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Perspectives

Are you ready for the data impact of the immersive web?

Both the immersive web and Web3 are coming. Publishers need to make sure they are prepared for any changes that will inevitably impact their data.

But before we start, it’s important to make the distinction between the immersive web and Web3. They are not the same thing.

As a new iteration of the web based on blockchain technology, Web3 will, according to many, revolutionize the internet by transferring the ownership and power of private data to users. It aims to “decentralize” management. As such, it promises to reduce the control of big corporations, such as Google or Meta, and make the web more democratic. It is defined by open-source software. It is also “trustless” (it doesn’t require the support of a trusted intermediary) and is permissionless (it has no governing body).

Meanwhile, the immersive web or metaverse (which many conflate with Facebook’s new branding as “Meta”), is a version of the online world that incorporates advanced technologies to enhance user engagement and blur the line between the user’s physical reality and the digital environment.

But what are the implications for data-driven companies? 

With Web3, the most obvious data implication is that publishers will now have to deal with distributed data and new applications, which will require new connectors. It will also impact yield management. The simplest example is downstream royalties (i.e., publishers rewarding customers for the resale of their data and passing that cost along to advertisers).

Meanwhile, the immersive web’s key impact will be the explosion of data volumes, which by some estimates will push global data usage by 20 times by 2032. 

The jump from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 was massive enough. But the leap to the immersive web is likely to see an exponential increase.

So, when moving from terabytes and petabytes, to exabytes and beyond, what components do you need to unify your data?

Velocity and scale

Everywhere you look, there are data automation solutions promising access to “real-time” or “near-real-time” data. But the question shouldn’t just be: how can I get real-time access to data? Things are a bit more complicated than that.

Rather, you should be asking:  

1. How can I scale ongoing operations by having a data integrity engine that I can trust to continually scale, as my disparate data sources increase in number, and as my data sets explode in volume? 

Building one data pipeline manually is manageable. But having the flexibility to add more pipelines, and connectors, becomes unsustainable without automation. For example, it can take up to a month to build each new connector manually. Unfortunately, that means the data from each new integration (Facebook, Snapchat etc) is out of date by the time your teams can access it. And if you need multiple new APIs for multiple different purposes – all at the same time – chaos reigns before you know it (and with no clear end in sight). 

Any publisher attempting to keep up with the influx of new and ever-changing APIs on the horizon in Web3 needs to build a strong and workable data unification platform, now.

2. How long will it take to build a strategic data asset in the first place, before my teams get access to the data? 

There’s no use in having access to real-time data in six months’ time. To make informed business decisions, your teams need that data right now. However, in reality, the majority of publishers embarking on building (or buying) their own data unification platform accept that they’ll need to wait for months before they can get close to any actionable data. For example, it might take six data engineering personnel a period of three to six months to code a bespoke platform that is useful to their individual business teams. 

In an age of automation, where real-time data is key to keeping up with the competition, these time frames are no longer acceptable. 

Smart data pipelines 

Typical data pipelines are “dumb.” That means that they’ll pull all the data you need, but also a whole lot you don’t. For example, you might only need to access 100GB of your 1TB dataset to transform into actionable data. But without building a smart API for the job, it will end up pulling the full terabyte, which you will then need to store in your data warehouse. 

The costs of exponentially larger data volumes can soon spiral out of control if left unchecked. Instead, you need to build APIs for specific cuts of the data that your teams need. This is what we call a smart data pipeline.

While the pace of adoption of Web3 is still unclear, the immersive web is just around the corner. It’s imperative that data-driven companies are prepared for what’s coming. That’s not just a few more rows of data to process and store, but a tsunami of new and larger data sets that will become overwhelming overnight without the right infrastructure in place.

For any publishers still attempting to carry out their data operations manually, they need to look to automate, wherever possible, before it’s too late. 

About the author

Navid Nassiri joined Switchboard as Head of Marketing in 2021. Switchboard’s data engineering automation platform aggregates disparate data at scale, reliably and in real-time, to make better business decisions. In his role at Switchboard, Navid is focused on driving growth and brand awareness through innovative marketing strategies. Navid is a seasoned entrepreneur and executive, including leadership roles at PwC and NBCUniversal.

Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Digital trust and safety: Do you have what it takes?

It’s not hard to see that digital advertising is undergoing another paradigm shift. Spurred by pandemic-fueled online use and continued cyber-driven attacks, consumers are becoming more aware of internet dangers. From ransomware and credit card theft to scams and inappropriate content, consumers have had enough.

Today’s consumers want to feel cared for and cared about. They also prefer brands whose values align with their own.

Recognizing this sentiment, brands seek to showcase how they contribute to building a better world as evidenced by multiple initiatives covering diversity, sustainability, and responsible programming. For publishers, this consumer-first mentality extends to the online environment, where brands are looking to safeguard consumer expectations of privacy and security.

Welcome to digital trust and safety.

A new era in digital

Digital trust and safety requires understanding and addressing the harmful content and/or conduct experienced by consumers when accessing websites/mobiles apps. This ranges from how digital products are built, managed, and promoted through to how they make consumers think, feel, and act. In effect, it’s all about putting the consumer at the center of decisions regarding their online experience.

This thinking is critical when you consider the different risks faced by different consumers, especially the more vulnerable members of society, e.g., elderly, children, technologically naive.

Layer on the reality of targeting and national security risks become apparent as government and military employees are consumers, too.

Accepting responsibility for the consumer experience transforms how the industry—brands, AdTech, publishers—approaches its contribution to the consumer experience. Instead of  focusing on activity that affects a business (viewability, ad fraud or brand safety), you prioritize actions that impact the consumer to build trust. As Conny Braams, Unilever’s Chief Digital and Commercial Officer recently acknowledged, “The currency in Web 3.0 is not crypto, it’s trust.” It has become clear: Digital trust and safety is the next phase in the digital evolution chain. 

The evolution is underway—just look at the new and growing crop of job titles on LinkedIn.

Factors driving digital trust and safety

Going beyond ad fraud, content moderation, bots and other brand-oriented initiatives, digital trust and safety is all about the consumer. It is driven by security, data privacy, and trusted content.

  • Security: Protecting consumers and their devices from malicious, anomalous, compromised, or non-compliant code that enables distribution of backdoors, credit card theft, ransomware, cryptomining, etc.
  • Data privacy: Guarding against unauthorized tracking of consumer activity, especially when performed by unknown parties
  • Trusted content: Ensuring the substance of the experience doesn’t endanger consumer well-being, e.g., false claims, misinformation, online scams, etc.

With digital at the nexus of companies and consumers, there’s nothing more important than safeguarding the user experience. It’s more than ad fraud and blocking ads. This focus on safety and security encompasses the entire consumer experience.

Adopting a consumer-first approach isn’t hard, but it does require unwavering dedication. Once executives agree that consumer well-being is important, this thinking will cascade to permeate all aspects of the business. All it takes is consistently asking and documenting the impact on consumers for key touchpoints and commercial initiatives, from product introduction and feature development to marketing promotions and customer service. This  guiding principle will add clarity to and inform decisions. It can also serve as a competitive differentiator elevating your business in the eyes of the market.

It’s your move

Government leaders and regulators are listening. Various initiatives are underway to protect  consumer online experiences: UK Online Safety Act, EU Digital Services Act, ban on surveillance advertising, more limits on data collection, and more.

Collectively, the industry needs to stop harmful activity as it enters the digital ecosystem and  ultimately before it is served to consumers. Frankly, it’s the right thing to do. That’s how we engender trust, and a trusting consumer will buy more (90% of consumers would buy more from a brand they trust).

Ask yourself: Are you willing to put the consumer first when it comes to digital? I’m game. Are you?

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Clickbait ads have no place in publishers’ monetization strategy

When the sole motive is profit, publishers fail. Clickbait creative may generate short-term revenue, but it sharply degrades user experience. When publishers put consumers at the center of their monetization strategy, revenue follows.

Digital publishers must recognize that user protection and user experience go hand in hand and act on the sizable gaps left in both. We define clickbait as creative engineered to intentionally elicit clicks through manipulation and psychological engineering via sensationalist text or imagery. With 85% of the ads served today delivered through programmatic channels, entry points are exploitable enough that 56% of publishers now regularly face clickbait ads on their sites.

When confronted with clickbait campaigns, users won’t hesitate to write off a publisher’s brand. Audiences will bounce from the site or avoid clickbait. So, even short of full scale audience alienation, clickbait damages the site’s metrics, which will discourage high-quality advertisers from buying inventory, and ultimately sinking CPMs and overall revenue. GeoEdge research revealed that in 2021 over three-fourths of publishers’ sites user experience was harmed by poor ad quality and 66% reported bad ads impacted their bottom line.

Securing landing pages from scams

Rooting out clickbait requires close scrutiny that goes beyond just the creative. The greatest risk to user protection is often found on an ad’s landing page. Once a user clicks on a salacious creative, they are often tossed to an entirely unrelated landing page that might be pushing a range of scams from investment schemes and counterfeit products to miracle cure products and services. Recent GeoEdge research in collaboration with Wizzco revealed that 81% of publishers are concerned that poor ad quality may cost them their users. Publishers agreed that quality pertains to ads and landing pages alike, with 65% stating that ad content and landing page safety are equally important.

While there is a range of intermediaries along the supply chain between advertisers and end-users, keeping a page clean of clickbait ads is a publisher’s responsibility. A user-first approach to monetization requires that publishers own all touchpoints with their audiences, from the editorial content to the ad content and all accompanying landing pages. Publishers can implement technology to tackle the three leading clickbait cases including:

  1. Financial scams use deceptive tactics to take advantage of financial products and services, including cryptocurrency and other investment opportunities.
  2. Misleading product offers typically include listings of unverified products and services promising miracle cures and results most commonly falling under health and wellness.
  3. Brand infringement offers well-disguised counterfeit versions of trusted goods by impersonating brands or businesses, advertising them at low-cost prices.

The future of publisher monetization

Every publisher maintains different standards for brand-suitable advertising, but the threshold for user protection is not subjective. Publishers’ primary purpose is to deliver valuable content to audiences. Therefore, the same attention must be put into curating ad experiences as into editorial content. Building a holistic user experience enables you to achieve meaningful, relevant engagement and increase user lifetime value.

It can be easy to overlook all of the places that users interact with your brand, so securing every touchpoint is crucial to a successful user-first approach to monetization. Enforcing user protection standards requires real-time technology to ensure landing page content, and ad content meets publisher standards.

It’s up to publishers to implement a user-first approach, educate their teams about the risks of clickbait ads, and find the right partnership to provide transparency in a complex supply chain.

The value of the trust relationship between the publisher and the user cannot be overlooked.

The strength of this foundation is what determines publishers’ long-term profitability.

Trust is elusive of a simple measurement. However, publishers must begin to recognize the cost of negative ad experiences. While the long-term future of publisher monetization is programmatic, we must be careful not to sacrifice audience loyalty in favor of short-term revenue.

Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight | Video

YouTube’s success is a great sign for CTV

Lately, there has been much investor handwringing over CTV investments. With Netflix’s latest results, some worry that if Netflix’s growth has stalled, the prospects for everyone else may be diminished as well. This is why the same day that Netflix stock came down 35+%, there were also (albeit much smaller) declines in other broadcast stocks too.

But the concerns may be misplaced. If YouTube can build a $28.8B annual revenue advertising business, without subscriptions, surely there’s hope that Netflix and other media brands with strong content catalogs can build and sustain ad-supported offerings.

The YouTube business

To better understand the YouTube business, MediaRadar took a look at the mix of YouTube’s current advertising. For this analysis we reviewed pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll ads from the largest 3,000 YouTube channels across 33 content categories through a panel of over 2 million users.

What we found was a robust, growing business, with significant lift in advertising revenue the trailing year, but also the number of advertisers, across most product categories, was up. Alphabet Inc, which owns YouTube, recently released FY 2021 numbers. The economics look strong. The company grew revenue 47% in 2021, up to $28.8B. Almost all of this was from ad revenue, with very little from subscriptions. The implications for all broadcasters and publishers is meaningful.

Some view YouTube as a platform only, not as content creator. But this is not quite right. YouTube is a platform of course. But they also invest aggressively in their influencers and third-party content creators. While they don’t finance scripted shows, they don’t leave content creation to chance. They do this by providing physical space, the latest tech, upfront grants, and even assign a manager to advise creators once they hit a certain number of followers. As reported by the WSJ in October 2021 they note YouTube employs 1,000 full-time managers assigned to the top 12,000 creators. With this in mind, there are takeaways for others on how to build a hybrid approach to content creation.

YouTube advertising findings

  • The industry verticals with the most concentration of ad spend include entertainment, technology, retail, finance, and pharma. Altogether, these categories accounted for 60% of ad placement, and each segment increased > 30% YoY from 2020 to 2021.
  • Retail and ecommerce advertising are up significantly year-over-year. We observed an increase in ad spend within this category of 109% from 2020. Unlike in certain categories, in retail we continued to see steady growth throughout the year. The Retail Category increased advertising on YouTube by 60% in Q3 2021 and 91% during the Q4 2021 holiday rush.
  • YouTube’s music content was the most popular in both 2020 and 2021 with advertisers. YouTube benefits from strong renewal rates, but also from new clients. 52% of advertisers in music YouTube channels were new in 2021.
  • Everyone knows Travel advertising would be up. YouTube did not disappoint. Advertising investment in the Travel vertical grew by 270% YoY from 2020. Some of the ad spend was from kid-friendly vacation destinations and theme parks like Disney World and Discovery Cove. Ad spend increased 8x year-over-year.

Content is key to advertising growth

Next, we looked into YouTube’s programming channels to see what content categories are helping to drive growth of the platform. Interestingly, the most popular among advertisers were the same in 2020 as 2021 – music, kids, society and culture, and gaming.

YouTube’s music content was the most popular both years among advertisers.  Furthermore, 52% of the companies investing among YouTube’s music content were newcomers to the category.

Another trend we uncovered was within “kids” content. Advertising investment among travel vertical grew by 270% YoY from 2020. Most of the ad spend was from kid friendly vacation destinations and theme parks like Disney World and Discovery Cove. Ad spend increased 8x among this group.

What’s next?

As we move through 2022 and into 2023, we expect retail ad spend to continue growing on YouTube. YouTube will continue to be a hot-spot for advertising among retail brands.

While ecommerce has had an increasing presence for years, the pandemic likely accelerated this possess by uncovering new technology to help making digital buying easy. YouTube has had success with shoppable experiences, and we expect to see more of them.

Publishers have long understood the value of affiliate revenue and shoppable content. The opportunity here – as demonstrated through YouTube’s success – is to evolve this into video and CTV offerings as well.

It will be interesting to see how the “new normal” plays out post-pandemic. Obviously, the industry and buying behavior has been forever changed. The online video market is also becoming cluttered with numerous CTV and OTT options.  Even Disney+ and Netflix are launching advertising-based models. The constantly evolving market will impact the way video is consumed and the methods advertisers need to use to promote their products.

The combination of content and commerce is a strong one. And, as we are seeing throughout the streaming space, content drives audience interest. And audience interest drives ad sales success. YouTube’s success illustrates the opportunity for ad-supported streaming success.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Clearing up misconceptions to make way for addressability

The need to evolve in the digital advertising world isn’t anything new. But the end of cookies has driven much speculation and we’re here to debunk some of the uncertainty that comes with it. Given the amount of discussion on the subject of cookies and identity solutions that’s taken place, it’s not surprising that certain common misconceptions have arisen. Let’s clarify what you need to know about identity and address the question of a critical factor in digital advertising: addressability.

“I can wait until the last minute.”

As tempting as it may sound to see what happens when everything is said and done, that approach isn’t in anybody’s best interest. As we’ve discussed before in “Why preparation is key,” solving for identity won’t be a quick fix or happen at the push of a button. Re-strategizing your approach to programmatic advertising requires a series of tests, trials, and adjustments to get it right. This process takes both time and effort. The sooner publishers lock in new solutions and curate new partnerships, the sooner the buy-side can adapt. These steps will enable us to enter 2023 as a unified industry with a tried-and-true approach for success.  

“I can only choose one identity provider.”

It’s not uncommon to have one provider for varying solutions. While you may only need one CMP for consent or one DMP for audience segmentation, the same doesn’t necessarily apply to identity. As you evaluate who to leverage for direct deals or contextual targeting, consider as many identity providers as you see fit.

Many publishers scout out a handful before narrowing it down to three to five during the research and development phase. From here, you should test to see which best suits your needs. While you become more familiar with your first-party data, adding additional partnerships enable extra coverage and support. It also allows you to finesse your approach and keep what serves you in your new advertising strategies.

“Identity is an additional stream of revenue.”

When discussing addressability, revenue often arises during conversation. Why wouldn’t it mean more revenue if you’re adding another partner to help you identify and target your users? Additional revenue may be a happy byproduct. However, it’s important to set the right expectations in terms of objectives and results.

Identity should serve as a privacy-first solution to identify and address users that would otherwise be unreachable once third-party cookies are gone. Thus, acting as an alternative means to continue to do what has taken place for years past. A different connection equals a new and improved bidding logic rather than an extra stream. When publishers can address an otherwise blind user, they will see increases to bid rates and bid CPMs in otherwise blind environments.

“I can’t leverage identity since I don’t have emails.”

A theme around email addresses has emerged. Unfortunately, this theme is taking precedence over the real issues here. Yes, having emails is the strongest connection for buyer preference. However, there’s more than one way to address a user that isn’t tied to email alone. Direct deals and contextual targeting can take you part of the way. Identity aids as another layer to help bridge any remaining gaps.

You can start with identity, end with identity, or choose identity alone and regardless – it will take you just as far. The good news for publishers and advertisers alike is that identity allows you to target your end-user and target them 100% of the time. Thus, allowing for both addressability and scale. Some partners may only support hashed emails, whereas others can support declared and inferred signals. This is the common currency that will take you all the way and then some. It is crucial to understand what you’re working with and who or what you need.

“I’ll let the identity provider do all the work for me.”

Third-party cookies allowed publishers to put their advertising needs in the hands of others. Thus, letting them focus on other efforts in parallel. The role of conjuring up a game plan is now in the hands of the publisher. SSPs will still play a role and will continue to be there in support. Yet, it’s now up to the publisher to understand their data and make the best use of it for their own return or gain.

Adopting an identity partner alone isn’t a solution. Identifiers should empower publishers to protect their data and protect their users while using said data to convert into currency. Identifiers enable publishers to have the means to address their users in a safe and controlled environment. However, what they do with those IDs is in their court. Use the time to gain a better understanding of your first-party data and ensure the rest of the ecosystem is equipping itself with support.

At the end of the day, we all have the same goal which is why working together is the best approach. Publishers can make the most of their advertising strategies by confronting these common misconceptions in the name of addressability. With the right finesse, breaking down these barriers ultimately paves way for a future that educates, enables, and empowers media owners to address more users at full scale. As well as allowing them to maximize their value of inventory with a new form of currency. The coming changes allow for new and exciting opportunities, should they be properly seized, and should proper expectations be set.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Rethinking ad spend: The science supports premium digital video

Just a few weeks ago, Think Premium Digital in Australia launched part three of their research into the effectiveness and competitiveness of premium digital video. As the ex-CMO and ex-CEO of GroupM, I love to see the investment in quality research to help lift the performance of marketing and challenging out of date thinking.

This latest report, called “Not all time spent is equal,” looks at time spent on a platform vs. the advertising attention on that platform. The research shows that time spent on a media platform is not the same as time spent consuming advertising. Publisher premium digital video performed the best in terms of ad exposure and ad attention – beating out YouTube and social platforms.

The research also found that just because consumers are spending hours and hours on a media platform doesn’t automatically qualify it as a great place to advertise to them. The study highlights that ad attention (the time that eyes were on the ad), rather than time spent, should play a more important role in media channel selection. Time spent on a platform is not a suitable proxy for advertising effectiveness and should challenge agency planners to think differently about digital planning.

The new way to choose marketing channels

The obvious question becomes, if time spent is no longer the driving forced behind where advertisers should spend their money, what factors should they take into consideration. Here are three important factors to understand before making a channel choice:

  • Time spent on platform – Total time spent converts to 10.2% ad exposure for premium video compared to 4.5% for YouTube and 0.7% for Social Video.
  • Ad exposure opportunity – Ad exposure for premium video is 2.2X more than YouTube and 16X more than Facebook in an average hour. 
  • Ad attention is what drives engagement and behavior change – An hour on premium video generates 5 mins of ad attention; 2.6X more than YouTube and 25X more than social video.

Notice time spent is still a consideration – but only part of the equation.

Why attention matters

“Attention” is getting a lot of attention in marketing, advertising and agency discussions – as it should. The pressure on marketing dollars to truly deliver impact and business results has never been higher and selecting the right channel and environment is critical. This is an area where multiple research studies have shown that premium digital video on premium publisher’s sites deliver best in class results.

If the publishing industry ever wanted insights and results to help drive transformation of their video offerings to be a perfect match for advertiser needs, these are those insights. Building premium digital inventory should be every publisher’s priority. Premium video refers to short- and long-form video housed in the digital environments of known and trusted media brands that are brand-safe and offer meaningful scale.

Dr. Duane Varan, CEO of MediaScience, said about this latest piece of research, “Here, we’re looking specifically at these video ads appearing and trying to understand those differences. Similar research needs to be done across 100 other variables. But attention is a good starting point, because if you don’t have attention, you don’t have anything else. Attention is the start of the conversation.”

Dr. Varan added, “As we’ve consistently demonstrated, environments matter. The case for premium video continues to strengthen with this research showing its ability to deliver ad exposure and even more importantly, advertising attention.”

Rethinking your media strategy

Venessa Hunt, General Manager of Think Premium Digital in Australia, wasn’t surprised by the findings given consumption behavior. Where the disconnect comes from is that people aren’t looking at the full picture in the planning processes, she said. 

“It’s often frustrated me when we talk about time on reach and exposure to advertising, because they are such different things. If a client is paying for time on a platform, or the ability for time on the platform, it doesn’t potentially benefit the brand. But if the ad isn’t even there, you’re using the wrong data to start that planning process.”

Hunt expected this kind of exposure and attention would become a factor in industry decision making, though she admitted the industry isn’t there yet. Measuring attention is problematic and variable.

“For now, though, we have to start changing the conversation around the planning,” Hunt said. “Why are we spending so much on this platform over another? We’re using time spent as the justification, and the fact everyone is there and there a lot. Sure they are, but there are no ads. Changing the mindset around planning ad exposure and ad attention as opposed to platform exposure and attention is key.”

human silhouettes shaking hands with overlay of gridlines and stream of 1 0 bits
Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

DMPs and SSPs joining forces: a new trend in the privacy era

Digital advertising needs to be rebuilt and reinvigorated. Consumers want better privacy protection, engaging content, and an overall foundation built on trust and transparency to ensure loyalty. To achieve this, data management platforms (DMPs) and supply-side platforms (SSPs) are joining forces.

As we enter the privacy-centric era of digital advertising, third-party cookies will be replaced by first-party data, which is even more powerful and effective because the signals originate directly from a publisher’s page, works on every browser, and doesn’t require third-party syncs.

In the privacy-centric era, first-party data will be the new currency for digital advertising.

Overcoming the third-party data challenge

The deprecation of third-party cookies and the need for better audience consent for cross-domain and cross-app targeting demands that publishers and advertisers put privacy at the center of everything. Publishers, like consumers, want control of their data.

By replacing third-party cookies with first-party data solutions, the combination of a DMP and an SSP will deliver that control, keep privacy at the center of business, and help to unlock the full potential of their inventory — including deeper audience insights. This deeper view will not only benefit publishers, but it will make it easier for advertisers and their DSPs to target and reach their audiences more accurately across mobile, web, and connected TV.

DMPs and SSPs are more powerful together

When leading DMPs and SSPs combine their valuable media and data capabilities, it makes for a powerful combination that will raise the fortunes of publishers and advertisers alike.

In March, TripleLift announced that it acquired our company, 1plusX. This supply-side platform bought a first-party data management platform to activate first-party data to help its publisher partners better monetize their inventory once third-party cookies are phased out. This is the first acquisition in the company’s history, which speaks to the importance placed on privacy and identity, and the confidence SSPs have in partnering with DMPs built for the privacy era. Combining a scaled SSP and a savvy DMP is a pathway forward for thousands of publishers and ad buyers. This acquisition has created that pathway.

TripleLift is not the only SSP that is planning for our industry’s privacy-centric future. Earlier this year, Magnite announced that it acquired Carbon, a platform that enables publishers to measure, manage and monetize audiences. Other partnerships aim to bridge the gap between consumer identity and the privacy-first web. As a result, publishers and advertisers will get more accurate data for campaign targeting without the need for third-party cookies or mobile ad IDs. Buyers and sellers would then in theory be able to transact based on consumer insights without data leakage or scale reduction.

Mergers and acquisitions will lead the way in MarTech

Companies everywhere are looking to accelerate their ability to fill the gap that the depreciation of third-party cookies will create. Bringing together the power of media and data, as happens when DMPs and SSPs join forces, is just one way that M&A will lead the way. As time marches on and we approach the end of third-party cookies as we know it, we will see mergers and acquisitions among independent MarTech and AdTech companies accelerate. And it will be the mergers and acquisitions that prioritize privacy and first-party data that will win the day. Because in a world without third-party cookies, if your data strategy isn’t a first-party one, then what data strategy do you really have?  

foreground table with popcorn and remote background tv with cars on screen
Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Why advertisers are embracing addressable TV

TV has long been a staple in the American household. Last year, it was estimated that there were 122 million TV households in the U.S. Despite all of the fragmentation in the market, TV remains an effective advertising channel. In fact, TV was the second most profitable advertising medium in the U.S. in 2021, accounting for 25% of total media ad revenue.

TV is still the most influential screen in the house, but changing consumption habits require evolving targeting strategies. Connected television (CTV) is currently the fastest-growing digital channel. Compared to Gen X, Millennials watch 25% less TV and Gen Z watches 54% less TV, but both groups stream a significantly higher percentage of CTV daily. Twenty-nine percent of Gen X streams over three hours of TV per day, compared to 44% of Millennials and 44% of Gen Z.

Historically, content was created to appeal to the largest audience and broadcast targeting options were limited to daypart, program type, and other general categories. However, CTV offers access to advanced demographic and geo-targeting options that broadcast doesn’t. Similar to other digital channels, viewers can be targeted through first- and third-party data segments, lookalike audiences, and retargeting. But, while one-to-one targeting is a very effective digital or mobile strategy, a more strategic approach is required in order to capture the full value of every TV audience.

Bridging the gap through narrowcasting

Successful strategies consider the best and highest use of each solution. Broadcasting and one-to-one targeting both have their place in the mix. But, it’s important to advertisers to not overlook the audience in the middle. As the additional layer in between broadcast and one-to-one messaging, addressable TV offers a narrowcasting solution to effectively target at the point of need.

Rather than identifying an audience based on data signals, it allows the delivery of ads to targeted households during scheduled linear TV programming. This offers a powerful approach to reaching qualified, refined audience segments in a specific context.

Let’s use the example of sports fans watching an event in a stadium. This audience has gathered to watch a very specific activity. They may represent very different demographics, but have similar needs in this setting. Fans are likely to consume food during the course of the event. Leveraging the audience’s attention and presence in the stadium, marketers can confidently target these fans with ads for hot dogs. In the end, the overarching emotional triggers still apply, but the message does more work when it’s placed in the right time and setting.

Best of all worlds

The true power of addressable TV is the ability to connect transactional messages. It allows advertisers to reach very specific and qualified households and customer types while increasing efficiency. It combines the scale of attention and engagement of linear TV with more effective targeting. The additional reach and frequency can activate additional spend from existing advertiser relationships and may also open new categories.

Addressable TV also makes creative optimization easier and offers the ability to A/B test at scale. Expensive production costs have historically made this process quite difficult. But, with addressable TV, advertisers can easily create four or five versions tailored to major audience categories. This allows them to quickly test what resonates best by changing a simple element, like the voiceover or the music. 

Despite all its evolution, TV remains a crucial advertising medium. In a fragmented environment, the best results are achieved by embracing a strategy that incorporates a range of targeting solutions to meet long- and short-term goals. Addressable TV serves as the bridge between an either-or strategy and helps advertisers achieve the best of all worlds. 

Innovation | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Three strategies to help publishers maximize the ecommerce opportunity

As online shopping habits evolve, ecommerce is becoming an increasingly attractive revenue opportunity for publishers. We can’t predict what will happen as the pandemic wanes, but prominent studies suggest that ecommerce will continue its upward trend in the coming years.

Given this rosy outlook, now is a great time to investigate the potential of ecommerce (or revisit your strategy). But ecommerce success isn’t guaranteed. It takes careful planning, smart choices, and the right technology partner.

If you’re looking for expert perspective on the key elements of a successful ecommerce strategy, take the time to read Ecommerce in Publishing: Trends and Strategies. Sponsored by Sovrn and published by What’s New In Publishing (WNIP), this new report offers deep insights into the ecommerce space to help publishers develop a winning ecommerce strategy (that goes beyond affiliate). It also provides insights on how to deliver an exceptional shopping experience and maximize revenue.

3 considerations for your ecommerce strategy

Whether you’re just starting out looking to enhance your strategy, there are certain key topics you’ll need to consider. Here are three of the big takeaways from our report:

1. Changing technologies

As ecommerce becomes increasingly enmeshed in the day-to-day digital experience, it’s easier than ever for consumers to make online purchases. And purchase capabilities now span a wide variety of channels – from traditional websites to social media outlets, mobile apps, and more. For publishers, this opens up new ecommerce opportunities that go far beyond traditional affiliate marketing, like curated online stores, subscription boxes, buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) models, and more.

Things move fast in the world of online publishing, so there’s always a new tactic or technology to explore. At the same time, tried-and-true revenue sources can fall out of favor without warning. We’re seeing this play out before our eyes in recent months, with Facebook’s first-ever decline in usage and the phenomenon of “subscription fatigue.” Publishers who tap into multiple selling channels will have more revenue opportunities — and better protection from market volatility — than those who stick with a single online platform or property.

Look for flexible, easy-to-use solutions that work with almost any type of commerce content and one that evolves along with the industry. We believe personalization that delivers a unique shopping experience tailored to readers is the right approach. Also, tools such as price comparison make it easy to cut through the noise and help your readers find the best deals on the products they want.

2. Culture and content fit

It’s important to recognize that ecommerce is not a one-size-fits-all venture. Some ecommerce tactics will work better than others for your brand, your content, and your unique audience. Gaining a deep understanding of your reader base is a fundamental step in developing an approach to ecommerce that will resonate with your audience and selecting the products and merchants they’ll love.

Make sure you analyze which products and merchants are most appealing to your readers. For example, your audience may have strong engagement with certain content, or they may prefer a certain brand that’s featured on your site.

With a better understanding of your overall affiliate program, you can continue to refine your affiliate strategy and drive more revenue. A dashboard can help you identify these trends, by displaying performance metrics and delivering insights on what’s working (and what’s not).

3. Merchant diversification

Ecommerce success requires forming mutually beneficial partnerships with merchants that appeal to your audience. Most publishers start out promoting a single merchant like Amazon or Walmart, because they offer affiliate programs that are easy to understand and implement. But these internal programs rarely offer the highest rates or the most desirable products — and when your earnings rely on a single merchant, any change in commission structure can devastate your revenue stream.

By diversifying your merchant mix, you can ensure that no single vendor has a disproportionate impact on your earnings — and you’ll be in a better position to adjust your strategy in response to market fluctuations. Of course, your target merchant list may change over time as your content and your audience continue to evolve. You may also discover that individual merchants revise their requirements for affiliate approval from time to time — so it can be challenging to maintain a steady mix of merchants on your site.

Maximize your ecommerce potential

Undoubtedly, we’ve seen an acceleration in the adoption of ecommerce that presents an enormous opportunity. Media companies, which offer content that fits seamlessly into the shoppers journey, are in a position to benefit from this trend. But to do so, our research finds that there are a number of critical factors in play (a few of which I’ve covered here). With the right strategy in play, publishers are poised to be a vibrant port of the growing ecommerce marketplace.

About the Author

Rebecca Cole is the Director of Content and Communications for Sovrn, a publishing technology platform that provides advertising tools, technologies, and services for content creators to build their businesses, remain independent, and thrive on the Open Web. Rebecca has more than two decades of experience driving increased attention through purpose-driven content. She has held communications positions in tech, energy, and consumer brands and was a journalist and editor. Rebecca has an undergraduate degree from The University of Iowa and a master’s degree in journalism from The University of Colorado Boulder.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

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

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

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.

Perspectives

What retailers’ approach to personalization can teach publishers

Retail brands with a data-driven approach to commerce have captured consumers through the pandemic. They’ve done so by leaning on personalization through targeted messaging, relevant offers, and orchestrated campaigns across channels.

Now, many retailers are going a step further. They are offering personalized content that delivers a hybrid retail/media experience: The inspiration section of IKEA’s website resembles an interactive home and garden publication. Upstart retail brands like Thrive Market have an entire content team that creates lifestyle content that is targeted to consumers based on their buying preferences. They send out curated newsletters that have content similar to a wellness magazine.

The key element that makes retailer content so powerful is their data-driven approach. People like personalization, and successful retailers are approaching content with personalization in mind. The good news is that publishers can, too.

Create a value exchange

A recent study by Sailthru finds that 71% of consumers will shop more with brands and retailers that personalize their experiences. What’s more, 80% will share data in exchange for deals and special offers.

Many retailers have created a “value exchange” with their customers in order to address this reality. For example, Thrive Market asks for information about diet and food preferences on the first website visit. Then, it uses these insights to deliver more personalized shopping experiences, deals and content. Consumers give more data because they get a better experience in return.

This exchange is not dissimilar to some subscription products served up by media organizations. Take Seeking Alpha. Geared toward passionate investors, Seeking Alpha offers a super-premium paid “value exchange” with very specific content for those investors who closely follow the market. A subscriber can receive real-time news and alerts for their stocks and other investment picks. Further, upon sign-in, their portfolio page will display personalized news and articles related to the stocks in their portfolio.

For publishers with more general audiences, one beneficial place to offer a value exchange is with a referral program. theSkimm was an early adopter of referral programs. Their Skimbassador program long awarded readers who referred new readers to subscribe with swag and shout outs in the newsletter. After driving 10 referrals, readers also became a part of a private, gated community. The Hustle and Morning Brew have also seen great success with referral programs to scale their businesses, gaining new subscribers and loyalty from current readers.

Tailor the experience

Consumers are willing to provide personal data and expect brands to use the information they gather to create tailored experiences that make them feel like individuals. Many publishers want to take their insights to the next level with even more tailored content. Understanding the topics that are interesting to a reader and sharing articles and videos that fall into specific categories is a good start, but retailers provide examples for how to go even further.

Everyday Health and Baby Center are two publishers that make the most of the data they collect for expecting mothers in order to deliver personalized content. They prompt for due date, gender, number of children at home, and more. They use that data to customize the entire email journey over the course of a woman’s pregnancy and beyond.

A fitness-based publication could do something similar, with a health quiz that leads into a continuous engagement of more and more personalized content. This might launch a content journey that includes a custom workout routine, recipes, and more. There is no end to the possibilities, as long as publishers start thinking in terms of collecting insights that drive a strategy of smaller content blocks that can be assembled into personalized experiences, rather than long-form articles and videos.

Personalizing at the right time and right place

Successful retailers personalize every moment of the shopper experience from in-store to online, and across platforms and devices. A brand like Sephora ensures that they know everything about a customer on the website, the mobile app, and when they visit a store. This includes their loyalty status, recent purchases, what email content they have received, and more.

Sports enthusiasts are maniacal about following their teams and their players, and publishers like The Athletic have been meeting that need for years now. Subscribers indicate which cities, teams, and players they want to follow, and will receive personalized emails and news alerts. They also have a personalized homepage filled with “recent news” about content of interest and discussion groups with kindred and passionate fans. Fans can filter content to see news and information about their competition too.

Marketing at the speed of the customer is the “future of commerce.” It should also be the future of media. This can be done with personalization that creates a constant feedback loop of testing, insight collection and optimization.

Publishers should be constantly in “learning” mode – asking for preferences, running small tests, and re-incorporating results into the next email, page load, or SMS message. With a commitment to continuous incremental improvement and data gathering, the audience also starts to get more relevant experiences and sees the value in providing more feedback to the publisher, creating a virtuous cycle that can increase both loyalty and ROI.

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