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Advertising | Research | Revenue

The next ad quality plot twist: Upholding user trust during the election season

Has 2020 been a difficult enough year for publishers? Well, get ready for another plot twist.

Election season in the U.S. has been heating up and will soon reach a boiling point. Both major political parties have amassed war chests to fuel their advertising campaigns. And this year’s race – just like a lot of things in 2020 – is shaping up to be unlike elections in the past.

Audiences in the U.S. are watching this race closely. And because new campaign messages and issues come out almost daily, there’s always something new to engage with. At the same time, the public’s trust in media is in jeopardy. Users are concerned that political content may contain misleading information. However, that concern leads them to distrust politicians and media outlets themselves.

Publishers are working hard to create content audiences can trust, engage with deeply, and return to. The last thing they need is to see misleading or deceptive ads on their pages, undermining their efforts.

A fake ad problem

Recently, publishers had a crash course in building audience trust and engagement while combating “fake ads” – ads with misleading content, or that link out to misinformation or scams. Since the pandemic began, 67% of publishers said they’ve encountered either a “significant” or “great” amount of fake ads, according to a survey we recently conducted in conjunction with Digiday.

Additionally, publishers cite ads that lead to pages unrelated to the ad creative as their top concern. Furthermore, publishers report that they’re seeing a growing number of ads that contain misleading information in the ad content.

Now publishers need to use what they’ve learned to better manage the growing onslaught of political ads. Indeed, 51% of publishers say they expect to deal with deceptive political ads this year. And that’s not just publisher pessimism speaking. Facebook and CNN have both taken the Trump campaign to task for deceptive ads. And leading news publishers continually fact-check claims made by the Trump and Biden campaigns alike.

Business breakers

Quality ad content (and not just filling ad slots) must be part of a publisher’s revenue strategy. According to the aforementioned GeoEdge survey, 49% of advertisers say they have avoided or ended business partnerships with publishers because those pubs had hosted deceptive ads. Among publishers, 49% said that when users raised complaints over deceptive ads, the consequences for their own business was “severe” or “very severe.”

We already know this. Ad content, and not just filling ad slots, is part of revenue strategy.  Nearly 70% of publishers said they “encounter a moderate or large number of deceptive ads per week.” Almost half of advertisers say they have avoided pubs, or ended relationships with publishers, because of deceptive ads.

This should raise alarms: Traffic and engagement are what give publishers value to advertisers. But advertisers want more than just good traffic. Like users themselves, they want a trustworthy product, and the ads are part of the package.

Monitoring issues

That said, far too many publishers (36%) still rely primarily on manual methods for monitoring fake, deceptive and low-quality ads. And 56% say they spend a “moderate” or “large” amount of time blocking such ads. This may seem a bit old-fashioned. After all, publishers are aware that it’s possible to automate these processes. But then again, many of those automated solutions are themselves using old-fashioned, blunt-force methods. The fact that 83% of publishers accidentally block ads that meet their standards suggests they’re using outdated methods for blocking bad ads. The cutting edge of ad quality is far beyond all that.

Publishers would be best served to seek automated solutions that do the job right the first time and don’t require ops teams to do extra clean-up work. Blunt tools cause publishers to leave money on the table by screening out good ads along with the bad ads, and by keeping ops teams mired in the present and past rather than looking to the future.

This is no time to backtrack and solve yesterday’s ad quality problems when every day brings surprising new revenue and workflow challenges. Sharper ad quality tools allow publishers to block keywords, phrases and industry verticals automatically. They can then drill down, set detailed criteria, and really align ad content with page content. With all the upheaval the digital industry has experienced, programmatic channels are especially important for publishers’ revenue strategies. Those channels are where publishers can discover quality advertisers that can become trusted partners over time. 

Seeking solutions

Publishers need all the revenue they can get at this moment, and the election season puts a lot of revenue on the table. But to maximize this moment, publishers need precision in rooting out deceptive ads. They must go beyond automation and toward customization. There is a reputational and revenue risk in hosting deceptive ads, but our media reality demands a scalpel rather than a mallet to separate misleading from legit political ads.

One final reminder: This election season will be highly digital. The pandemic is keeping users at home, even more wired in than usual. Campaign events that would normally be held in person mostly moving online. Publishers need this engagement to drive revenue and attract quality advertisers. And engagement needs audience trust: trustworthy page content and ad content together.

Now is the time to develop a customized approach to ad quality. It must be tailored to the publisher’s content and audience, with a steady eye on user experience. This is best achieved with the assistance of ad quality partners who can be just as responsive and offer customizable solutions. The election’s exact plotline will be impossible to predict, and the stakes for engagement and monetization are high.

Publishers need to devote their resources to producing content audiences can rely on and to developing a framework for maintaining ad quality as early as possible. Of course, publishers don’t need to handle the heavy lifting on their own. A good ad quality partner will have the technology to automate monitoring and blocking deceptive ads. Sophisticated, nuanced, proactive service helps ensure that publishers can block the deceptive ads that undermine their work, and let in the quality ads and advertisers that help publishers keep moving toward the future.

Advertising | Revenue

Considering Ad Refresh? Here’s what you need to know

With challenges like ad blocking, tightening privacy regulations, and third-party cookie blocking, the past few years have been rough for digital publishers. Pressure to create incremental revenue streams and optimize existing revenue may be one reason for the revival of ad refresh. The ability to refresh ads on a page has been around for a while. But it has yet to achieve its full potential in helping publishers increase revenues.

Ad refresh is a technique that allows publishers to increase the number of ad impressions served to a user in a single session by refreshing ad sets based on preset triggers. These triggers can be based on user action (scrolling, clicking or using the search function), certain custom events, or time-based (refresh every 30, 60 or 90 seconds).

If used properly, ad refresh can increase ad revenue per session without compromising user experience or ad viewability. Why then, one may ask, is it not used universally?

Sites best suited to using ad refresh

The first reason is that ad refresh is not effective in all cases. Websites with above-average session durations are ideal candidates. These include gaming sites, educational sites, or sites with high-value niche content. Session duration is an important consideration. That’s because refreshing ads will be redundant and counterproductive if the users don’t stick around long enough to see them.

Secondly, not all networks and exchanges permit ad refresh and each has its own policy for auto-refresh. Google Ad Exchange, Rubicon, and OpenX permit automatic ad refresh, but Google AdSense does not. Publishers should keep their exchanges’ policies in mind while making decisions regarding using ad refresh.

Risks and considerations

The upside of increased overall revenue is certainly appealing. However, if improperly implemented, ad refresh can have a negative impact on your inventory and reputation.

Concerns about ad viewability

When an ad set on a page is refreshed, it is imperative that the user be able to see them. The ad must be within the user’s viewport and they need time to engage with the ads. However, several ad refresh vendors do not take viewability into account. Instead they do what is commonly known as a “blind refresh.” This can damage the viewability score of a publisher’s inventory, lower inventory value, and tarnish their reputation. A poor viewability score can cause DSPs to blacklist a publisher’s supply.

Reduction in CPMs for refreshed ads

It is important to note here that advertisers are often aware when a website is auto-refreshing ads. This can result in lower CPMs for each successive refresh, with advertisers lowering bids due to concerns about viewability. However, lower CPMs are usually more than compensated for by higher total impressions served per user session. This is why, when using ad refresh, publishers may want to consider alternative metrics for measuring their revenue growth, like Page RPM or EPMV (earnings per thousand visitors) rather than CPMs to get a more accurate representation.

Higher bandwidth usage

While ad refresh does not impact the initial page loading speed since the first set of ads is loaded as usual, auto-refreshing involves the page making new HTTP requests to the server for fresh ads based on the triggers set. These repeat requests and ad fetching consume additional data during each successive refresh.

Ad refresh best practices

The balance between revenue growth using ad refresh while maintaining a high viewability score and good UX is a delicate one. For publishers who implement it well, ad refresh is an excellent way to boost overall ad revenue. Our estimates show that, within the AdPushup network, depending on the average time-on-site and concurrent use of header bidding and bid caching, publishers could potentially increase net revenue by 20 to 40 percent.

By following these best practices, publishers can make the most out of this revenue optimization technique:

Adhere to network policies

Different networks and exchanges have their own policies on auto-refreshing ads. While some don’t allow it, others have limitations on triggers that can be used, such as a high minimum interval. Some networks may require publishers to declare if their inventory includes ad refresh units. By reading the network policy and following set parameters, publishers can steer clear of policy violations.

Appropriate use of time-based triggers

Brands and advertisers prefer that time-based triggers allow ads to remain on the page for at least 60 seconds to allow adequate viewability. Higher intervals between refreshes allow for better UX and ad engagement, which makes the inventory more valuable. Some publishers may be tempted to set lower refresh intervals of 30 seconds or less in order to serve more impressions However, we do not recommend this approach as it could mar viewability and cause CPMs to drop.

Test, test, test

Before finalizing your strategy, run A/B tests for different auto-refresh triggers and time intervals. By benchmarking results against a control setup, publishers can learn what auto-refresh iteration works best for their website, or if it even makes a difference. We recommend running these tests on a section of your website and traffic before implementing site-wide ad refresh.

Pick the right partners

There are now ad refresh solutions available in the market that take ad viewability criteria into account while refreshing ads. By partnering with ad tech vendors that offer this service without compromising on ad viewability, publishers can increase overall revenue with minimal impact on CPMs and inventory quality. 

Careless use of ad refresh in its early years had positioned it as a short-term, greedy tactic. However, this perception is changing with the availability of improved viewability measurement in the industry. As long as publishers use ad refresh while keeping in mind the objective of advertising, they can ensure that both brands and users derive value from ads being served and boost their ad revenue and inventory value in a sustainable manner.

About the author

Vishveshwar has over 10 years of experience working in editorial and marketing roles at legacy media and high-growth software companies. His work has appeared in Forbes, AdAge, TheNextWeb, Digiday, MarketingProfs, and Hongkiat. At AdPushup, he focuses on covering the developments in advertising technology.

Industry-Research

Analyzing the past, present, and future impact of Covid-19 on readership

We’ve spent the past several months analyzing the impact of Covid-19 on audience engagement throughout the world. With a few months’ worth of engagement data available, we wanted to take a deeper look into answering the following questions in the context of the crisis:

  • How much are people reading? Namely, has their engagement risen or fallen in any significant way and how that engagement has changed over time with the rise and fall of case numbers.
  • Where are readers finding content?
  • Which content, and which types of content, have readers found most engaging during this period?

For this analysis, our Data Science team reviewed more than 175 billion pageviews from the beginning of the year across 56 million articles, about 7 million of which were about Covid-19.

Traffic and consumption patterns among audiences

First, we analyzed consumption patterns in terms of the total number of articles published each day on Covid. We saw a small rise in the number of articles as the crisis began to grow internationally. Then there was a huge peak in coverage in mid-March, around the time that the U.S. and U.K. announced major policy changes. 

That was followed by a 45% decline in the number of coronavirus-related articles between that mid-March peak and the end of May. 

We then looked at consumption patterns among audiences (seen in the graph above), the overall traffic numbers, broken out by pageviews on non-Covid articles and Covid articles, show that: 

  • Journalists were covering coronavirus before it truly caught the public’s attention. There were more than 7,000 articles per day published on Covid starting at the beginning of February, but our data shows that audiences weren’t paying attention until the very end of the month.
  • Traffic and coverage peaked at the same time, the second and third weeks of March.
  • Traffic has declined faster than traffic, with a nearly 60% decline in traffic from peak to the end of May.

The latter point aligns with our assessment that consumption patterns in recent months have suggested the onset of reader fatigue.

How reader behaviors varied in certain regions

Our next step was to see if country trends reflected those patterns, so we analyzed engagement across countries where we were able to get data about new cases.

In the U.S., we saw that people started reading about Covid-19 significantly before new cases were exploding. The peak day for traffic on coronavirus stories was 36 days before the peak day of new cases.

Yet, engagement with Covid stories has waned at a much faster pace than actual cases — new cases have only declined 20%, while traffic has declined about 80%.

In Europe, we saw a similar pattern of engagement peaking before new cases reach highs, but we saw greater alignment between engagement and the fall in cases.

Readers in Brazil were only engaged around the same time that other countries peaked.

Google properties, Facebook referred most traffic

When dove into the referral data, Google Search and Facebook saw significant jumps in traffic.

When we looked at the total volume of search traffic to Google, we saw a massive rise in mid-March — more than 60% or 200 million daily pageviews. In the case of Facebook, traffic also grew significantly, to the tune of 35%, or 70 million daily pageviews. 

This change in traffic, with a greater percentage of traffic coming from search, is in line with what we typically see during major news events, where readers more often rely on search to seek out relevant information. However, we usually think about that phenomenon on the shorter timelines that are usually associated with breaking news events. Because Covid coverage has been prominent for several months, it’s notable that the dominance of Google Search as a traffic source has been sustained over time.

What’s more, the growth of traffic from just these two sources accounts for about half of the increase in traffic to publisher sites, with the other half coming from an increase in direct traffic.

Google News and Twitter also each saw 60-70% increases in the volume of traffic during this period. When you think about our previous understanding of how audiences find information via search over social, Twitter’s rise is especially notable.

Did audiences engage for longer periods? Our data says yes

When we looked at overall engagement, we saw that visitors spent 35% of their time on coronavirus-related articles in March, falling to 20% in May. While that breakdown may seem surprising to news consumers, our global dataset includes sites that fall outside of news, say sports or entertainment, which shows us that audiences were still spending time on non-Covid content as well.

We then looked at Average Engaged Time, we saw that readers spent 34% more time on Covid articles than non-Covid articles. This matters because this behavior points to more than a click. It demonstrates sustained engagement with the content.

How readers engaged with certain types of content

We also wanted to see if audiences favored certain content structures over others. Therefore, we analyzed the top 100 Covid-related stories by Total Engaged Time and categorized them into articles (traditional, short-form narratives), infographics/interactives, live blogs, and longform pieces.

About half of the top 100 pages were articles. For live blogs, they only accounted for 39% of the top 100 list. However, they drive almost half of all engagement, showing that this frequently-updated format has resonated well with readers. Additionally, infographics and longform content were among the top pieces by engagement. 

When we delved further into their referral sources, we saw that articles received traffic from various traffic sources, while live blogs were most popular via homepages, which we classify as “internal” traffic in Chartbeat. Infographics performed best on search, while long-form pieces were a hit on social media platforms.

What the data tells us about the past, present, and future of audience behaviors

Let’s take a step back and answer the questions posed at the beginning of this piece and what they mean for content producers:

How much people are reading?

The publishing community began covering the pandemic ahead of the uptick in reader engagement. While the volume of coverage has been sustained, it has also outpaced the volume of traffic. That said, this traffic is still higher than pre-pandemic levels. 

However, the data suggests the onset of coverage fatigue, which also points to a need for new coverage strategies as the pandemic continues. Our country-by-country analysis shows that traffic tends to climb quickly as the virus spreads, but peaks within days of a lockdown. This illustrates a relationship between engagement and how regional measures are impacting the lives of readers. That said, traffic remains higher-than-usual when compared to pre-pandemic data we’ve analyzed.

Where are readers finding content?

Google and its related entities have been significant referral sources to external traffic to coronavirus-related content, well above Facebook, which in its own right has also referred substantial levels of traffic.

Which content, and which types of content, have readers found most engaging?

Engagement is higher on content that is directly related to coronavirus, but we’ve seen that readers are favoring the up-to-the-minute urgency that live blogs offer.

Therefore, what we can see on the whole is that reader attention, as measured by traffic and engagement, is higher than ever for publishers. The prevailing question, however, is if it will continue to stay that way as the pandemic continues and what, if any, impact it will have on longstanding interactions between audiences and content creators.

Industry-Research

The news topics driving today’s U.S. audience attention in six categories

The news topics driving audience attention look different today than they did in March. Covid-19 affected people in just about every part of their lives. Therefore, it affected the news cycle in almost every ad category.

The initial declaration of the global pandemic sparked a dramatic increase in traffic to publisher sites across the board. That traffic boom has since waned and we’re left with different audience interests.

We wanted to know exactly what those new interests look like. To do this, we dove into readership on the Taboola network of U.S. news publishers.

Taboola’s data includes audiences at more than 1,300 U.S. news websites including national, local, and digital-native organizations. The scope of the network offers a broad view of what’s capturing people’s attention. Here’s what we found:

Coronavirus continues to dominate news in almost every news category

Across all news categories, news about the global pandemic has declined. However, it still eclipses audience attention over any other topic.

Even as traffic levels out, news about the virus is still driving more traffic than other topics by almost a billion pageviews a day. And it’s likely to stick around.

Finance, Business and Industrial, & Real Estate

As the stock market fell, news audiences interested in finance, business, and real estate rushed to learn about investment opportunities, hear advice from the experts, and purchase shares.

Money management advice and the news about the real estate market—specifically whether or not it was a good time to buy or sell a home—came in after investment topics.

Society issues

Recent protests and events related to racism and the Black community in the U.S .have led to a surge in traffic regarding social institutions, racism, and crime.

These topics previously drove traffic for news sites. However, other topics like work, dating, and the impact of the Coronavirus on our society and wellbeing had been at the forefront.

The impact of Coronavirus created a surge in traffic around May, as states began to roll out plans for re-opening, marked in red in the graph above.

Science, Computing & Technology

Even when they’re staying inside, news audiences still want to hear about the weather. They are specifically interested in major weather events like tornadoes and storm clusters.

Recent news about internet technology companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google have also captured their attention. They triggered an entirely new surge in traffic beginning in May, as these companies grapple with how to manage political content on their platforms.

It’s also worth noting that news related to new releases of mobile phones, personal computers, and other consumer technology continues to drive traffic for publishers.

Family and Parenting, Pets, & Home and Garden

For families, Coronavirus meant educating children at home, and in some cases, taking care of them during the workday. In tandem, for many people quarantine provided an opportunity to adopt pets, leading to an increase in traffic for topics related to pet care.

Shopping, Style & Fashion

Fashion companies really had to adapt as sales dropped and strategies shifted. Audiences are focused on clothing specifically, and the impact that the global pandemic will have on those brands.

They’re also tuned in to news related to big retailers. In particular, how their businesses are faring the recession, and whether or not they have plans for re-opening.

Arts & Entertainment

People’s plans to keep busy were entirely digital. And many publisher audiences were interested in the fate of the shows and events they could no longer attend.

Around May, those topics became just as interesting as news about movies and TV shows, a big source of entertainment for people in lockdown.

It’s worth noting the two gaping holes missing from these graphs. Sports and travel news cycles were entirely interrupted as both industries ground to a halt.

While some of these trends are specific to events in the recent months, others could impact publisher news cycles long-term. Keeping a pulse on the topics that engage news readers will continue to serve news publishers in increasing both engagement and traffic with their content.

Perspectives | Revenue

Fact check series, part three: What really defines a next-generation DMP

DMP 1.0: Contextual-to-audience targeting for desktop web & DFP

Since the advent of newspapers in the 17th century, digital advertising has been premised on developing and promoting content to attract audiences, and then selling contextual ads against such content. Even the arrival of online services like AOL and the disruptive nature of the web didn’t materially change the contextual nature of advertising against publisher content.

Approximately 15 years ago, digital publishing experienced a seismic shift. The capabilities afforded by web browser technologies and advancements in server-side data processing introduced audience targeting. Ad networks and technology platforms could create rules to associate consumer web surfing activity on publisher sites with behavioral attributes. These could be attached to browser cookies. And they could target those cookies with advertising on websites other than the ones where the original behaviors were observed.

Data Management Platforms (DMPs) arrived to help publishers save and organize all the data created by digital traffic and to take advantage of audience targeting.

The role of the DMP was pretty straightforward: Transform contextual desktop web activity into audience segments and pass those audience segments into a website’s adserver, most likely DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP). Life was simple in DMP 1.0.

DMP 2.0: Mobile and social and programmatic

Five years later, smartphones, social networks, and programmatic media buying shuffled the deck. A new breed of DMP company arose that specialized in audience targeting for mobile app environments. Social networks introduced their own audience targeting. And programmatic advertising ushered in the need for data pipes connected to buy-side platforms.

An important challenge was how to use data to effectively plan, activate, and analyze media campaigns across channels and platforms. This led to a focus on the mechanics of syncing IDs between platforms using in-page pixel syncs. It also led to the emergence of technologies and venture-backed companies focused on “cross device” or “device graph” technologies. The primary challenge was how to associate activity on a desktop/laptop computer with a mobile device – literally “cross device.”

Under the hood, the reality was more nuanced. When it came to desktop/laptop computers, cross-device technologies were using 3rd-party cookies in web browsers as profile identifiers. So, if a person was using two different web browsers on the same computer, it could conceivably be considered two devices. If a person deleted their 3rd-party cookies, and a new profile identifier was generated, then it would also be considered a new device.

On mobile, there were other important nuances regarding what was considered a device. Mobile web browsing was similar to desktop web browsing in terms of its reliance on cookie-based identifiers. In the mobile app environment, both Apple and Google moved towards providing OS-based solutions for provisioning consistent ad identifiers to all licensed apps on the device. Apple iOS called this IDFA. Google dubbed it GAID. It’s significant that the hardware guys, who in some cases have declared war on cookies for mobile web, have facilitated a static advertising ID for mobile.

So “cross-device” was — and is — more like “cross-ID” based on the underlying reality.

In addition, cross-device technologies introduced new vocabulary. Deterministic and probabilistic matching described how these IDs could be associated. These syncing and graphing technologies were nascent and not well integrated across the ecosystem. However, they did spotlight the need for publishers, marketers, and ecosystem participants to look beyond desktop web + DFP (DMP 1.0), and to either build, buy, or license technologies to connect data across devices and media buying platforms.

DMP 2.0 was defined by data management solutions that began to address the emergence of additional device types and media buying platforms. It was also characterized by the technologies required to connect and extend audience segments across those environments. Even back then, publishers knew that consumer data needed to be fluid and connected across platforms and partners in order to drive business forward.

DMP 3.0: The DMP is dead. long live the DMP!

Media and technology have continued to change rapidly.

On the data input side, publishers are seeing consumer 1st-party data flow into their systems from web, mobile app, email, CTV/OTT, CRM, and an assortment of smart/IoT devices. They also have the ability to access consumer behavioral and attribute data from 2nd-party and 3rd-party sources. On the output/activation side, publishers feed data into adservers, SSPs, programmatic header wrappers, analytics platforms, content optimization platforms, content management systems, data lakes/streams/rivers, and marketer platforms.

an exploding array of consumer devices and applications, are powering these data flows. Unfortunately, most were not designed to be interoperable from a data perspective. To add further complexity, browser developers such as Apple and Mozilla block (or shorten the lifespans of) different flavors of browser cookies to better safeguard consumer privacy. As a result, they make it more challenging to connect data in web environments. Hanging over these operational data challenges are regional data regulations that provide consumers with protections/controls over how their data is tracked and used.

Innovation and M&A and corporate development activity have grown in the data management space as companies look to expand their solutions. Some pure DMPs joined forces with larger martech companies and integrated into their stacks. Others maintained independence and focused on developing advanced data-driven solutions to specific challenges.

Against this backdrop, it has been increasingly difficult to define what a DMP is. Today, client types, data types, and use cases are incredibly diverse. A single acronym isn’t sufficient to capture the full scope of capabilities.

But whether a company describes itself or its solutions as part of a DMP, CDP, martech stack or other, it’s clear that effective next-generation data management technologies must provide publishers with scaled and privacy-enabled connectivity between data sources and platforms.

Who wants to live on Gilligan’s Island?

It’s surprising to see that the recent crop of DMP start-ups have developed technologies and solution strategies that focus on publisher isolation instead of publisher-to-ecosystem connectivity. They have essentially stranded publishers on their own “data islands” in structures that might not survive the next privacy or browser storm.

They encourage publishers to turn the clock back to DMP 1.0, transform contextual desktop web activity into audience segments, and pass those audience segments into a website’s adserver. These contextual DMPs don’t have any magical technologies. And the functionality that they provide are features (or sub-features) of much more complete and robust data and marketing technology platforms.

These “disconnected DMPs” completely lack a focus on the capabilities required to help publishers and their marketing partners stitch data across websites, devices, platforms, and channels. It is imperative that any modern data technology platform provides scaled data connectivity solutions. DMP start-ups lack ID graphing technologies. To the extent that they have any inter-platform connectivity, they have to rely on 3rd-party pixel syncs powered by other companies. (Something they don’t talk about publicly since it runs counter to their cookieless fiction.)

To find your people, connections are key

The challenges publishers and marketers face in a fragmented data landscape are significant … but not insurmountable. Isolating your data from the broader marketing ecosystem is not the right path forward for publishers looking to grow their businesses.

Complete, consistent, and compliant data connections will deliver greater scale and precision for brands and publishers and better experiences for consumers. Publishers need next-generation DMP solutions made for today’s digital advertising challenges and future-proofed for tomorrow’s opportunities. They need trusted solutions grounded in partnership, privacy, and a panoramic view of the consumer.

About the author

As Chief Growth Officer, Adam leads Lotame’s global marketing, product, and client success teams to support growth across customer acquisition, retention, and revenue. He joined Lotame as the Chief Marketing Officer. His diverse experience balances art and science, and includes stints as an aerospace engineer and patent attorney, plus 21 years in consumer media and marketing technology in leadership roles at Viacom Media Networks, Time Inc., Hearst, and PebblePost. Adam is co-inventor on four issued U.S. patents related to interactive video advertising technology.

Fact check series, part two: contextual targeting, audience targeting, and match rates

Fact check series, part one: the truth about “cookieless” DMPs

Industry-Research | Revenue

Advertising’s return to “normal” following Covid-19

Nearly every industry has faced unprecedented changes and challenges due to Covid-19. As a result of shifts in the economy, sectors have had to adjust their advertising spend. Some have fared better than others throughout the past few months. But with the U.S. entering the path to reopening and businesses slowly beginning to return to “normal,” more changes are upon us. Advertising is now making its own comeback. 

Here at MediaRadar we took a deep dive into how the ad industry has fared throughout the pandemic and the sectors that are beginning to see a rebound. 

How the advertising industry has fared 

In January and February 2020, ad spend was up 8% YoY. When Covid-19 began impacting the U.S., ad spending plummeted. According to our data, the trough occurred the week of March 22, when spend was down -36% YoY. 

Now, every state in the U.S. has started reopening business in some capacity and the ad dollars are beginning to return to the market. While some industries will be slower to return to “normal” than others, many who saw steep declines early in the pandemic are beginning to advertise more regularly again.

Industries making a rebound 

Automotive

Amid the country’s reopening, spend from the auto industry is accelerating. Ad spend during the week of May 24 was nearly double where it was just three weeks earlier. Brands reviving their spend in recent weeks include Toyota, GM, Nissan, Subaru, and others. 

Total car sales also recovered somewhat in May. The annualized sales rate, although still down nearly one-third YoY, jumped 42% MoM in May. China, which is further along in recovery than the U.S., saw car sales increase 12% YoY in May. This marks the second consecutive month of YoY growth. In the U.S., many consumers who do not own cars are now considering buying one to avoid public transit and ride-sharing, and to enable road trips and travel closer to home.

Domestic & regional tourism 

Domestic tourism is beginning to pick up, as the pandemic eases across the U.S. The week of May 24 saw more than 3x the advertising spend than just one month prior, with more than 350 active local tourism bureaus buying.

YoY, spend during the week of May 24 still remains down 63%. However, this is a stark improvement over April, where spend was down 89% YoY. 

There are other positive signs for the industry. Airbnb, for example, is experiencing a surge in interest, with more U.S. bookings between May 17 and June 3 than during the same period last year, much of which is being driven by relatively nearby trips. American Airlines is also boosting its domestic flight schedule as they see increased domestic demand, specifically to places like Florida or mountains out west. According to The Economist, Google search data reveals that travelers are much more interested in domestic travel for the remainder of 2020, favoring smaller attractions over large tourist destinations. All of this is likely to lead to a further increase in domestic tourism advertising.

Hair care 

From March 8 through May 16, hair care ad spend was down 31% YoY. However, the last two weeks have both been up YoY, the first time since the beginning of March. 

In April, Unilever estimated that people were using personal care products eleven fewer times per week due to shelter-in-place orders. Unilever’s CFO specifically called out shampoo as an example of a product consumers are using less as they stay indoors. But with people beginning to go outside again, hair care ad spending has now picked back up to levels consistent with last year.

Real estate

Real estate advertising was hit hard amid Covid-19. It was down 55% in April when compared to the January through March average. But ad spend levels in mid-May were 34% higher than where they were in early April, showing an early sign of recovery. 

States that reopened earlier, like Texas and Florida, have seen real estate ad dollars return more quickly. The average weekly spend in April ($6.7M) was down by more than half, 55%, when compared to the average weekly spend in January – March ($14.9M).

New home sales also increased 21% YoY in May, according to a survey of 300 U.S. construction companies. And mortgage applications for the week of May 24 were up 17% YoY, their seventh consecutive week of increases, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Experts attribute the rise to pent-up demand, as well as a desire to move into a new home before a possible second wave in the fall.

Health & fitness services 

The reopening of gyms around the country has resulted in a strong bounceback for health and fitness brand advertising. Ad spend during the last week of May was at its highest point in 11 weeks, bringing the last three weeks up to YoY levels.

Normally in the summer these brands typically begin to taper off their ad spending. But this year, they are ramping up to get customers back. Many states such as Minnesota, Florida, California, Pennsylvania, and others have begun reopening gyms, However, visitors will find things different when they return – with spaced out equipment for social distancing, caps on capacity, stricter hygiene rules, and more.

The road to recovery 

While a full recovery is still far off, we can clearly see some segments beginning to reemerge and put ad dollars back into the market.  It will take more time, But data that shows early signs of recovery is certainly a great start. It helps show that industries feel confident and optimistic about the road ahead. 

Advertising | Perspectives

Consumers and advertisers are overwhelmed by the tyranny of choice

Maybe we already know this, but let’s all pause for a minute or two to consider some mindboggling numbers. Globally there are nearly 2 billion websites of which 400 million are active. More than 500,000 new websites come online every day. This adds another 200 million sites to this massive universe every year. More than half the world’s population uses the internet with nearly 4 billion users who are averaging almost seven hours per day online.

Remember when Springsteen was worried about “57 Channels and Nothin’ On”?

Are we too late?

It is no wonder that many of us in the industry (not to mention our family, friends, and customers) feel overwhelmed by this avalanche of news, information, gossip, click-bait, facts, “alternative” facts, opinion, and social media that is consuming roughly half of our waking hours. And let’s face it, the call to action for supply chain optimization, brand safety, fraud protection, and commitment to cleaning up the overall digital ecosystem is way past due.

The consequences of further foot dragging about this mess will be dire. This has been made clear by recent events including literal threats to our democratic traditions and commonly accepted norms for civilized behavior. The fact is that we need to take ownership of these issues and figure out a way to improve consumer experience online by better surfacing quality content (and thereby providing optimized ad experiences).

Too much of a good thing

“Logic suggests that having options allows people to select precisely what makes them happiest. But, as studies show, abundant choice often makes for misery.”

–Barry Schwartz, PhD  Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College, in Scientific American

Consider for a second the stress, second guessing, uncertainly, mental fatigue, and overall feeling of dissatisfaction when you are confronted with the menus at Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. Now consider the tyranny of choosing from 400 million websites. We can never turn back the clock. but we can make things easier on ourselves and fellow human beings by focusing on quality and accuracy and engaging in behavior that reduces stress and anxiety and increases engagement and satisfaction.

Less is more

Imagine if there was a way to reward publishers of premium content with increased advertising revenue based upon the duration of their users’ engagement. Let’s call this User Activated Engagement, or UAE. The greater the time spent reading content, the more impressions that individual users would see. Your audience would be served ad impressions only when they are engaged in the content on your site. And these ads would produce a higher return because they would become available for purchase only when they are in view, and adjacent to content that is relevant to the reader.

Moreover, since the primary beneficiaries of this newly found income will be premium publishers, an inevitable thinning of the herd will occur. We will all have fewer choices in the marketplace of ideas and those of lesser quality will fade. Advertisers will become more confident in the supply that is available. And audiences will benefit from time better spent, rewarding entertainment, and intellectual fulfillment.

Smart investments

The key pillars of effective advertising investment would be met: the right time and place for an ad message guaranteed to be viewable when purchased and served. And despite the imminent disappearance of the cookie, these ads will be contextually relevant. This is not necessarily because of the advertiser segment and editorial content, but because the context will have been determined as being relevant and engaging to the reader.

High quality, premium publishers would be main beneficiaries (along with advertisers who could expect that their ads will be viewable and therefore worth more). The long tail, 80% of the over 400 million active websites will become obsolete. The tyranny of choice will fade into distant memory. The supply chain will be rehabilitated. And quality will reign supreme in the kingdom of the internet.

About the author

Bruce Brandfon is Chief Media Officer of Duration Media. Prior to that he was Executive Vice President of WebSpectator. He was Vice President and Managing Director at Publicitas. Prior to joining Publicitas, Bruce was Vice President of Sales for the Philadelphia Media Network. He has also held leadership positions at Scientific American, Newsweek, and Time Inc. Brandfon is Director of the Board of Advisors at Planet Forward and an Adjunct Professor of Media Studies at Westchester Community College. He contributes frequently to industry publications.

Advertising | Revenue

The case for combined revenue models

Subscription models have increased in popularity among growing numbers of publishers who are shifting their focus away from ad sales – and this trend has gained even more ground over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Advertising revenue has taken a substantial hit over the past few months. Just one example is The New York Times, which estimated a 55% drop in ad revenue. Media organizations have gotten creative with their business models in an attempt to make up for this shortfall, offering readers more flexible payment options to drive up subscriptions.

Companies like BuzzFeed News and The Daily Beast have seen huge upticks in membership as a result, according to Digiday. In addition, publishers such as Gannett, The Washington Post, Time Magazine, and The Philadelphia Inquirer have amassed large coronavirus newsletter audiences—in some cases, twice the size of their regular lists.

“We’ve proven to ourselves that we can be far more agile with this product line,” Kim Fox, a product director at the Philadelphia Inquirer, told Digiday.

Subscription models have been wildly successful across a broad range of sectors. Publishers who pair this powerful strategy with their advertising revenue strategies will be most likely to weather the next wave of uncertainty to hit the media industry.

The future of media: advertising and paid subscriptions

Thanks to the massive amounts of data-driven transactions that occur on a daily basis, publishers and advertisers alike are better informed than ever before about their audiences’ behaviors and preferences. They now have the ability to create highly relevant and targeted advertising campaigns that maximize their budgets as well as their brands’ reach.

While advertising will continue to serve as a crucial revenue stream for publishers, subscriptions have proved their ability to act as a powerful complement to the ad sales model with exclusive, creative offerings that strengthen brand loyalty.

The subscription model has already prompted publishers to think outside the box of traditional advertising and explore partnerships like reward programs with brands. For example, U.K. publisher The Times runs a program called Times+ that features exclusive arts, culture, entertainment, and travel rewards from various corporate partners.

Subscriptions offer a win-win for publishers and their audiences because they give consumers the ability to choose the content they pay for, whether their interest is in current affairs, arts and culture, sports, or entertainment.

A longstanding tradition: selling content and ads

The business model of selling content as well as advertising isn’t new to the media industry. Newspapers have always charged newsstand prices, although they looked drastically different more than 100 years ago. In 1851, The New York Times’ first year of existence, a copy of the newspaper sold for 1 cent. It took nearly a century for the price to reach 5 cents in 1950, and by 1974, the price had increased to 20 cents.

Decades later, when the internet rocked the media industry and gave readers unprecedented access to news, there was great debate about whether it signaled the death of print media. Many news organizations didn’t survive the disruption. However, now that the industry has wrapped its head around the paywall system, publishers have been able to reinforce the monetary value of high-quality journalism.

Media companies are seeing the benefits of charging for content once again. For example, in 2019, News Corp Australia’s publications reached 500,000 paid digital subscribers. In the U.S., The New York Times reached 3.5 million paid digital subscribers that year.

“It shows more and more people are willing to pay more for our trusted, quality journalism,” Michael Miller, News Corp Australia’s executive chairman for Australasia, told NewsMediaWorks. “Premium content that resonates with our expanding audiences…is what will drive our long-term success.”  

Although it’s a delicate balance, publishers can successfully sell both content and advertising by putting two important measures in place. First, publishers must ensure that ad placements don’t become too unwieldy, as to not alienate paid subscribers. They must also keep the cost of subscriptions reasonable to maintain substantial audience numbers worthy of attracting advertisers. 

How combined revenue models drive success

Publishers who combine advertising and subscription models carefully are well positioned to reap significant rewards. This is especially true as first-party data becomes an increasingly essential commodity within the media industry in the face of growing data privacy regulations. 

Subscriptions provide publishers with rich first-party audience data. That becomes an attractive selling point for advertisers seeking to maximize their investment in a contextually relevant and brand safe environment.

“Publishers need to focus on what they do really well, which is produce content. They can do native [advertising] and commercialize contextual targeting,” Bedir Aydemir of News UK said at Lineup Systems’ user conference last fall.

McClatchy CEO Craig Forman agrees that context is key to advertisers’ success in the future. And media organizations—particularly local publishers—can harness this trend to help brands reach audiences in meaningful ways.

“What often you can’t find in the world of digital advertising is the adjacency…that makes your advertising important in context,” Forman told Digiday. “And at this time where local is the success story of the emergence, McClatchy and others are doing everything we can to partner with local brands to show them that the trusted environment of local news is where they need to be.”

At The Washington Post, a new digital advertising tool is helping the media company evaluate “brand suitability” in various contexts.

“This particular display product utilizes the real-time messaging of a brand’s social posts and targets them to an audience in the right context. With a news environment that is changing so quickly, this allows brands to be more relevant with their voice,” chief revenue officer Joy Robins told The Drum.

As media organizations continue to innovate, combined revenue models that blend advertising and subscriptions will undoubtedly become even more powerful.

Advertising | Revenue

Rebound ready: Four ways to build digital revenue

We’re in the midst of what Nieman Lab is calling “a profound advertising crisis.” The advertising and media industries have been hit hard by coronavirus, due in part to the cancellation of live sports and the impact of lockdowns on retail brands. 

It’s hard to think about investing when things are so scary. However, there are investments you can make that have a good chance of paying off as we emerge from this downturn. 

Right now, people are willing to read and view online, and digital content is king. Many premier publications have been providing free access to some or all coronavirus coverage, meaning more views. Travel + Leisure found a savvy (and digital) way to boost its audience numbers. For example, its article about famous museums offering virtual tours generated more than 4 million views. And when it comes to streaming, we predict that those companies with more extensive inventory of content will have a better chance of gaining market share.

Trendwatching

At 3Pillar Global, where we develop digital products for clients in the media and entertainment industries (among others), we have seen firsthand how the transition to digital media and advertising has accelerated rapidly. Americans streamed 85% more video in March 2020 than in March 2019. Newsletter open rates are up, especially in arts, entertainment and fashion. We’ve been told by major publishers that they are seeing significant increases in subscriptions.

Media companies looking to survive the revenue losses of Covid-19 have a unique opportunity to leverage increased traffic to their digital content into lucrative relationships post pandemic. Here are four suggestions for media companies navigating a course forward in the current climate: 

1. Demonstrate brand trustworthiness. 

Brands like Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, and the Atlantic – which have dropped their paywalls for some coverage – have actually seen spikes in subscriptions. The key is to make sure that content is accurate, concise and thoughtful, in order to preserve brand quality and make a lasting positive impression.

However, surging traffic can cause problems with performance and page load time. Consider easing the deployment of new code to prevent embarrassing outages. For example, Zoom delayed all new features to focus on performance and security amid their privacy controversy. 

2. Understand and serve the unique needs of your new subscribers.

Media companies have a unique opportunity to drive subscriptions from those who have shied away from paying before. But in order to maximize opportunity, make sure you’re collecting the right data. Understand who these new customers are and what they’re looking for. 

With these insights, companies can create subscription models that offer a customizable experience. These might include micropayments for customers who can’t afford a subscription, or short-term subscriptions lasting a few months at a time. Topic-specific subscriptions may attract some new subscribers looking for particular information, and there may be opportunities to partner with other companies, à la ClassPass’s studio partnerships, to attract subscribers looking for variety. Creating value to solve for different needs can keep new customers from unsubscribing.

3. Expand targeted advertising efforts. 

Collect insights from your audience data and target your digital advertising efforts. Be creative in your advertising and your digital products. The New media platform Quibi used social media advertising to target millennial customers, and the platform had 1.7 million downloads in its first week. 

4. Develop virtual events with customer needs top of mind. 

Demand for virtual events is skyrocketing. Financial Times reported that “investors are betting that once people try the digital alternative, many will not want to go back to airless conference centers…” The direct losses from tech events alone have surpassed $1 billion. Even after lockdown eases up, companies will have lower budgets for events and travel, making virtual events more necessary. 

Virtual events have the potential to earn more revenue than in-person events, if done well. They have no physical space limitations, allowing more people to participate; top speakers may be more likely to participate virtually than in person; and you can offer in-conference purchases and products only available to participants. Companies like Bevy, Grip, and Bizly have already been thinking creatively about how to equip people and organizations to reach greater numbers, online. 

The key to virtual events is understanding customer needs. Some people, for example, don’t go to events for the content or speakers. Rather, they go to network, or for the status of being part of marquee events. A virtual event might not serve these audiences. So, if you still opt for virtual, you will have to get creative in status-boosting offerings. 

Conversely, there are customers who wouldn’t have made the cut for an in-person event that you can now serve. For example, TED was highly exclusive. So, the creation of TEDx made it possible to spread more ideas by increasing reach without damaging the brand. Access management platform Okta held a multi-day virtual tech conference that generated thousands more sales leads than its Las Vegas conference; 15,000 people watched the keynote, versus the 6,000 who would have been in attendance in person.  

Advertising revenue may be down, but companies do have many opportunities to build strong digital revenue channels. An investment in digital products now is a long-term, not a short-term investment. But its impact will far outlast the current crisis. 

About the author

Jessica Hall is the vice president of product strategy and design at 3Pillar Global.

Advertising | Innovation | Revenue

How to build the house of addressable TV

Houses are built differently across the globe, designed to local customs and to suit individual owners. But the basic structural elements are the same. Every house needs a foundation, a floor, walls and a roof. The same is true of addressable TV. It requires four essential building blocks, ideally assembled by the people with the knowledge and toolkit to create a sustainable structure.     

By making linear TV addressable, advertisers can enjoy the best of both the TV and digital worlds. They can combine the reach and high engagement levels of TV with the in-depth insights and targeting capabilities of digital. This enables them to deliver a relevant and engaging experience tailored to individual households. A five-year Sky Media study reveals the impact and resonance of addressable, finding it boosts TV ad engagement by more than a third and cuts channel switching by half.

But as these two worlds come together – the complex world of digital and the long-established world of TV – there will inevitably be challenges and complications to overcome. These challenges aren’t just technical, in fact ongoing technological innovation is continually making addressable inventory quicker and simpler to buy. Building the house of addressable TV requires something more sophisticated than a technical solution, it requires the following four building blocks, each with a theme of unification.      

Block one: Unified ecosystem

Collaboration across the entire ecosystem is vital to provide a sustainable structure for addressable TV. And everyone has their individual part to play. Broadcasters are the keepers of the user experience and the holders of the premium content brands are advertising around, while operators are the ones with the customer data to create and empower relevant targeting. Broadcasters and operators are already working together and getting ready for addressable. In the UK, for instance, Sky and Channel 4 formed a partnership last year enabling Channel 4 to use Sky’s AdSmart technology to deliver fully-targeted, addressable ads across its linear channels.

But broadcasters and operators on their own aren’t enough. Tech partners are crucial, from data management partners and measurement providers to ad servers. No amount of endpoints will bring the sophistication needed in ad decisioning without the right technology to underpin the process. To build a solid structure for addressable all parties must commit to relevant partnerships and share knowledge, rather than prioritizing competitive advantage.

Measurement is undoubtedly a big challenge when it comes to the broader adoption of addressable solutions by the TV networks. Addressable impressions are allocated from TV’s overall audience and additional value derived from selling an addressable campaign is linked to the ability to “adjust” the underlying linear rating.

To solve this, third-party measurement firms will be needed to build fair methodology for addressable endpoints. They will also need the operators and technology firms that enable these ad insertions to provide them access to addressable ad impressions.

Block two: Unified view

The second building block in the house of addressable TV is a unified audience view. Addressable allows transactions to cross the border between linear and digital with ease. Ultimately advertisers won’t buy linear or digital inventory, they’ll just buy great TV content across a single, converged and integrated platform. And it doesn’t stop at TV; insight across TV, mobile, and all connected devices will help advertisers gain a more granular and strategic understanding when reaching audiences. 

This sounds like an idyllic situation, with a single view meaning unified audiences and easier decision-making that will improve campaign performance and simplify everyday processes. But changing the model in this way is a big shift for the entire industry, and agencies, advertisers, broadcasters and operators each need time to prepare for this currency change. The industry will need to establish standardized values for touchpoints across digital and TV, meaning that everyone needs to be onboard to make a unified view successful.

Block three: Unified reach

The next component of a successful addressable TV framework is unified reach. Targeting linear TV audiences today is well-refined guesswork, but with addressable there is no need to guess anymore, and probabilities become a thing of the past. Data-led decisioning ensures ads are delivered to the right audiences while they are watching the TV screen, regardless of programming or time of day. Addressable will become a powerful complement to the existing mass distribution approach of linear TV, as it can be delivered alongside traditional ads within the multiple slots of each commercial break.

Advertisers who do embrace addressable should apply caution around over targeting. Just because brands know who they’re advertising to doesn’t mean they should target that individual with the same ad over and over again. Advertisers must be shrewd with addressability. They need to go beyond a generic message with nationwide appeal but avoid the over targeting trap digital display occasionally falls into. Brands should use unified reach with creativity, becoming storytellers to their audiences.        

Block four: Unified reporting

Last but not least, the house of addressable TV needs unified reporting. From broadcasters and operators to agencies and advertisers, all parties need to be saying the same thing and singing from the same song sheet. The other building blocks are less effective if the ecosystem doesn’t report in a standardised and transparent format. 

Reporting has been one of the biggest successes of linear TV. Ratings provide a gold standard that everyone understands, so addressable advertising needs to embrace that standard, marrying the qualities of linear and digital and the granularity of data from both worlds. There will inevitably be debate around collection methods but the most important thing is everyone reports in the same way. Standardised, transparent post-campaign reporting for each audience segment will help to drive adoption of addressable.

Addressable TV advertising has many benefits. But making it work for everyone – regardless of the design of their house – requires more than just a technical solution. By putting in place the four vital building blocks of unified ecosystem, unified view, unified reach and unified reporting, the industry can embrace the best of linear and digital, and assemble a strong, sustainable structure for addressable TV.     

Advertising | Perspectives

Identity crisis: Why Google and Facebook dominate digital advertising

Last year, Google and Facebook accounted for over 60% of all U.S. digital advertising spending, and 33% of all U.S. advertising spending.

It is tempting to simply assume that Google and Facebook’s outsized share of advertising revenues reflect the popularity of their services with consumers. In fact, consumer attention falls short as an explanation for the advertising success of these services.

For example, research by Comscore found that consumers spent 34% of their online time with Google and Facebook properties. However, these services captured 63% of all U.K. digital ad spending. Google and Facebook received almost double the ad spending their consumer attention warranted.  Mary Meeker has found the same anomaly.

Sherlock Holmes famously said “the art of disguise is knowing how to hide an object in plain sight.” The often-overlooked reason for Google and Facebook’s rise to dominance of digital advertising reflects this principle. To experience the great majority of the benefits of Google and Facebook, users must, with few exceptions, log in. Hidden in plain site is the often unrecognized value of identity knowledge.

Because users must log in, Google and Facebook know, with near perfect certainty, the identities of their users. The net result is these services can offer advertisers targeted ads, to reach specific individuals, with near-perfect accuracy.

Free services create valuable knowledge

In addition, Google and Facebook collect a wealth of information about their visitors, as a by-product of the services they offer free of charge. This data enables these services to offer advertisers, of all sizes, the opportunity to target look-alikes. By comparing a list of current customers, these services help companies to grow by identifying individuals who “look like” their current customers, with respect to key attributes, and accurately deliver targeted ads to these look-alikes.

The industry often refers to Google and Facebook as “Walled Gardens,” because they operate their own advertising eco-systems, without the aid of third parties. In fact, a better description is “Moated Gardens.” The “price of admission,” to cross the moat and enjoy the botanical wonders free-of-charge, is a visitor’s identity.

Google and Facebook’s 1:1 accuracy in identifying visitors stands in stark contrast with the identity knowledge of most publishers. How many publishers can claim to know the verified identities of 50% or even 30% of their visitors?

Identity disorder

To enable publishers to compete with the Moated Gardens, a sprawling ad tech industry has developed. Phrases such as identity graphs, third-party cookies, plus probabilistic and deterministic determinations all reflect activities that help web publishers estimate the identity of website visitors, without visitor logins. Unfortunately, these sprawling efforts at estimating the identities of visitors are an ineffective means of competing with services that offer verified identities.

First, an internal study by Pubmatic found that a typical advertiser was willing to pay a 261% CPM premium for a verified identity, as opposed to an anonymous identity, while a cookie-based derived identity realized a far lower 90% CPM premium. Second, studies find that the error rate associated with the delivery of ads, based on third-party cookies, is shockingly high. For example, one study found that cookies-based ad campaigns, on average, overstated the reach to targeted individuals by 200%, and understated frequency by 66%. Cookie-based targeting led advertisers to mistakenly believe their ads were delivered to triple number of actual, individual ad recipients.

Today, publishers are understandably focused on the immediate challenges to ad revenues created by the pandemic. However, over the next 19 months, many web publishers will confront yet another challenge to their revenues.

Post-cookie identity

Cookie-derived estimates of identities are far less valuable than verified identities.  Nonetheless, third-party cookies do enable publishers to realize CPM’s that, on average, are 90% to 108% higher than the prices derived from otherwise anonymous users. By 2022, publishers will lose these vital, higher CPM revenues as Google follows Apple to eliminate third party cookies.

BritePool (and others) are building identity solutions that enable web publishers to effectively compete with Google and Facebook, and achieve the high CPM’s associated with verified users. Strategies and solutions that will bring web publishers competitive advantages versus the Moated Gardens, are also hiding in plan site.

Yet, there seems to be an impractical assumption in the offices of most web publishers. There’s a notion that there is adequate time to address the disappearance of cookies.

In fact, this notion of time is an illusion. To take advantage of emerging identity solutions, web publishers must focus on developing user logins. This will allow them to gain both identity knowledge and the associated high-CPM advertising. Moreover, the testing, development, and successful implementation of these initiatives will necessarily span lengthy periods of time. There is no quick fix.

When Google announced it planned to eliminate third-party cookies, we put a countdown clock in our office, and our publisher website. Theses clocks continue to tick away, and the available time for effective publisher action is quickly evaporating.

About the author

David J. Moore is the CEO of BritePool. Prior to founding BritePool, Moore was Chairman of Xaxis and global President of WPP Digital. Earlier, Moore was the founder of 24/7 Real Media, which he sold to WPP. He has also served as Chairman of the Board of the IAB and Chairman of the IAB Tech Lab.

Advertising | Perspectives

Why brand suitability is important for publishers and advertisers

The unprecedented events of 2020 have thrust brand safety into the spotlight yet again. As the digital advertising industry grapples with uncertainty, publishers and advertisers must wrestle with the challenges of a news cycle that’s dominated by a single, risky topic.

Web traffic is surging. However, news and media sites have been unable to turn those record levels of engagement into ad revenue. In part, this is because advertisers don’t have the tools in place to confidently navigate through the challenging content ecosystem.

Among other things, increased uncertainty has led to a growing chorus of advertisers questioning the limitations of traditional brand safety approaches, like keyword blacklists. They are also asking what else can be done to assure brands that their ads won’t appear in unsafe environments. 

The answer to such questions may lie in the evolution of brand safety from a one-size-fits-all content ban into a more nuanced approach focused on brand suitability. “Brand safety” has dominated the conversation in digital advertising circles for years. However, “brand suitability” is nascent—having only recently entered the vernacular. 

Brand safe, but risky business

Brand safety focuses on marketers’ need to prevent their ads from appearing alongside problematic or inappropriate content. Historically, it used a heavy-handed approach to block ads from appearing near content using certain terms. This was based on keyword blocking and URL blacklisting. What has become increasingly apparent is that those old-school tactics don’t offer the flexibility of customization and control that modern marketers need to safely advertise in today’s programmatic market. 

Brand safety roared into public view in 2017. With numerous high-profile incidents involving ads from major brands, marketers everywhere quickly understood the impact of lax brand safety strategies on brand equity. The enormous risk and ensuing cost—both in revenue and brand image—was finally appreciated across the supply chain. From that point on, brand safety became a common discussion among marketers and publishers.

But things have progressed significantly since then. And the pitfalls of blocking specific keywords and whole URLs are glaring. The main problem with blacklisting based on exact matching keywords is that it misses one vital ingredient—context. Context is critical when defining suitable inventory versus isolating damaging content. Without context, the full meaning of the page is determined by a single word. However, that word could have various definitions and interpretations based on the broader story that’s written.

Context matters

Consider the word “shot” as an example. An advertiser’s first reaction might be to block any content mentioning it due to the word’s association with firearms or injury. However, “shot” is also a word used in the context of healthcare (flu shot), sports (jump shot or chip shot), technology (moon shot), and photography (camera shot).

The same is true for “dead”—a word blacklist providers say is often the number one blocked term by advertisers. It might seem like an obvious choice for a blacklist. But blocking content associated with the word “dead” eliminates inventory associated with the hit TV show The Walking Dead, and popular movies such as Deadpool. Beyond that, pages featuring similar words like “dead heat”, “dead-pan”, “dead tired”, “dead lift”, and “dead zone” would also be blocked. This removes vast inventory (and potentially valuable placements) from the advertiser’s bid.

Words without context are a clumsy and ineffective filter to use for determining brand appropriate inventory. That’s why traditional brand safety tactics are largely ineffective.

The shift to brand suitability

Brand suitability is the logical evolution of brand safety. Where traditional brand safety tools rely on cookie-cutter approaches to avoid unsafe or inappropriate content, brand suitability is more nuanced. Brand suitability identifies the advertising environments that will help digital campaigns drive outcomes for the business and uses individual brand profiles, market research insights, and strategic positioning to find and target specific environments for advertising.  

Publishers have played—and will continue to play—a monumental role in the shift from brand safety to brand suitability, due to the simple fact that they are disproportionately affected by the use of blacklisting and keyword blocking. These outdated tactics can limit audiences and scale for advertisers. And they rarely offer the robust protection modern brands need, so the impact can be severe.

The impact on publishers

Broad blacklisting and keyword blocking mean publishers cannot monetize their inventory in its entirety. Incorrect categorizations and over-blocking often mean that relevant and high-value impressions are lost along with the associated revenue. Compounding the effect of this is the fact that publishers are already operating in a cluttered, hyper-competitive online environment. Even if only a small percentage of content is blocked or incorrectly categorized as unsafe and removed from the bid, it can have a devastating effect.

The implications can extend far beyond missed revenue opportunities for individual publishers. Over-blocking and blacklisting can leave a lasting impact on the broader media and publishing industry. Advertising dollars being funneled away from reputable news and content sources also open up the door for content farms, low-quality journalism, and intellectual property theft, as fringe publishers try to game the system.

A better way

Advertisers want their messages seen by receptive audiences who have a positive contextual association. And along the way, their work can help fund reputable news organizations and publishers. It’s doubtful that any advertisers’ goal is to inadvertently penalize media organizations for covering current events and providing essential content to their audiences. While there will always be high-risk content that’s not appropriate for all advertisers, a blanket, keyword-centric approach is not the answer. 

Brand suitability can help bridge that divide. It provides rigorous context-based protections for advertisers from appearing near unsafe, illegal, or inappropriate content. It also green lights significant inventory that is safe and suitable for most advertisers. Shifting to a brand suitability approach enables advertisers to confidently navigate the online news cycle. And, importantly, it helps publishers fully monetize their inventory, so the health of the advertising, news, and media industries is maintained well into the future.

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