stronger industry growth through unlocking greater media innovation, efficiency and better consumer content experiences.

The pace of change in our industry continues to accelerate. Those with the greatest perspective – of commercial business models, underlying technologies, regulatory environments and consumer impact – are best prepared to succeed. There needs to be more collaboration and shared insights across the buy-side and sell-side for the sake of our industry’s future.

Our industry today is driven by the buy-side. That is where the money is and suppliers have largely succumbed to being price-takers driven by third-party data-targeting tools within the DSP environment. However, we may now be starting to see the beginning of a shift in the buyer-seller equilibrium. Since advertisers soon will no longer be able to obtain the same level of access to third-party audience data given tightening regulations and changes within the broader adtech ecosystem, buyers will need to make a more direct connection with their direct suppliers – be it a publisher, retailer, or other. Sellers who understand buyers’ objectives the most will be best positioned to gain from the new value equation.

As this value recallibration plays out over the next 18 months, we offer the following three insights from the buy-side that will benefit publishers. The buy-side may control the budgets, but the sell-side is responsible for maintaining the integrity and viability of the audience and is the keeper of the audience data. There is much for successful sell-siders to learn from the buy-side.

1. Best audience = scale +fidelity

Buy side insight

On the buy-side, the desire for control has led to a mentality of “anything that can be bought programmatically should be bought programmatically.” As programmatic execution continues to grow, audience targeting plays an important role. Advertisers utilize a menu of relevant audiences for their campaigns. They isolate each segment on distinct ad serving placements when they want to see performance at a granular level.

Generally, audiences will span first-party, second-party and third-party segments. Advertisers prioritize the use of first party site visitor data segments followed by strong-performing second party segments that are native to the DSPs they utilize. Third party audience segments are approached with a heavy sense of skepticism. Advertisers quickly point to the unrealistically large size of 3P audiences and the consistent lack of details/transparency into the composition of said audiences. Sometimes, to reduce uncertainty pre-campaign, advertisers will index their 1P audience against a library of 3P audiences to identify those most likely to be performant.

Publisher benefit

All parties are skeptical of third-party data, and second-party data is typically isolated to DSPs. This leaves first-party data as the data of preference. Needless to say, this is an area where publishers, as the conduit to users, are the best source. The critical path to adoption is for publishers to offer that in a scalable way that can also achieve the marketer’s performance goals. Large publishers with authenticated users need not worry about the buyers’ concerns over scalable first-party audiences.

However, the vast majority of publishers need to address these concerns. For this group, the best bet is to take advantage of the new technologies available; identity providers, first-party audience lookalike modelling, user widgets/tools. Once those are in place, obtain a direct line of contact to your buyers and discuss your scaling methodology with them. When that is established, you have taken the first step in creating a future-proofed partnership with your buyer that will have revenue benefits. Of course, the next step will be retaining their business, which will require them hitting their KPI’s.

2. Best performance metrics = flexible, custom KPIs

Buy side insight

Buyers tend to perform a balancing act across a range of KPIs (sometimes uncorrelated) within a single campaign while contending with a rapidly changing measurement environment. These KPIs range from Media Quality (viewability, fraud, brand safety) to Ad Engagement (hovers, clicks, interactions) to Cost Per Action (Site Visit, Lead, Customer Acquisition).

Most advertisers want to build a singular 360-view of their customers. But how can a publisher consistently provide the right data to a buyer given the plethora of KPI’s and the fact that they’re not the ones running the media? The answer is having the right combination of technology and services.

Publisher benefit

Having a standalone, new age DMP with all its bells and whistles might allow the pipes to be connected for the sell side to the buyer, but the work doesn’t stop there. The seller needs to inherently understand the advertiser’s KPI’s, their specific needs for their data segments, and have a closed loop funnel on communication and reporting to feedback campaign performance and objectives.

This way, the data that’s shared, be it in cohorts, segments or other, can be amended, tightened, loosened over time as the advertiser feeds back information. Once this combination of technology and service is in place, the seller can transition from being a vendor that supplies inventory to a consultative partner – and reap the rewards of a trusted long term relationship.

3. Best value = direct + efficient transactions

Buy side insight

One buy-side trend in recent years is supply path optimization, expedited partially by the rise of header bidding. Buyers typically run on a list of approved publishers only, and often on a list of approved exchanges thereby optimizing the supply path to address issues like fraud, brand safety, bidding on duplicative placements and performance.

This is often done without direct contact with the publishers and typically by pulling a report within the DSP to find the highest quality path. However, this lack of communication can result in a loss of value on both sides, as often high-quality publishers are blocked. Buyers should give them a chance to work directly with them to create an inventory package that works for them given their KPI’s and brand safety requirements.

Publisher benefit

Getting onto a buyer’s target list of sites can be challenging, particularly because the buyer isn’t going to reach out and tell you when they’ve blocked you. Publishers that are transparent will benefit here: Be open about the way you sell your inventory and the brand safety measurements you can provide.

Remember that good publishers can get added to “avoid lists” based on their performance on the open exchange. If you’re a publisher that sells most of your quality inventory via deal IDs, it’s no surprise that your open exchange inventory doesn’t meet the standards of the buyer. Collaborating directly with buyers makes it easier for publishers to package- inventory (without losing the uniqueness of each publication). This can be done via an open conversation or a technology portal (SSP, DMP), but ideally a combination of both.

The new buy-side / sell-side equilibrium

From a holistic perspective, the buy-side is looking for something pretty straightforward – scale, performance and efficient access. The sell-side needs to highlight the power of the assets they bring to the table and how they meet these needs.

The underlying symbiotic nature of the advertising ecosystem means that the buy-side requires a healthy sell-side with robust audiences. They are incentivized to make sure publishers can succeed. As both sides work together even more transparently, revenue uplift will go hand in hand with removing the roadblocks and complexities that anchor our industry’s growth potential.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Supply-side influence: Make the most of a dynamic ad landscape

April 4, 2022 Wayne Allen, Head of Publisher Sales & Client Services, Americas – IPONWEB

February 2022 saw The Trade Desk announce the launch of OpenPath: a new tool which connects advertisers directly to premium publishers. Hot on the heels of this announcement, both Pubmatic and Magnite announced that they had struck major SPO deals with GroupM. The running theme connecting all three of these announcements is that buyers are starting to view supply access as a source of competitive advantage and differentiation.

At the same time, it’s no secret that publishers can sometimes get the short end of the stick when it comes to advertising revenues flowing through the digital supply chain. A recent study by Adalytics found that the average take rate for intermediaries is around 35%. It also reported that for some publishers, up to 98% of advertiser revenue goes to technology intermediaries with the publisher pocketing a mere 2% (!) of the ad spend.

While this extreme might be an outlier in the research, it echoes some of the findings of the 2020 ISBA and PwC study which reported that publishers receive 51% of the ad spend on average, with 15% of that being unaccounted for. Both studies highlight the opacity of programmatic trading for much of the ecosystem.

If publishers are the secret weapon media buyers need to get a competitive edge, then why aren’t they benefiting more? What can publishers do to take advantage of their unique access to consumers to glean more from the supply value chain?

Supply side optimization

Initiatives like those of GroupM and The Trade Desk highlight a general trend in programmatic focused on closing the gap between advertisers and publishers. This reveals how important it is to buyers to gain preferential access to premium inventory and audiences. It also shows the continued evolution of supply path optimization (SPO), getting closer to supply to drive greater buying efficiencies for advertisers. It’s a call echoed by the 4A’s advice to its members to reduce the complexity of programmatic trading.

Publishers can help direct the SPO narrative by partnering with key demand side partners to assist with their initiatives. Traditionally, SPO strategies are limited by the data and tools accessible to agencies. This information is typically provided by the demand side partners and, as a result, the buy-side driven initiatives look to drive down cost, reduce hops in the supply chain, boost transparency, or gain preferential access. However, with the abundance of data and supply intelligence available on the sell-side, publishers are uniquely positioned to fill gaps in the data landscape for agencies, all while improving their own (publisher) yield and increasing the percentage of working media flowing to content creators.

Media owners can share the insights they have about fees, optimal clearing prices, header density, and loss rates to supplement the data that media buyers are already receiving from their demand side platforms. This can help agencies evaluate and test new supply paths to optimize advertiser performance as well as build new predictive models for funnel analysis, price optimization, and conversion intelligence. Publishers can provide media buyers with the intelligence they need to maximize the returns on their ad spend while maximizing yield for themselves.

Innovate commercial models

Getting closer to demand is just the first step. Smart publishers need to seize upon media buyers’ increased interest in gaining closer relationships with media owners to innovate new commercial arrangements with their buy-side partners. New arrangements can be developed to align with the interests of both parties including swapping first-look inventory access, post-auction discounts, data sharing agreements, measurement support, and reporting intelligence for larger spend commitments.

While activating these types of arrangements, it’s important to not disrupt entrenched buyer workflows and processes. To do so, it is essential that publishers choose a technology partner that has the capability and flexibility to integrate these new processes into the current workflow. Without integrating the new commercial models and/or packages into the current workflow – supplying inventory packages through deal IDs that can be transacted using the media buyer’s choice of DSP – there’s a risk that the extra work and time needed to implement the changes would outweigh the benefits for buyers.

Offer niche service to fill the gaps

Looking a bit further afield, publishers can also assist the buy-side by supporting initiatives that have been traditionally provided by vendors that use third-party cookies. These insight-gathering activities that are covered by third parties include surveys, market research, and brand uplift studies.

As the industry shifts away from third-party cookies, brands and agencies will need to find new and innovative ways to assess the impact of their campaigns and publishers can step up to provide that support. These services are expected to be in demand as full cross-site tracking will become more difficult with the deprecation of the third party cookie in 2023. As a result, panels and proxies will be necessary to assess campaign impact, and publishers are uniquely positioned to provide these services.

Publishers can even deepen relationships with key trading partners by becoming testing partners and providing media buyers with solutions for A/B testing of alternative IDs or creative executions. These services can help fill the gaps in a brand strategy while also solidifying the publisher / agency relationship. Moreover, it can also enable publishers to understand which identity solutions are essential for their audiences and advertisers.

An open position

The foundations of the programmatic ecosystem are shifting. The changes announced by the browser providers and the increased focus on user privacy by governments around the world have shifted the balance of influence in the digital marketplace.

Publishers are primed to take advantage of this tectonic shift and reclaim a position of privilege in the programmatic transaction because of their innate connection to users. There’s no question that buying clout still pulls many of the strings. However, with the need for new approaches to measurement, attribution, and addressability, now might be the perfect time for media traders to work more closely for a better future – with better outcomes for both sides and a better experience for the users.

Advertising | Featured Post

Mobile and video offer publishers a huge contextual advertising opportunity

March 31, 2022 Theresa Cramer, Founder – Quiet Corner Communications

To paraphrase L.L. Cool J, “Don’t call it a comeback. Contextual advertising has been here for years.” However, more recently behavioral targeting has been hogging the spotlight because it allowed marketers to hyperfocus their targeting and track individual users across the web — no matter where they went.

As the industry now swings toward a privacy-centric model, publishers have a chance to double down on the value they bring to contextual advertising. Of course, this isn’t news to publishers. But what may be surprising is that, for the foreseeable future, the real goldmine is in contextual ads on mobile and in video.

Contextual advertising: Why now?

Google has been heralding the end of cookies for years, while putting off the actual implementation — which is currently slated for the second half of 2023. More recently, though, Google announced that it is expanding its Privacy Sandbox to Android. While this implementation is years away, Apple has been taking more decisive steps to protect user privacy. Not only did it deprecate IDFA in 2021 — changing the way mobile marketers track attribution and optimize campaigns on iOS — but it also allows users to turn private browsing on in Safari on all devices.

Apple’s shift to a more privacy-centric model has already led mobile marketers to shift spend to Android. But we can expect to see spending shift on Google’s platforms as well.

Mobile marketers — and digital marketers in general — will need to reckon with the changing industry. Publishers have a chance to step in and remind marketers that contextual advertising is a great way to reach potential customers. They also need to let them know that advertisers who have already shifted away from mobile ad spending on iOS have an opportunity to contextually target iOS users in publisher apps.

Publishers and advertisers prepare for the contextual revival

The good news is that publishers seem to have recognized this opportunity. “The State of Contextual Targeting: Tactics, Technology and Revenue in 2021” from Digiday and Connatix found that many publishers are already prepared for the revival of contextual ads.

“Publishers are expecting a year of rising demand — and advertiser spend — in the area of contextual targeting,” says the report. “Among our respondents, 84% expect advertiser spend to sustain current levels or grow — and on the growth front, 61% expect to see an increase in buy-side budgeting for contextual-based campaigns.”

This isn’t just wishful thinking on publishers’ parts. The report also surveyed marketers at brands and agencies, finding that 96% of respondents said they would spend as much or more on contextual advertising that year. And 65% of advertisers will be adding to their contextual-based budgets.

So how do publishers win those contextual ad dollars?

The mobile opportunity

Much of the conversation about the resurgence of contextual advertising revolves around cookie deprecation. While we continue to wait for that to go into full effect, there is a hole that needs to be filled for mobile advertisers who still want to reach the estimated 1 billion people who use iPhones around the globe.

The rich data available to apps — especially those with a subscription model — presents marketers with a special opportunity. Forget basic, third-party demographic information, apps that require people to enter actual location data or other granular first-party data give marketers the ability to market to users based on real-time context, like weather conditions, or personally supplied information about their interests.

Publishers who can capitalize on this mobile opportunity now have the ability to build trust and solve problems for mobile advertisers who still need to reach iOS users. For instance, Sheri Bachstein, CEO of The Weather Company and GM of IBM Watson Advertising, says, “By helping mobile marketers drive forward their audience engagement efforts with addressable, performant data sources, we’re confident that this powerful data signal can be a solution for brands trying to solve the identity crisis and ensure consumers derive a more relevant experience across the mobile web and app ecosystem.”

Contextual video is on the rise

When we talk about ad trends, video seems to be a perennial list-topper. And it’s no different when it comes to contextual advertising. Digiday reported that “A number of publishers, ranging from Tastemade and Crackle, have added contextual targeting capabilities for their OTT and CTV inventory.”

Additionally, Xandr — a data-enabled technology platform powering a global marketplace for premium advertising — “launched a contextual targeting capability for CTV inventory, as part of a bid to maintain the momentum behind the video side of its business, which now represents 35% of the spend on Xandr’s DSP.” And at the time of the reporting, Iris.tv, which provides a contextual targeting marketplace, “has been growing 25% per month since the start of 2021 and now handles 28 billion ad requests per month, according to a spokesperson.”

Contextual and connected

CTV — and online video content in general — presents many opportunities for publishers, and, ironically, harkens back to the glory days of television advertising when soap companies advertised on daytime TV giving rise to soap operas. The ability to pinpoint this kind of targeting has only increased with CTV, and opens up opportunities for more interactive experiences that also allow for better tracking.

“I think one of the really powerful arenas, where contextual data will be pivotal, is CTV and more and more people are shifting to an addressable approach with their linear television as well,” Katie Price, programmatic media lead at the agency PMG, said in the Digiday Connatix report. “As contextual data gets more powerful from a digital buying perspective, we will be able to mesh together the efficiencies of programmatic buying and digital buying with that contextual relevance that has been such an advantage for TV advertisers and linear advertising in general.”

The report found that 44% of publishers were already using context-based video ad tools or were working with a third-party partner on a solution. Nearly a quarter of respondents were planning to work with contextual video in the year ahead.

That’s an opportunity The Weather Company is poised to capitalize on. According to Bachstein, “The advanced TV market is a huge growth area for us in 2022, and we’re excited to push deeper into this space. After hearing directly from our brand customers, we know that the market craves solutions that deliver personalization and drive action in this rapidly scaling medium. We’re continuing to improve our offerings to remain flexible across a multitude of platforms.”

Integral Ad Science (IAS) has already recognized and invested in the opportunities for CTV and contextual advertising. As AdExchanger reports, “Most of IAS’s growth currently lies in programmatic, and its biggest driver of that revenue line is a product it calls Context Control, which helps shift ad dollars into brand safe environments.” Through strategic acquisitions, IAS can now analyze video in addition to text. IAS creates contextual segments based on video analysis — detecting everything from language to emotions.

That’s a lot of context!

Mobile video: The perfect storm

If mobile and video present opportunities, then it only stands to reason that mobile video is a perfect storm of opportunity for publishers — and the numbers back it up. Google says three out of four adults report watching YouTube at home on their mobile devices. TikTok is predicted to have 1 billion users by January of 2022 built squarely on the popularity of mobile video.

Platforms that combine the convenience of mobile with the engaging nature of video are rewarded with vast audiences. However, marketers looking for controlled, brand-safe environments may be more likely to turn to trusted media outlets. Publishers who can capitalize on the power of mobile video and combine it with contextual ads will stand out from competitors.

The added benefits of contextual targeting

Consumers have, frankly, had it up to here with intrusive ad experiences — and that includes ads that follow them around the web. Audiences are primed for a contextually relevant, yet unobtrusive experience that provides them more control while still delivering a level of personalization. Publishers can seize that opportunity by embracing, and perfecting, the art of contextual advertising.

Contextual is not new. But these days, there are many good reasons to give it another look. Of course these include increased consumer concerns around tracking, privacy regulation, and big tech’s response.

However there’s more to it: contextual ads are smarter than ever. Natural language processing (NLP) allows marketers a deeper understanding of not only the context but the sentiment of each page, and increasingly, video on the web. With the help of machine learning, advertisers and publishers can go beyond keywords and whitelists to find the most relevant content possible.

Advertising | Featured Post | Perspectives

Can CTV avoid the pitfalls that plague digital advertising?

March 29, 2022 Chris M. Sutcliffe – Independent Media Reporter

Nobody doubts the power of television. It retains huge audiences, commands enormous ad spends, and influences discourse at all levels of society. Those strengths largely remain despite the ongoing issues of the retirement of linear TV, the great unbundling, and new entrants into the space cutting into existing revenue strategies among incumbents. What advertisers and brands doubt is the stability of the modern TV landscape — particularly given the rise of television sets connected to the internet.

The advent of connected TVs (CTVs) was supposed to herald a new era of better measurements, more accurate audience demographics, and better return on investment for advertisers. Some of that has come to pass. Other developments have meant that the CTV landscape is not yet delivering upon its full potential, and that it could destabilize TV advertising more generally.

Options abound

According to industry organization Thinkbox 80% of households in the UK have at least one television that is connected to the internet, either directly or through a third-party device like a gaming console. In the U.S., research from The Diffusion Group has found that the share of U.S. broadband households with CTVs has grown by just a single percentage point from last year, and currently stands at 86%.

That plateauing of growth coincides with a growing number of players within the space. Streaming services and digital video platforms jostle for position on CTVs with channels and broadcasters that are more associated with the medium. The number of CTV apps available on the Roku channel store, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire TV increased by over 38% year-over-year in 2020 according to research from 42matters.

It is a collision of different forms of video that mean advertisers have more choice — but also that there is a lot of confusion when it comes to measuring the success of advertising across CTV.

YouTube, for instance, is betting upon that plurality of choice to grow its own advertising business. Philip Miles, country sales director for YouTube and Display, UK & Ireland, told me after the latest YouTube Festival, “Historically, there tended to be a versus conversation — so YouTube versus television… pitted against each other. [But] our key thing that we were trying to land with Festival is YouTube is effectively part of the UK TV industry now, and increasingly advertisers are recognizing that it’s not an either/or conversation.”

But that entrant of new players, combined with resurgent spend after the pandemic, has led to inflation in TV ad prices. It is a volatile market — and exacerbated by issues around measurements. Nielsen is widely seen as not having adapted quickly enough to audience consumption habits, and its UK equivalent, BARB, only announced an upgrade to measure across subscription video on-demand (SVOD) in late 2021. At the time BARB’s chief executive Justin Sampson said, “It’s great news for the television and advertising industry that we’re upgrading our always-on measurement service to include SVOD and video-sharing platforms. For the first time there is audience measurement for these services that bears all the hallmarks of a joint-industry currency: independence, objectivity and transparency.”

Doomed to repeat digital history

Yet media buyer reticence around CTV suggests that the market is unsure about the extent to which it can reliably deliver upon its promise. And the reasons for that reticence will be uncomfortably familiar to anyone who has kept abreast of issues surrounding digital advertising more widely.

For starters, creating that joint-industry approach to marketing is easier said than done. There isn’t yet true consensus on what metrics should be captured, by whom, and which bodies should oversee the data. In the meantime, the lack of any one default measurement body is leading to non accredited bodies offering services that claim to offer a true yardstick for pricing of ads across CTV.

The European Connected TV Initiative says that, just as with digital advertising, opacity of the supply chains is paramount to making the most of the CTV opportunity. Its second most-important priority is the development of a more transparent and integrated CTV advertising supply chain. The goal, it says, is “to give advertisers and agencies the confidence to know what they are buying and where their ads will run – be it premium TV inventory, secondary TV content or social video.”

It all speaks to confusion around the different forms of video available on CTVs. With linear TV, satellite or cable, there was at least the perception of uniformity in form and quality. With the vast number of services available across CTV, that is no longer the case. Although YouTube might like to claim the quality of its content is on par with that across other CTV apps, is it really?

The problem is extremely similar to that of digital advertising, which also has the unfortunate issue of being undifferentiated. Just as projects like overtone.ai seek to provide a quality score for digital advertising — based on a number of criteria that demonstrate the veracity and safety of sites — there is a need among CTV advertisers to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Data and other dilemmas

Some marketers and buyers believe that, as with first-party data provided by digital publishers, there is an opportunity individual apps and CTV services can provide. Tal Chalozin, chief tech officer and co-founder at Innovid, told The Drum: “More data can be generated and a lot more endpoints can be connected together. Marketers would like to see other forms of measurement, more than just panels, more like a census into website traffic or app downloads.”

And probably most similarly to digital advertising, the potential for bad actors to enter the space is a growing concern. Omnicom has cited a lack of linear TV-level transparency as a major flaw in any attempt to sell CTV advertising, even among the bigger players. The company says “an inability to understand audiences at the household level across partners; and a measurability gap that translates to an open invitation to cyber criminals who are generating millions in ad fraud” is the big problem to be solved.

CTV is an enormous opportunity for advertisers. As different forms of video content collide on connected devices, the line between what is and is not TV content is eroding. With that erosion, however, comes the potential for context collapse around TV advertising and a revision of TV advertising’s effectiveness. And despite many of the challenges being familiar, there is no clear path to ensuring the industry doesn’t replicate the mistakes it made in creating digital advertising.

Advertising | Featured Post | Perspectives | Policy

Apple and California are pushing advertising to adapt. That’s a good thing.

March 24, 2022 Chris Pedigo, SVP Government Affairs – DCN

For far too long, many have falsely equated the value of digital advertising as the ability to track consumer behavior. This belief, and much of the marketing strategy it inspired, eroded consumer trust, which hasn’t been a win for anyone. Regulation is catching up and efforts are now being made to align business practices more closely with consumer expectations.

Regulation is catching up and efforts are now being made to align business practices more closely with consumer expectations. Unfortunately, this has a lot of pundits opining about the negative impact of privacy governance on marketing. The reality is that digital advertising has much more than tracking to offer consumers, marketers, and media companies. The changing landscape is a necessary evolutionary step, and an opportunity to get things right.

CPRA in effect

Later this summer, California regulators will spell out draft rules for how companies should comply with the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), which builds on and strengthens existing California privacy law. One of the biggest changes will be the ability for consumers to opt out of being tracked with a single click. The CPRA specifically requires companies to honor an opt out signal generated from a global privacy control in a browser or device.

Interestingly, this new provision in the CPRA mirrors Apple’s approach with App Tracking Transparency (ATT), which it rolled out in 2021 as part of its update to iOS 14.5. Under ATT, apps must ask consumers for permission to track them. The results have not been surprising: 81% of consumers have chosen the option not to be tracked.

So, what will happen when Californians have the same ability to opt out as Apple users have today?

It’s not unreasonable to assume that Californians will opt out of tracking at similar rates. Given that there are more than 39 million California residents, an 81% opt out rate translates to 31,590,000 people. And really, if even half that opt out, it is not a small number. Advertisers will understandably want to find new ways to reach these consumers. The industry is already feeling the impact of consumers’ privacy preferences and advertising must evolve accordingly.

Dominant companies dented

Since the launch of ATT, companies that depend on web-wide tracking of consumers have suffered. Facebook warned investors that Apple’s improvements to privacy will cost them $10 billion in revenue this year.

It’s interesting to note that ATT’s impact is felt solely in Apple’s platform, which has provided Google with the unique calling card to advertisers of being the operating system and browser still “all-in” on tracking. However, CPRA will apply to everyone. Given that Google, like Facebook, has built an advertising empire based on invasive tracking, it seems inevitable that the company will see an impact on its ad revenues as well.

Some have noted that Apple has also seen revenue climb from its own App Store search ads. However, they are quickly reaching capacity constraints in the app promotions category, so this is unlikely to serve as a major growth category for Apple.

Ad innovation

Of course, despite limits to tracking, Apple users still see display ads as those ads just aren’t targeted using behavioral profiles. Apple allows ads to be targeted to cohorts or by using first party data. So, I believe that we will start to see more innovation in how advertising is targeted to consumers. First party targeted ads seem like an obvious winner. In particular, ad innovation on Apple platforms could yield significant success because those audiences have long been seen as a more valuable consumer demographic than Android users.

Premium advertising alignment

Consumers frequently complain about creepy ads that follow them around the web. Those kinds of ads are not subtle. In fact, they are viewed by many as the digital equivalent of junk mail. And, as such, they don’t match well with premium content.

However, ads that are based on first party data might be better suited to a premium environment. For starters, the consumer is likely to realize that they are seeing a certain ad because of data they shared with the publisher. They are also likely to have a more favorable view of that ad because of the context. That’s because – instead of focusing solely on targeting a user at the lowest cost – the advertiser has instead intentionally aligned themselves with the relationship the publisher enjoys with the consumer. The ad is, therefore, likely to leverage that premium context to greater effect. In a world where third-party profiling is restricted, we could start to see higher quality ads in premium contexts – and ads that are more effective as a result.

Valuable consenting consumers

While it is a relatively small number, the 19% of consumers that intentionally opt-in to data sharing with sites and companies they trust will become extremely valuable. Trusted, well-respected brands promise to be the main beneficiaries as they are those most likely to gain consent from consumers. Obviously, advertisers would pay a premium to reach these audiences. It’s also interesting to consider how premium publishers could find new ways outside of advertising to monetize their most loyal consumers.

If past is prologue, big tech lobbyists and lawyers will forebodingly warn that the CPRA will cause irreparable damage to the advertising industry. They will bemoan the impact on small businesses and diverse voices. However, it is critical to remember that their real goal is to blunt the hit to Google and Facebook’s bottom lines, which is already driven by upwards of 70% of the digital advertising market.

The future is good advertising

Ultimately, we need to focus on the fact that consumers want, and will get, more control over how their data is shared across the web. As Carnegie-Mellon economist Alessandro Acquisti points out: When consumers are empowered with more privacy, welfare doesn’t evaporate, it shifts and reallocates towards a new set of winners.

The adaptation required from ATT and CPRA are likely to shake up digital advertising and shift advertising revenue from current channels. Like Apple’s tracking prevention last year, CPRA is poised to have a huge impact on the companies dominating digital advertising by logging every aspect of a consumer’s behavior. At the same time, these shifts promise to expand opportunities for trusted, premium publishers; They will stand out to consumers by offering something consumers actually want: valuable news and entertainment, delivered in a way that respects them and their wishes.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Why privacy fuels possibilities for publishers

March 9, 2022 Elizabeth Brennan, Head of Advertising Strategy – Permutive

The time is ripe for publishers and advertisers to embrace privacy as an opportunity to fuel new possibilities.

As consumers, we value our privacy and want to control what, where, and with whom we share our personal information. With rising concerns and a lack of trust in brands, consumers are now taking various measures to take back control. Research shows that 63% of North Americans would rather purchase from organizations that protect their privacy.

Regulators have a sharper focus on privacy in advertising too. The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) issued a release stating: “A healthy market is one built on data protection by design, enabling privacy-respectful innovations focused on the individual’s interests, rights and freedoms. Meaningful choices benefit individuals and underpin effective competition between businesses. Proposals looking to replace the use of cookies and similar technologies need to ensure they raise the standards of data protection and privacy, and not dilute them.”

Advertising now requires a clearer, transparent, and fairer ecosystem that will benefit advertisers, publishers, and consumers.

Privacy is no longer a nice-to-have

News UK is one of many media owners keeping an eye on privacy changes ahead. Bedir Aydemir, Head of Audience & Data, said: “I’m keen to start to see some real clarity with regards to what’s required for ICO and how the GDPR is interpreted. I think what we’ve been doing up to now is sticking plasters. We’re trying to make what’s happened in the past possible in the future, and that’s not going to be allowed: the ICO made clear.”

In an FT article, it was reported that Meta was suffering the impact of Apple’s privacy policies that “make it harder to track users and target advertising.” The data that was once available to deliver personalized advertising on the web is disappearing. The mobile ecosystem is also disrupted, only 21% of users worldwide have opted into ATT, which requires opt-in consent from users to track them across apps.

The changes we’re seeing in advertising is about more than third-party cookies, it’s about data privacy. Aydemir added that we would see “some real-world changes with regards to how data is parsed into the open market, how it’s valued, how it’s activated” and that publishers will be at the forefront because they have consent data, identity and scale.

If advertisers want to rebuild trust with consumers via responsible marketing and safeguard themselves from the impact of privacy regulation, the key is to work collaboratively with publishers. Many advertisers are already working in this way. They’re moving away from their reliance on a complex system of third parties towards more direct way of buying.

Publishers, and their wealth of first-party data, are valuable because they can build nuanced audiences for advertisers to target, aligned with target audience definitions. This gives advertisers the ability to reach new audiences and achieve marketing goals without compromising user privacy or unnecessary exposure to risk.

First-party data cohorts offer a solution

Advertising is still about reaching relevant audiences at scale on the right channels. With increased privacy concerns, addressability tactics will shift away from reliance on third-party trackers to an increased focus on publishers’ first-party data and publisher cohorts, which groups people with similar characteristics and behaviours without identifying them.

Visitor-based rankings publisher, Ranker saw a 25% increase in RFP win rate within six months of taking their first-party data strategy to market and demonstrating the value of their unique first-party cohorts. Ranker can tell advertisers what their users are doing and their other interests and likes, this includes data designed to inform planning, optimization, and future targeting.

According to Ranker’s senior director of sales operations and planning JR Hoffman, “As the industry figures out the privacy piece, it helps our clients feel confident that we have a strategy in place for dealing with the ongoing changes around third-party cookies and privacy regulation.

Working directly with publishers and targeting via publisher cohorts alleviates challenges caused by privacy because they use consented first-party data. In this way, publishers and advertisers work towards a more responsible web, using privacy-compliant and sustainable approaches to engaging high-value audiences.

Don’t be afraid of the challenges ahead

It’s an exciting time for advertisers and publishers. But it’s also challenging, as have other major shifts in advertising. There are over 100 post-cookie solutions, according to continuing analysis by MMA Global and Prohaska Consulting, but all differ in regards to how data is used.

Publishers and advertisers need the infrastructure to connect safely with multiple publishers at a global scale, in a brand-safe environment where no data is leaked, and personalized advertising at scale is possible for first-party data owners.

Rethinking privacy as an opportunity to fuel possibilities will help publishers and advertisers emerge from the cloud of confusion that has shrouded them in 2021. Critically, it will also put people back into the decisions we make in advertising.

About the author

Elizabeth Brennan is the Head of Advertiser Strategy for Permutive, which powers the future of targeted advertising on the Open Web. With over a decade of experience in digital advertising, Elizabeth is a champion of women in business and a strong believer in the power of coaching. A graduate of The University of Reading, Elizabeth is a former winner of the prestigious NABS Fast Forward award and has gone on to achieve Code First certification as part of the organization’s initiative to increase the number of women in tech.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Publishers push past the cookie and take control of their data destiny

February 22, 2022 Todd Tran, Chief Strategy Officer – Teads

The start of 2021 seems like a lifetime ago by any measure. But if you work in the world of digital advertising, the landscape certainly looks very different today than this time last year. Back then we were expecting 3rd party cookies to be removed from Google’s Chrome browser imminently resulting in a rush to prepare for this new world.

Google may have postponed their deprecation timeline. However, the reality is that – thanks to updates from Apple and existing policies from the likes of Firefox – the online digital landscape globally is already 40% cookieless, rising to 60% in markets such as US and UK*. Last February, we surveyed of 419 of the world’s top publishers to see how they were preparing for the cookieless world and we recently conducted the survey again to see how much had changed.

Over the past month, 449 of the world’s best publisher brands, representing a cross-section of both small and medium sized publishers and the largest media companies, responded to questions about their plans for the deprecation of the cookie and which industry initiatives they’re looking at implementing and the results are illuminating.

Education progressing but confidence isn’t high

The number of publishers who have limited to no knowledge of cookies and the cookieless future has fallen from 10% to 6% and those who have a strong understanding of new initiatives has risen from 24% to 31%. However, those in the middle who are unsure of new solutions and how they affect their business are still far ahead in the majority at 63%, relatively unmoved from 66% 12 months ago. While it is good to see there’s movement in publishers’ education, there’s a long way to go if they are to thrive in today’s cookieless world.

Google can wait, media can’t

What’s plain to see is that 12 months of changes have sent a clear message to publishers: The time for action is now. Do not delay. When asked how platform and regulatory changes in 2021 impacted their planning for the cookieless future, 78% said that such changes either had no impact or had accelerated their plans.

While this might seem counterintuitive at first glance, it’s fantastic to hear that publishers are not waiting for others to dictate their future when it comes to 3rd party data. Media titles need to move quickly to create clear and sustainable offerings for advertisers that aren’t susceptible to changes. They must lean into their strengths vs social platforms, which currently have the lion’s share of digital budgets.

Ain’t no party like your 1st party

The most encouraging outtake from the survey however is that publishers are doubling down on sustainable revenue practices that are within their control. We asked: “Do you see the deprecation of 3rd-party cookies and/or IDFA/Device IDs as a threat or an opportunity for publishers?” The good news is that we’ve seen a 100% increase year on year. Half of all respondents now say such changes “…give us the opportunity to differentiate through our 1st-party data and the quality of our content”.

In similar fashion, when asked about which data/targeting solutions are they likely to adopt, only 27% said that a privacy sandbox would be considered. Most (63%) see 1st party data as an answer, 59% appropriately see contextual within their offering, with unique ID seeing a good percentage at 43%.

This focus on owned data and content may not be revolutionary for those who’ve been fighting the battle for quality journalism for a long time now, but it’s exciting to see it within this context. Indeed, many of us in media have played this record before. However, 3rd party cookie deprecation changes this landscape dramatically.

Publishers’ who have stayed the path, developing deep connections with their audiences and building trust (at a journalistic and UX level) will have significant advantages as we move into this new world. And while the exact “how” might not be worked out, it’s fantastic to see the digital media landscape increasingly bullish as the privacy debate plays out.

The goals are set, now it’s about execution

While this all sounds great, there are some visible hurdles that need to be cleared. Logins could be an opportunity to develop sophisticated targeting solutions for brands. However, only 45% say they have a strategy for increasing the use of logins and 93% of global publishers say 50% or less of their users actually do so. Logins pose questions across the publisher journey. In fact, 45% worry about the impact on user experience and 49% are worried about the impact on traffic.

Others also show concerns about monitoring inventory monetization capabilities (33%), technical implementation of logins (31%) and conflict with subscription models (18%). The directive here? While logins should be part of publishers’ solution for a cookieless world, it cannot be the only tool they use. They must also adopt solutions such as a cookieless tag to supplement this to provide greater scale for advertisers. That there’s no time to waste, cookieless is here and digital media can press home their advantages, but there’s a lot of work to be done before they’re ready.

In 2021, we said that publishers need answers in order to be fully ready for a cookieless world, and while a lot of those questions still yet to be answered, the question about whether publishers can thrive in a sustainable data world does seem to be resolved.

It will require more tests, increased implementation of technologies and a press to find concrete answers today that can resolve the questions being asked. There are already viable solutions in market and it’s time for publishers to properly get started, if they have not already done so. But once those challenges are overcome we should be left with better user trust, better media outcomes and better monetization opportunities for publishers – which sounds like a sustainable media ecosystem to me.

*Source: Teads global platform data (October 2021)

Advertising | Innovation | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Struggling to implement advertising automation? Here are three critical factors

February 21, 2022 Jennifer Choo, Senior Marketing Manager — Theorem Inc.

Across the publishing, media and streaming industries, ad supported revenue models remain a central source of income, despite the growing popularity of subscription models. As we look to the future, we know that ad supported revenue models are here to stay, but to remain profitable and scalable they must evolve. Automation offers the ability to optimize processes and future-proof these models at scale. But implementation can be challenging for organizations that have long standing manual processes tied to revenue models.

Through the past few years, shifts in consumer behaviors have compelled many publishing, streaming, and entertainment brands to focus on optimizing their current ad models. To stay competitive, many concluded they would need to innovate their current strategies by leveraging automation as a tool to streamline processes.

Additionally, many organizations had to take a hard and fast look at their current business models and make changes that enable scale and ensure success in current and future markets. Let’s face it: This would be no small task at any time. However, it is particularly challenging these days given the impacts of the pandemic across all industries and the tremendous growth of digital marketing initiatives fueled by the shifts in consumer behavior.

The act of developing new ad modeling formats to engage with evolving consumer habits does involve innovation and proper management. Organizations going through these pivots can be vastly different in terms of structure, size, and strategy. However, their goals and the path to achieve them are the same: Streamlining processes and future-proofing business by automating the processes that enable advertising campaign deployment and successful ad model revenue streams.

Implementing automation is worthwhile, but it can be challenging. When implementing automation strategies into your organization, you should focus on three critical elements: managing the human element, enabling effective change order, and enhancing data analysis and utilization. These must be addressed to allow you to effectively implement automation, to optimize for today and build a foundation for the growth of tomorrow.

Managing the human element

Advertising is both an art and a science. The art piece is the element in which human creativity is necessary for innovation. The science is the technology that can be leveraged across repetitive elements to increase bandwidth in terms of scale and reduce the time required of teams.

For many, balancing the human element within their technology and automation implementations can be a challenge. Optimization of redundant tasks through automation is necessary to streamline internal processes, which enables scalability and business growth. But developing an automation strategy cannot be done without the human element of the business.

No matter what type of challenge you facie, and changes you are working to implement, one critical element of balancing the art and science of it all is transparency. Encouraging teams to embrace changes through open communication and collaboration and building a structure based on accountability is key.

The human element of your business is necessary part of the technology and automation implementation. The only way to succeed when implementing an automation strategy is to enable buy-in to the process by way of transparency from the start. It is critical that you involve you team in every step of the automation implementation process—and the earlier you involve them the better.

Enabling effective change management

Business optimization and growth at scale are a constant process for all organizations. It is impossible for any business to implement organization-wide changes to strategy and process, like automation of order-to-cash, without a heavy focus on effective change management. Ensuring that the entirety of the business has buy-in to the pivots in strategy and the new workflows that are being implemented is paramount to success, and effective change management practices will get you there.

Effective change management requires leading with empathy. To succeed, you must understand your teams, their fears, wants, and needs. The best way to do this is to establish internal feedback loops, encourage collaboration and develop a baseline of accountability.

Change can be intimidating for teams, especially in terms of automation, but it doesn’t have to be. Creating stability through large business shifts like automation implementation is critical. The key to effective change management is involving your teams throughout the change process, creating clear roles and responsibilities, and establishing a baseline of accountability for individuals, teams, and the organization as a whole.

Enhancing data analysis and utilization

Data is at the core of all organizations. Data analysis is the thread that ties the art and science of business evolution together. To successfully manage the human element of your business and enable effective change management, you must lean into your data. It is vital to thoroughly understand your audiences to better serve your brand clients and make insightful decisions when it comes to creative and logistical elements of your business. Significant innovations like automation implementation cannot be successful without leveraging your data and enhancing your data utilization strategies across your business.

The ability to enhance data analysis and utilization is critical for publishing, media, and streaming brands as it correlates directly to keeping brand partners in the know, for both existing initiatives and future planning. More than ever before, brand partners look to their media partners to provide real-time data insights to inform campaign optimization and ensure success.

Leveraging robust data utilization and analysis within your internal decision-making initiatives enables internal teams to develop content that serves the interests of the modern consumer, creating an audience pool with higher engagement levels for brand partners to reach. Implementing robust data collection methodologies and enabling both internal teams and brand partners to tap into that data in real-time is a key element to optimizing and building future growth.

Growth ahead

Regardless of your business model, developing a methodology to ensure your business can grow at scale for years to come is critical. Publishing, media, and streaming companies have encountered a host of different challenges over the past few years as they work to optimize and scale their businesses. Automation is central to future-proofing your advertising strategies. These three core implementation strategies will help you get there.

These elements are at the heart of the evolution of ad supported revenue models for streaming, media, and publishing brands. Understanding the necessity and building a strategy with these elements as the focal points will ensure successful innovation for scale in the modern competitive market.

Advertising | Perspectives | Revenue | Supporter Spotlight

4 Ways publishers can invest in accountability to build revenue in 2022

February 18, 2022 Dave Constantino, VP of Client Development – Oracle Advertising

Spending on programmatic advertising is set to hit $133.04 billion in 2023, representing over 90% of display advertising, according to eMarketer. This rise in programmatic advertising presents publishers with a new challenge. While spending increases, so do the estimates around the cost of ad fraud. Publishers must exert more control over inventory than ever before if they aim to maintain customer trust while being a part of the programmatic marketplace. The good news is, providing a trustworthy, fraud-free environment for advertisers can be what sets you apart from the competition.

Certainly, achieving transparency with advertising partners remains a persistent industry challenge. However, there are also few ways that publishers can maximize their opportunity for monetization while building audience trust and meeting the needs of advertisers. Let’s look at a few and what they may involve.

Pay attention to bad actors and ensure fraud-free experiences 

It seems like an obvious criterion, but advertisers and agencies need to ensure real people see their ads. Delivering quality impressions and identifying any invalid traffic is table stakes for publishers who want to build trust with advertisers.

In the past, attempts to prevent invalid traffic (IVT) have been tedious at best, and, at worst, horribly ineffective. To be genuinely effective at blocking IVT, publishers need intelligent solutions to identify patterns associated with malicious bot activity. Your solutions should do this without slowing download times or exposing consumers’ personally identifying information (PII). This is how you truly stay ahead of the game.

Commit to responsible media 

We can all agree that getting brand safety right is essential—that value transcends across the ecosystem. The right technology needs to be in place to safeguard brand reputation while also being nuanced enough to allow access to quality inventory. Having the right tools in place will instill advertisers with confidence that working with you is an efficient and responsible investment decision.

However, brand safety is about so much more than avoiding inappropriate or non-brand-aligned content. Establishing a marketing strategy that brings brand values into the equation has increased importance, especially when it comes to reaching younger audiences. Curating packages in line with advertiser values (such as diversity, social initiatives, and environmental impact) will make you a more attractive partner overall. Publishers that support and maintain responsible media practices demonstrate integrity and care for audiences by doing what they can to avoid potentially damaging exposures.

Work with reliable tools you have now

Faced with an economy overwhelmed by COVID-19 and web traffic spread across a variety of devices and channels, more than 70% of advertisers feel they need to simplify management of programmatic budgets to have more inventory control. To meet the challenges of rapid declines in revenue during pandemic-caused turmoil, publishers cannot wait idly for the next technological innovation. In fact, conditions like these create opportunities to plan how to lower expenses and optimize value.

For example, take a look at the tools you currently have at your disposal and determine if you are truly getting the maximum value. Connect with your partners, revisit best practices, and uncover new features that you may have missed or metrics you may not have paid much attention to before. Measuring attention meaningfully goes beyond simple verification metrics—such as valid, safe, and viewable—to more nuanced metrics that can provide deeper and more tailored performance metrics that can set you apart from your competition.

Moving targets: establish dynamic pricing to deal with flux

When the average cost of an ad impression falls precipitously due to high supply and low demand, as they did in early 2020, ad revenues creep lower as well. In January and February of 2020, the price of an impression fell by almost 28% compared to 2019. To cope with these changes, effective publishers employ dynamic pricing methods that incorporate bid analysis.

By leveraging learnings to set minimum pricing rules per device, content category, type of bidding, advertiser, and other parameters, publishers can address growing demand and fierce competition. Even under the most challenging circumstances, ad revenue can rise if publishers continuously analyze the bids they receive for ad space and create opportunities to set minimum prices—between fill-rate and revenue—that reflect customer demand.

New measures of success

As an industry we are increasingly looking toward new measures of success and a commitment to the responsible media strategies that inform them. Human, viewable, and brand-safe data still sets the baseline for core measurement, but true brand effectiveness requires further evolution.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

How broadcasters can turn Advanced TV to their advantage

February 14, 2022 Virginie Dremeaux, Vice President, Marketing and Communications, International – FreeWheel

Changes to media consumption habits mean that audiences are consuming more than linear TV and subscription services. Today’s audiences are tuning in to a broad range of connected TV (CTV), broadcaster video-on-demand (BVOD), and advertising-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) services, which all fall under the umbrella of Advanced TV. As a result, marketer interest in this medium and the highly engaged viewers that flock to it are on the rise. But this raises an important question: What’s in it for the broadcasters?

As a medium that can expand the reach of linear TV and make premium video environments accessible to digital-native advertisers, Advanced TV holds strong potential in the media landscape. As Katie Coteman, Vice President, Advertising and Partnerships at Discovery, put it, during The Future of TV Advertising Global event: “some of the bigger, usual advertisers were pulling away [from TV advertising during the pandemic] so it was a great time to encourage new advertisers to TV.”

Recent research conducted by FreeWheel* into key European markets uncovered what’s driving this shift and the growth in Advanced TV. The research also explored further opportunities that broadcasters should seize.

Advanced TV is well-placed to maintain a growth momentum

Almost three-quarters (73%) of the European marketers surveyed intend to boost their Advanced TV spend in 2022, an increase more than double that of global marketing budgets. In the UK, CTV and VOD in particular were forecast to grow 9.2% and 8.2% respectively by respondents in the region.

So, what’s feeding this appetite for Advanced TV? Content and accessibility.

A previous survey by FreeWheel and Happydemics in four European** countries found that CTV users watch an average of two to three BVOD or AVOD services. This highlights both the continued fragmentation of the TV landscape and the rising viewer demand for quality video content. In response, marketers are keen to make Advanced TV an even more integral part of their media plans.

Broadcasters stand to gain from this trend and can tap into the high levels of marketer confidence for 2022. Doing so requires a deeper understanding of buyer needs, so that broadcasters can support marketing objectives and heighten the value of their premium video inventory.

What are marketers looking for from Advanced TV campaigns?

As revealed in FreeWheel’s “Advanced TV Uncovered” study, the European advertisers and agencies surveyed are prioritizing upper-funnel marketing goals, with 59% looking to strengthen customer acquisition. What’s more, 49% are focused on growing revenue and 37% are committed to improving customer loyalty.

These three priorities rank as the most important for 2022, mirroring those of 2021 and indicating that marketers are deeply invested in their current objectives. Cross-screen targeting opportunities are also a key motivator for Advanced TV growth, meaning broadcasters that support these capabilities can win ad budgets by helping marketers leverage premium video environments to boost campaign reach and personalization.

For example, advanced audience targeting is the top accelerator overall for investment in the medium, as claimed by 50% of advertisers and 42% of agencies who took part in the research. Being an ecosystem that doesn’t rely on third-party cookies (which will soon be retired), Advanced TV’s effective and privacy-compliant targeting techniques could be a key accelerator for growth. For broadcasters, these targeting solutions ensure they seamlessly deliver ads that improve the personalized viewing experience while respecting user privacy. Looking ahead, maintaining the quality of the content as well as audience trust in Advanced TV will be highly important.

How can broadcasters continue to capture this growth?

With audience consumption patterns diversifying, it’s becoming critical to unify advertising across all screens. Developing measurement capabilities will be central to this, as 40% of respondents consider the ability to monitor ROI — such as customer acquisition, lead generation, and uplift to web traffic — as a top priority.

Broadcasters have the opportunity to work together to progress the ecosystem, as they are in a strong position to use deterministic data sets and advanced solutions that monitor cross-screen performance. By building a shared language and aligning on metrics, broadcasters may make the most of all their premium inventory, both linear and digital. As a result, digital-native brands could be further encouraged to expand Advanced TV’s place in their media mix. Harmonized measurement tools will enable effective media planning and impactful campaign optimization for marketers, attracting greater investments.

The strong optimism in Advanced TV is making it a promising part of the media landscape for 2022. Broadcasters can use their in-depth understanding of content and audiences to help marketers deliver addressable, targeted campaigns across screens. By uniting their efforts, they can progress measurement solutions, standardisation, and increase the value of premium video inventory, allowing them to reap the benefits of viewer adoption of Advanced TV.

* in collaboration with CoLab Media Consulting between 23 July and 2 August 2021 in: UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

** UK, DE, IT, FR

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

The role of ad quality in the post-trust era

February 11, 2022 Tobias Silber, CBO – GeoEdge

Publishers have long understood that user experience and monetization go hand in hand. So it only makes sense to examine the impact of ad quality on experience and, by extension, on monetization.

According to our research, more than three-quarters of publishers (76%) say user experience on their sites has been impacted by ad quality challenges. What’s more, 66% say poor ad quality has affected their revenue. It’s clear that user experience and ad experiences are one and the same in the eyes of the audience. So why should digital publishers see it any differently?

Maintaining user trust in a post-trust-era

Few publishers are spared the burden of poor ad quality, hitting them where it hurts most—audience trust. Digital advertising is often characterized by clickbait, as well as deceptive and offensive advertising. These days, the audience sits at the most vulnerable position in advertising as digital scams and fraud run rampant. But they are also the most powerful element in the digital ad ecosystem, determining the success or failure of a publisher’s business.

Along with sensitive ad categories, publishers should be wary of ads touting misleading product offers, financial scams, and brand infringement. It may seem that programmatic monetization automatically translates into poor ad quality, but publishers should understand that there is a better alternative. Quality advertising can reinforce a positive user experience, benefit a publisher’s relationship with the audience, and serve as a differentiator within a crowded market.

The first step is to acknowledge the need to shift your approach to one that puts the user first.

What it means to be a user-first publisher

Implementing a user-first approach is vital to ensuring a positive experience and safeguarding programmatic as a strategic revenue channel. But not every publisher who says they take a user-first approach actually does.

In 2022, publishers that want to differentiate themselves must offer a user experience that surpasses the standard—and user expectations—because audiences see bad ads as more than a red flag. Beyond being simply annoying, bad ads send a message that a publisher doesn’t value its users. In fact, nearly half of publishers claim that poor ad quality impacts the lifetime value of visitors to their sites. Our researchers found fewer than 10% of users who experience bad ads even let publishers know. The vast majority churn silently. They leave the site, end their subscription, and opt for the competition, leaving publishers wondering what went wrong.

To uphold truth-in-advertising, bad ads cannot appear on the page in the first place. This is the only way to exceed audience expectations, ensure user protection, and maintain user trust. Our research revealed less than a quarter of publishers who serve programmatic ads claim they have total transparency regarding the ads that come through those channels. Unless programmatic platforms can reign in bad ads, scams will continue to plague publishers and their audiences.

Making technology work for you and your audience

Publishers are the obvious choice to determine brand suitability. They set the standard for ads that meet their site’s content and audience expectations. After all, publishers know their audiences best. To ensure a high-quality user experience, technology must be used to provide complete transparency and control for publishers.

We found that a staggering 80% of publishers say brand suitability enhances audience trust and ensures confidence. Real-time tech should provide publishers maximum granularity enabling internal teams to define the standards for what is and isn’t allowed on their site.

Publishers require dynamic, real-time tools that proactively ensure brand suitability standards across programmatic channels most susceptible to bad ads. Though it is important to remember that, while high standards for brand suitability can be maintained with technology, the technology itself must be reliable.

Thinking forward (not one step back)

A user protection approach can’t simply involve putting out fires. A positive and trustworthy user experience is at the heart of audience loyalty—and it requires a proactive approach.

Trust in advertising requires truth in advertising. To put users first, publishers cannot compromise on user protection. Publishers must synchronize their user protection strategy with their business objectives by using a technology-based ad quality strategy.

Advertising | Featured Post | Innovation | Policy | Revenue

Regulation, revenue, and relationships top of mind at the 2022 DCN Next: Summit

February 7, 2022 Jessica Patterson – Independent Media Reporter

Held virtually January 31-February 3, the 20^th annual members-only DCN Next: Summit was a gathering of digital content companies from all over the world.

CEO Jason Kint opened the event by offering his perspective on how the last few years have underscored the need for quality information. He also reinforced the need for trust, particularly as we move toward web3. “Where people have choice and a competitive market, where they spend their time, attention and relationships, trust will matter. Trust matters more than ever,” Kint explained.

Keynotes and discussion sessions touched on subscriptions, paywalls and reader revenue, video, film, audio strategy, and AI. The event also explored the political and technical forces shaping the media landscape today, with sessions focusing on cookies, identity, trust, privacy, and platforms.

The personal is political, and platforms

The opening keynote featured 2021 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Maria Ressa speaking with investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr. They discussed platforms and the critical role a free press plays in healthy democracies. As Ressa put it, “Until technology gets guardrails around it, until we get to the point where the platforms that deliver the news are redesigned so that lies laced with anger and hate do not spread faster and further than facts, journalists will be under attack.”

Investigative Journalist Carole Cadwalladr in conversation with Maria Ressa, CEO of Rappler

Platform concerns and necessary regulation arose again throughout the event, notably in Thursday’s final keynote. Attendees heard from U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, mere hours after a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights hearing.

Klobuchar, who has been working to hold big tech platform accountable, provided an update on the bipartisan antitrust app store bill that just went through committee, as well as other bills she’s leading. “We just had an incredible vote on a bill that Senator Blumenthal and Blackburn and I … put out a few months ago on app stores: 21 to 1,” she said.

The bipartisan legislation, called the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act would enable news organizations to collectively negotiate terms with platforms to provide fair compensation for news content. Klobuchar told attendees, “The big issue is advertising money and fair compensation. These companies are sucking up the ad dollars using the original content that you produce and they’re using the data they collect from your audiences to compete against you.”

Chris Pedigo SVP, Legal Affairs of Digital Content Next, interviews Senator Amy Klobuchar

First-party data and identity

Unsurprisingly, the upcoming deprecation of the third-party cookie was a topic of much discussion at this year’s summit. The change has destabilized the advertising ecosystem. Experts discussed how to prepare for the post-cookie reality and how publishers could invest in their first-party data.

To prepare for the post-cookie reality, Rachel Parkin, CafeMedia’s EVP, Sales and Strategy, suggested publishers strengthen relationships with advertisers and build up their arsenals and come up with the right framework for identity and authentication for users and content.

TRUSTX CEO David Kohl suggested that publishers, by acting as a group to create scale, can create competitive advantage. ” We are in transition and there’s tremendous chaos in identity and audience data. But here’s the thing: Chaos creates opportunity,” he said. “And the question is, how can publishers take the lead in organizing the chaos? How can we band together? It is time to create an ‘easy button’ for scale.”

Another session discussed how publishers are leveraging consent-based visitor relationship data sources to fuel monetization as the industry moves forward into a cookie-less future. David Rowley, senior director data and identity products at News Corp. said they feel first party data is going to be one of the most important assets to a publisher. News Corp is assessing what’s out there for external identity solutions, Rowley said, and building out a proprietary identity solution.

“Publishers use so many different types of technology, DMPs, CDPs, analytics platforms, you name it, all of them spit out and create their own identifiers. Being able to stitch all of those together to have a unified view of a user is critical, so you can have that one-on-one relationship with a user,” he said.

People and empathy

Another theme that echoed through the conference was that of managing during these difficult times. As Agnes Chu, president of Condé Nast Entertainment remarked, “I think it’s hard to drive change during a time where people are experiencing so much anxiety themselves.”

Lindsay Peoples Wagner, editor-in-chief of The Cut, outlined that it’s important for leadership to have and bring a sense of empathy. Leaders must “be able to step outside of yourself and understand that, yes, we’re all employees and work at a company, but we’re human beings,” Peoples Wagner said. “People, especially in the past couple years, have had a really hard time with mental health or their family issues or being sick. It’s important to understand, I think, that people may need time, and that push and pull as a manager, I think is more important than ever.”

Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director of DCN interviews Lindsay Peoples Wagner, Editor of The Cut

The biggest shift for TripAdvisor’s Christine Maguire when the pandemic hit, was from building products to empathy. “I had to sort of take a step back and realize where everybody was in their journey,” she said. “Having empathy for what goes on in their day to day is so important, because oftentimes we come in to make a change when there is a problem, and that’s too late.”

The future of work

The newsroom of the future may look nothing like the pre-pandemic one. Indeed, as publishers move forward, they’re stepping into a future which doesn’t look much like the past. There’s upside, such as the ability to create more flexible working situations, which facilitates broader recruiting.

However, as author Anne Helen Petersen noted, when companies allow their employees to live anywhere and work any time, they may run into a lot of sticky situations.

“The larger question that a lot of companies are dealing with is if we say that people can have really flexible work schedules and can go in when it is most convenient for them, are we also going to put stipulations on the states or countries where they can live,” she said. “Are we going to say that they get into New York within the day, that they take the train in? Is that okay? Or are we going to say that it’s one flight away? What are our boundaries?”

The future of the industry

On the last day of the summit, Co-founder and CEO of Insider Henry Blodget and Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson engaged in a spitfire conversation about the digital media industry. They discussed the complicated relationship with platforms, new technologies like AI, NFTs and blockchain, and made predictions for web3.

Blodget was optimistic about the future of local news. However, he sees a different scenario play out for others going forward. As the industry evolves, he thinks there will be three to five big generalists, a bunch of targeted specialist publications that serve a particular niche, and everyone else is in the middle.

Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson in conversation with Henry Blodget Co-founder & CEO of Insider

“I do think we’re all going to face pressure and there’s going to be a lot more consolidation because there are enormous returns to scale,” Thompson replied. “We see that every day with The New York Times, when they roll out some cool new tech feature that they can spread across their 10 million subscribers.”

“Let us just acknowledge that The New York Times is Netflix of journalism,” Blodget said. “My view is in five to 10 years, they will have 25 million subscribers and they will still be growing strong and they will become one of the most powerful English language journalism publications in the world. And the rest of us are gonna have to find places to carve out what is left.”