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Industry-Research

Mobile traffic has caught up with desktop. Are you prepared?

It is official: We are finally “mobile-first.” At the conclusion of Q2, we reached the much-anticipated pivot point when all mobile traffic (direct and referred) caught up with desktop (see chart below). But while we waited, the mobile ecosystem and what we thought we knew about mobile has evolved. Is your media company prepared?

Here are five trends to watch as media flips to mobile-first:

1. The mobile pivot point

Since January 2017, total traffic from desktop to news sites declined by 14%, while mobile traffic increased by 34%. One of the main drivers for this is the growth in referred traffic from pages using AMP. For news sites, mobile has finally met desktop.

2. The shapeshifting reader

Mobile readers are now more likely to go direct to mobile apps and homepages by typing in the URL than they are to be referred to a site by Facebook. Recent data shows that direct mobile traffic surpassed all Facebook-referred traffic as of mid-October and is steadily climbing. Despite the recent News Feed changes in Facebook which have resulted in declining traffic to publishers (-15% since January 2017), readers still seek out news news, and they are doing so on mobile devices.

3. The browser: the next major traffic source?

Are discovery tools in the browser the next main gateway to news?

We’ve seen a rise of in-browser content recommendation modules, such as Google Chrome Suggestions. And, with a rise that started last year, traffic from Google Chrome Suggestions has grown 21x. Another is Pocket, which has an integration with Firefox and was acquired by its parent company Mozilla in February 2017. Pocket may be significantly smaller than Google Chrome Suggestions, but with a 297% increase in referral traffic since January 2017, it is worth watching.

4. The next class of news referrer emerges

In looking beyond Google Search and Facebook, we see that traffic from Twitter to publisher sites has declined by 18% since January 2017 and is now at a similar traffic level to Google Chrome Suggestions. While Twitter may be off of its high, there are very strong gains in the last year from a new tier of news aggregators including the brand-new Google News app, Flipboard, Instagram, and Axel Springer’s Upday app. Here’s what we’re seeing:

  • Google News is quickly trending up as a referrer source, particularly since May when Google announced an all new Google News app that replaced Google Play Newsstand as well as the old Google News & Weather apps. We will be watching this closely in the next few months, particularly as Google continues to execute the next steps in its mobile news strategy.
  • Flipboard has had a dramatic increase in the amount of referrer traffic it sends to publishers, and it is now a meaningful leading referrer, having doubled since June 2017.
  • Instagram, which recently announced its billionth user, is commonly thought of as only a photo and video sharing app. However, we’re also seeing that it’s becoming a meaningful source of traffic for news sites; Instagram referrer traffic to publishers has grown 232% since January 2017.
  • Even more surprising is Upday News for Samsung – a news app from Axel Springer that is featured on Samsung phones. Since January 2017, Upday saw a huge tick upwards of 763% growth in referrer traffic. Upday is one of the fastest growing sources of traffic for publishers in Europe. It is also now driving roughly the same level of traffic to publishers as Instagram.

All of this indicates that the consumer demand for news via apps has strong momentum, and you should keep a close eye on the growing news app ecosystem as part of your content distribution strategy.

5. The more-engaged-than-we-thought mobile homepage reader

You may think reader attention is more scattered on mobile than on desktop. However, our data shows otherwise, specifically with regard to mobile homepages. On mobile homepages, the average visitor spends 40% more time actively engaging than their desktop counterpart (22 engaged seconds on mobile vs.16 engaged seconds on desktop). While this comparison isn’t entirely apples-to-apples (you could imagine that a reader is more likely to idle in a more information-dense desktop experience), this is a notable reversal of the reading behavior we see on article pages, where desktop readers engage slightly more (38 engaged seconds vs. 34).

Mobile readers are also 20% more likely to click-through to articles than those on desktop. Mobile homepage visitors click through to articles 68% of the time, compared to 57% on desktop. Whereas desktop homepage readers scroll more of the page, mobile readers are more engaged in reading articles by clicking from the mobile homepage into content.

What does this mean in terms of how we value the mobile reader or monetize the mobile homepage?

The Takeaway

There is no doubt that the consumer, publisher, and device-maker shift to mobile is driving growth and evolution in how and where traffic flows around content. Consumers are increasingly seeking content directly on publishers’ mobile websites and apps. They are also using news aggregators, where we see a new class of secondary traffic referrers emerging. And with mobile homepage readers more engaged in content than we thought, now may be the time to rethink what we thought we knew about mobile.

 

Advertising | Perspectives

The shift towards context-based advertising

The 2016 election, Cambridge Analytica scandal, and GDPR represent a tidal shift in how the ad tech and digital media industry will monetize their audience moving forward. And it’s overdue. Demographic data doesn’t define a person’s identity. People define themselves by what matters to them, by their interests, hobbies, and values, and they show this in what they read about online.

As we talk about technology in the publishing industry, we should consider what kind of tech will move us towards monetization through context-based advertising. This protects data privacy, and has the potential to finally gain an advantage over the platforms where many digital advertising dollars have shifted.    

Consumer mistrust of platforms

When consumers found out that Russia played a role in the 2016 election via bots on Twitter, propaganda on Facebook, and even local events in the U.S., we were forced rethink the role social media played in our community. Were they purely a platform? If so, to what degree did they need to police the content and users? Further, if they had so much knowledge about their users, why couldn’t they prevent a malicious influence like Russia from infiltrating their platform?

The Cambridge Analytica scandal certainly didn’t help this cause, and weekly stories break about Facebook continuing to acknowledge privacy and data issues. This has planted the seed of doubt about whether these platforms and the underlying data could be trusted—not just by the general public, but by the marketers who provide the revenue stream for Facebook.

New privacy-conscious controls for consumers

GDPR was borne out of a general concern that consumers had a lack of control and transparency around their digital data—data that bore the monetary fruits of now enormous companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter. That data also created the massive ad tech industry that developed complex methods to personalize and optimize ad targeting to the point where most experts in the industry still don’t quite know how the ecosystem works.

GDPR, in some ways, marks a boon for platforms and the end of an era for the ad tech industry. Any platform that collects its own massive amount of first party data (like Facebook, Google, Twitter), can relatively easily get the consent of the population. Ad tech, though, faces the burden of getting consent through 3rd parties, where the value of giving consent was not only unclear but potentially non-existent. The type of re-targeting and personalization that was prevalent before will start to change under GDPR as publisher-direct relationships with consumers become increasingly important.

Context-based advertising

So where does this all lead, in terms of current industry trends? There’s no lack of interest in moving from a programmatic model to more of a subscription-based model. But most of the innovation and investment in digital tech has been focused on ad-tech, data collection. We need to simply “do better” from an advertiser and consumer perspective given these trends.

From the advertiser side, the credibility of their 3rd party data is eroding with GDPR. There are some publishers that are large enough (or are building collectives) to create their own first party pools of data. However, none of them can reach the scale or targeting capabilities of companies like Facebook and Google. Marketers know this, and if they want the best targeting they’ll still go to the duopoly.

That said, because consumer privacy is becoming top of mind for more and more people, marketers are also worried about the experience around ad campaigns they run. They want to create an experience that doesn’t creep people out (for lack of a better term). Interest- or context-based advertising, as a result is coming back into favor for the privacy-conscious brands and marketers.

Targeting ads based on consumers’ interests or the context of what they’re reading instead of their personal data benefits everyone involved. Consumers maintain their privacy and build trust publishers. Publishers can then pass on this trust to brands who want their consumers to know that they care about their privacy. And, publishers who are armed with the right contextual data can still provide an advertising experience that’s targeted, but doesn’t violate consumers’ concerns.

Not only does data around interests protect anonymity, but it speaks to the core of who people are. Marketers who try to understand what matters to their audience through attention data—the topics and stories they pay attention to online—will have a leg-up on connecting that audience with content and products that they want.

Perspectives

Marketing to the cross-platform consumer: The art of sequential messaging

In today’s fast-paced world, it takes consumers mere seconds to form an opinion of a brand or product. At the same time, most consumers own multiple devices, and they move from one to the other seamlessly. In terms of advertising, this means that it has become extremely challenging to attract—much less hold— consumers’ attention. One strategy holds great promise, however: sequential messaging.

These days, we have access to vast amounts of data about reader preferences and behaviors. Sequential messaging offers the ability to harness this data to create high-performing campaigns. But how do you turn the marketing tactic of sequential messaging into an artform?

What Is Sequential Messaging?

First, let’s define what we’re talking about. Sequential messaging is a technique in which consumers are targeted with a series of ads across various devices. To engage the reader, the ads are shown in a particular sequence. These messages can come in the form of banner ads, social media posts, emails, TV ads, native, or content marketing, and beyond. In short, the goal is to tell a story over the series of messages. And this is where the artform comes into play

How Does Sequential Messaging Work?

For illustrative purposes, let’s start with an example. Let’s say a consumer is browsing a site that is running a women’s fashion ad campaign. She is shown a video ad for a new brand of women’s sportswear that happens to feature women’s yoga gear. And she watches it to the end. The video shows several busy women leading a healthy lifestyle and taking time for themselves as they practice yoga, play soccer, go running or workout at the gym.

The next time the consumer visits the site, she’s on her iPhone. She’s immediately shown a video that tells a story about a woman who becomes less stressed and gets back into shape thanks to yoga. Of course, the woman in the video is wearing clothes from the brand’s yoga line.

The third time the consumer visits the site, she’s on her desktop computer, and she’s shown an ad with a call to action to purchase yoga apparel. It could, for example, offer 25% off all yoga pants for the coming week. The consumer likes the clothes and purchases some yoga gear.

In this example, the consumer has been drawn in by a series of messages that go from general to more focused based on her initial action, which was to watch an ad featuring yoga gear. She’s been successfully targeted across a range of different devices with a series of related ads, resulting in converting into a customer.

How Do You Succeed with Sequential Messaging?

Sequential marketing campaigns are designed to tell a story that speaks to a specific consumer persona, regardless of what device is uses. In other words, they target the right person with the right message at the right time on the right screen.

To succeed, you need to be able to:

  • Recognize high-quality leads: These are consumers whose behavior indicates they have a high probability of converting.
  • Know what messaging to use: A campaign must present stories that speak to specific consumer personas.
  • Figure out when to show what messaging: Any successful campaign brings the lead through the sales funnel appropriately.
  • Target devices: It’s crucial to understand what devices the same consumer uses to access a website.

Data-driven Control

By syncing the insights gathered from your existing audience data, such as preferences and behaviors critical to informing sequential marketing campaigns, you can optimize your sequential messaging, enhance engagement, and improve your overall ROI.

Publishers only have so much control over the creative provided for any campaign. However, they do have access to data that can be passed back to the advertiser to help them succeed. The beauty of this technique lies in providing a cohesive message and experience, regardless of what device the consumer is using. Just as consumers want access to buy anytime, anywhere, your campaigns need to be able to reach them whenever and wherever they’re ready to engage. Having access to accurate cross-device technology can help make this a reality, for cohesive cross-platform messages.

Sequential marketing provides a cohesive and comprehensive customer experience. It also helps connect with consumers, because you can use the resulting data about them and what they respond to and give them more of the same type of content.

Overall, sequential advertising enables marketers to make a lasting impression and generate higher-quality leads because consumers are more engaged. For publishers, this means you can enhance campaign performance, leading to happier advertisers and a bigger ROI.

Perspectives | Revenue

Publishers: Focus on fraud

I’m going to start by saying something that really shouldn’t shock you. Digital ad fraud is a crime. The word fraud is right there in the name. Fraudsters, whether they’re using sophisticated bot networks or deceptive spoofing tactics, are stealing money from advertisers. Yet the digital advertising industry has historically treated fraud as, at best,  the cost of doing business or, at worst, a budget-sapping nuisance. But if the headlines are to be believed, that’s changing fast and publishers need to take steps to clean house if they want to be sure they’re protected.

Over the last few months, we’ve all seen signs that public officials are taking a renewed interest in the digital media ecosystem. While Congress has been busy trying to figure out Facebook, the New York district attorney’s office recently launched an inquiry into the business practices of Newsweek owner IBT media, saw the company’s offices raided and their servers seized. Though that investigation was wide-ranging, ad fraud was significant component.

The investigation may be part of a wider trend. FBI investigators recently attended the Rubicon Projects Executive Exchange conference where Special Agent Evelina Aslanyan reportedly told ad industry executives that ad fraud “represents a whole new world of crime for publishers and consumers.” The appearance suggests that the bureau is gearing up for a push on cybercrime and that ad fraud will now fall firmly in that category.

While fraud is often framed as a challenge for advertisers, it’s possible for even legitimate publishers to unwittingly become entangled with ad fraud. There are a handful of steps publishers can take avoiding being caught up in the wave.

Avoid traffic-sourcing schemes

It’s not uncommon for publishers to “buy traffic” in order to deliver on impression quotes and meet their obligations to advertising partners. There’s nothing inherently wrong with employing third-party services to extend or increase the audience for your content, especially if that additional audience is human and comes from a legitimate marketing activity like sponsored posts or content recommendation services.

However, some vendors who offer additional traffic can’t deliver human eyes. Instead, the impressions they deliver are from bots. It’s this kind of invalid traffic that can leave publishers in hot water with advertisers and the authorities. Thoroughly vetting traffic vendors is the best way to avoid paying for fake views or even inadvertently charging for them.

Employ a verification solution

Verification isn’t just for the buy-side. Advertisers employ verification solutions to identify, and in some cases block ads from serving on invalid or non-human impressions. For publishers inadvertently receiving fake traffic. this can be a headache requiring refunds or campaign extensions to meet impression goals with legitimate traffic. However, verification cuts both ways and ad fraud detection solutions can help publishers to clean up their inventory and supply chain.

Additionally, publishers can use verification technology to detect fraud on their own sites and pages. Verification technology can help publishers with vet traffic vendors and ensure that none of the traffic they’re serving to advertisers is invalid. Sell-side verification technology gives publishers greater transparency into the quality of their inventory allowing them to make more accurate projections of its value.

Automate optimization

Sell-side verification solutions have been available to for over a decade. They allow publishers to assess their inventory and identify potential invalid traffic before exposing it to ad impressions. However, the process of cleaning up that inventory can be time-consuming and costly.

Automated optimization gives publishers a way to remove fraud from their deliverable ad inventory. Optimization solutions integrate directly into publisher ad servers which allow them to redirect fraudulent audiences to house ads. This prevents bots from collecting cookies and carrying them to other websites and provides an added layer of protection against inadvertent fraudulent traffic from unscrupulous vendors.

The takeaway

The focus on fraud isn’t likely to let up anytime soon. While publishers may feel some added pressure to deliver fraud-free impressions, this also represents a huge opportunity for premium publishers to capitalize on quality inventory. By taking a few simple steps to ensure that your inventory, as well as your traffic generation solutions, are safe and fraud-free publishers have the potential to score ad revenue worthy of their quality inventory.

Perspectives | Revenue

YouTube growth flat as brand safety woes continue

In lieu of Facebook’s reputation struggles, as well as changes to their Newsfeed, many publishers are considering YouTube for both inventory and audience development.

However, YouTube has problems of its own – namely, brand safety. According to a brand-new study by Oath and Advertiser Perceptions, polling more than 300 advertisers, 42% say user-generated content sites like YouTube aren’t addressing their concerns over brand safety. This study comes just a month after Cisco pulled all ads from the video platform. Per Cisco’s CMO Karen Walker, in her original blog post (the piece was later edited to remove mention of YouTube), “We have pulled all online advertising from YouTube until the platform has met our standards.”

As digital video consumption rises, publishers see YouTube as an obvious opportunity. Marketers do, too – but they’re also growing increasingly weary of brand reputation across the platform. In looking at our own data at MediaRadar, the numbers bear that out. Across a sample of 70 top YouTube channel pages, advertising spend has been flat in 2018, with only an 0.2% increase YTD. Publishers and marketers alike both want to tap into YouTube’s exploding audience (nearly 1.6 billion watch YouTube content at least once a month right now). But for this to be a go-to platform, there’s work to be done.

To YouTube’s credit, they’re taking on the work. At the company’s NewFront, YouTube talked up its newly expanded Google Preferred lineup, emphasizing its top channels as premium, brand-safe environments. They also touted the increase in human reviewers auditing content. However, as the Oath study shows us, the effort to resolve brand safety and win back trust from now burned and cautious brands will be slow-burn and long-term.

As that process continues, high-quality digital publishers are in a good position either way. While YouTube addresses trust, more marketers will flock to the service. This, in turn, could boost revenue opportunities for the publishers that want to play in that sandbox.

In the interim, however, digital publishers are still the beneficiaries. The Oath report also found that 45% of advertisers are moving spend to “well-regarded premium” digital publishers — think sites like USA Today, BuzzFeed, The Huffington Post, and The New York Times — until they feel standards have improved on social platforms like YouTube. It’s a win-win for publishers, with brand safety a key theme both now and in the future.

 

Innovation

How Google’s News App is tackling some of social delivery’s tough problems

Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai kicked off last month’s Google I/O by stating that “there is more great journalism being created today than ever before.” Pichai and Trystan Upstill, Head of News Product and Engineering at Google, went on to highlight the programs and products Google was working on to help publishers sustain quality journalism. A lofty approach by a company often on the receiving end of publishers’ ire. They are making an effort, however, by doing the work and committing the resources to change the narrative.  

The core of Google’s strategy relies solely on the Google News app. Typically, social feeds aren’t aligned with publishers’ needs. This is because social lacks brand awareness, revenue opportunity, and data about the end audiences. Furthermore, social feeds are often blamed for creating “filter bubbles” that negate a holistic approach to a topic and disintermediate the publisher/reader relationship. The Google News app has put some serious work into addressing some, but not all, of these concerns.

Here are the top four concerns that they appropriately addressed.

1. Featuring the Publisher Brand

The publisher brand is well-featured and prominent in the app experience. This helps bolster publisher brand awareness and avoids the “I read it on Facebook” dilemma. (This is what over 50% of readers answer when asked which publisher authored an article they read online.)

2. Avoiding the “Filter Bubble”

The “Headlines” section of the new app lets readers view what everyone else is reading. This helps address the “filter bubble” effect that comes from a 100% curated social experience. Discovery of new content from outside your social circle or creating more engaging ways to expose interesting content is critical.

3. Delivering Full Coverage

Our favorite geek-out feature is “Full Coverage,” which is a link placed under most news topics. Full Coverage provides multiple points of view from many different sources. As stories evolve over time, Full Coverage hosts a timeline so readers can understand the changes in the storyline. To enable Full Coverage, Google uses temporal co-locality. In layman’s terms, Google can understand the people, places and things related to a story in real-time and then package them. Even tweets, fact-checking and commonly asked questions are included in Full Coverage.

4. Creating Better Content Experiences

In the ‘make it easier to consume content’ category, “Newscasts” is a new user experience for packaging content. It neatly combines articles, videos, quotes and other types of content on a single topic, no matter where you are in the app. Upstill referred to it as “a preview that allows you to get a feel for the story.”

At Outbrain, we applaud any effort that helps readers discover new content, and addresses publisher concerns. We aren’t ignoring the legitimate business issues publishers have with Google, but are more than willing to highlight a great product, we’re all readers at the end of the day.

Research

Hiding in plain sight: The HTML5 security conundrum

In recent years, as a growing number of security woes plagued Flash users, browser vendors and developers began to flee Flash for the more secure HTML5 and other open standards. Between 2014 and 2018, the percentage of people viewing a page in Chrome with Flash slid from 28% to 8%. Meanwhile, the percentage of websites that use HTML5 has grown to 70%.

In 2015, when the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) updated its digital advertising guide with best practices for using HTML5, they cited security as the chief reason behind publishers’ adoption of HTML5. While the IAB was right that HTML5 offers far better security than Flash, it has a critical weakness. Hackers now use HTML5’s security functionality to hide malware. This should give pause to HTML5 devotees.

First identified in April, this malware appears to be part of a coordinated campaign that targets iOS devices. This is partly because they are popular, partly because they make detection even more challenging. It has produced at least 21 separate incidents affecting dozens of globally recognized online media publishers and at least 15 ad networks. Ironically, the malware by no means exploits an HTML5 vulnerability. Rather, it uses functionality that not only secures software from malicious attacks by making code difficult to understand, but also helps to deliver a rich experience.

Exploiting Weaknesses

In 2015, just as the exodus from Flash began in earnest, university researchers discovered several techniques to convert HTML5 into a safe haven for malware. The researchers found that if malware were written using the techniques to make code hard to read, it would avoid detection regardless of which browser web visitors used. When used to hide malware, these techniques were coupled with a drive-by download attack that followed these steps:

  1. Redirection and Cloaking: The victim goes through a series of redirects that effectively hide attack’s source. The victim’s browser information is gathered and sent to a remote server. If the browser has any vulnerabilities commonly, a malware code is sent back to the client.
  2. De-obfuscation: The malware code is obfuscated (broken into chunks) in order to prevent detection. Once vulnerabilities are found in the browser, the code is de-obfuscated (converted into clear-text and reassembled).
  3. Environment Preparation: The malware puts together code that will exploit the vulnerabilities.
  4. Exploitation: The malware injects the harmful code.
2015 HTML5 Malware Anatomy

A Growing Problem

Over the course of the two years that immediately followed the publication of the research, malware developers appeared to make little use of HTML5. In 2016, they used a bug in HTML5 to freeze computers and obtain unsuspecting users’ phone numbers. Then, in 2017, The Media Trust malware team identified a small number of random HTML5 malware that made little to no impact on the broader digital ecosystem. It is possible that bad actors behind the malware were simply experimenting before staging a more coordinated attack in a larger scale.

What distinguishes this year’s HTML5 malware from earlier versions is the underlying campaign’s level of coordination and the style of attack. More specifically, the campaign reflects the malware developers’ understanding of the display advertising supply chain. In particular, they recognized the thousands of potential victims. They stage the attack without user interaction, relying instead on auto-redirection. The result is a quicker, much more widespread attack on numerous unsuspecting users.

2018 HTML5 Malware Anatomy

The Malware Technique

  1. Delivery:  When a user visits a targeted online publication, an ad network delivers the malicious ad to the webpage.
  2. Checking Criteria: As the user’s device meets each criterion—namely, whether it’s iOS and whether it’s connected to the user’s carrier—the code serving the HTML5 creative checks the criteria. Once the criteria are met, the malware is reassembled in a way that allows the malicious code to execute.
  3. Auto-redirection: The redirect is executed. The user is taken to another page that requests their input of personal information.

Preventing the HTML5 Malware Spread Through Campaigns

Should advertisers and marketers stop using HTML5? The answer is no. HTML5 is still far more secure than Flash. However, the HTML5 malware, along with a burgeoning number of malware, are proving more difficult to detect and will require marketers to change how they secure their digital supply chain.

HTML5 malware fly under the radar of traditional security measures like antivirus. Thwarting it requires a more holistic approach where organizations collaborate with their digital partners and third parties on improving the security of their digital ecosystem. It also requires marketers to work with a cross section of teams outside of marketing — cybersecurity, compliance, etc. — in order to improve the security of their creatives and digital assets.

In the digital marketing and media world, hackers prefer easy targets like third parties because they often have weaker security postures than their clients. Once hackers break through a third party’s security measures, they can enter the client’s secure networks undetected through a trusted connection. Another easy target are online ads, which let hackers spread malware to thousands of users without having to compromise or infect a website.

Organizations can avoid third-party and online ad risks by putting in place a robust digital vendor risk management program to police every actor and every code that executes in their digital ecosystem. Such a program enables organizations to develop and continuously update their inventory of direct and indirect vendors.

In today’s complex, dynamic digital ecosystem, an organization’s mix of vendors can change daily. Keeping track of these vendors will require continuous, real-time scanning of digital assets. Second, it helps assess and document the risks from each of these vendors. Third, it enables organizations to share policies and work with vendors and digital partners on resolving issues. Finally, it enables organizations to terminate vendors who continue to violate policy after they have been put on notice.

About the Author

Patrick Ciavolella is Digital Security & Operations Director at The Media Trust. He has been working at the company for over 11 years, protecting clients’ digital ecosystems from the ever-evolving threat landscape. His experience gives him a unique perspective on how companies can defend against rapid, sophisticated and targeted malware attacks.

Advertising | Innovation | Perspectives

Digital can change for the better, viewability is the proof

It’s hard to see change when you’re in the moment. Progress is something that’s best observed in hindsight. It’s easy to let the challenges of the day grab your focus. Going the next few feet often feels more important than miles you’ve already come. I think about this often when I look back on the changes that have taken place in our industry over the last four years.

Viewability has been completely overhauled. It wasn’t so long ago that even the most hard-nosed media buyers were resigned to the idea that 30% of their ads were destined to be below-the-fold, partially loaded– in effect, unviewable. Today those numbers have improved dramatically. Even the least demanding buyers know that they can get to 60% viewability, and with the right tools and solutions in place 100% viewability is within reach. In retrospect, it seems crazy that we ever accepted anything less.

What’s going on

You can tell the same story about fraud. Just a few years ago the conventional wisdom held that fraud levels of 30% (or or even 50%) were an unavoidable. To reach real people, you had to go to through a mountain of bots. It was the cost of doing business, and an “unofficial tax” on digital advertisers. But that was before the industry reset its thinking about what is actually possible. Today, thanks to advances in fraud detection, most advertisers would consider a fraud threshold of just 2% to be the upper threshold of what is acceptable.

Today, “fraud free,” “viewable only,” and “100% brand safe” are all commonplace. These would have seemed out of reach for advertisers just a few years ago. And those aren’t just slogans, they’re promises with meaningful business implications.

Why it matters

There’s a tendency to get lost in the weeds, or to think about metrics as goals unto themselves. As focused as we are on reducing fraud, improving viewability, or protecting brands those things aren’t really the end goal. A more viewable ad ecosystem means cost savings for advertisers, more efficient CPMs, and better ROI for your marketing dollars.

When we accepted that only 50% of our ad buys were reliably fraud free we were accepting that we might be throwing away about half the money we spend in digital. Half of an advertisers million dollar ad buy could go to waste. For publishers that meant half a million dollars going into the pockets of fraudsters instead of into their revenue column. A healthier ecosystem means better business opportunities for everyone.

What’s next?

The work of cleaning up the digital advertising industry is just beginning. We’ve made great strides in desktop environments, but the conversation is already moving with the audiences as well. New platforms like mobile in-app, proprietary platforms, and over-the-top video all face challenges of their own. But those challenges shouldn’t deter us. Instead we should look back at the incredible progress we’ve made and realize that that same kind of transformation is possible in every new environment.

Advertisers and publishers can continue to carve out big opportunities on mobile, video, and social the same way they have on desktop. That’s why we believe that the work we do is so important. We want to encourage everyone to keep rethinking what they’re willing to accept from the digital ecosystem. It’s the only way to keep improving value, effectiveness, and revenue to move digital forward.

Harmon joined Integral Ad Science in 2013 to support the company’s accelerated growth and demand for its media quality solutions. In his role, Harmon is responsible for strategic partnerships and integrations of Integral’s digital technology solutions with both publishers and platforms.

Harmon is a veteran of the online media industry, leading and mentoring teams on both the publisher and agency side of the business.  He is a frequent speaker and writer in the digital advertising community and is an advocate of both the art and science of digital marketing.

Industry-Research | Perspectives | Revenue

3 questions to ask your data when evaluating a paywall

While the digital publishing world seems enamored with direct reader revenue lately, here’s a quick reminder that it is difficult to ask people to pay for something that used to be free. And there are a lot of decisions that go into setting up a successful program such as determining the threshold for a free article limit, deciding on a call-to-action, and identifying the right people at the right time.

We wanted to understand the existing subscription model landscape, so we analyzed 1,870 domains in the Parse.ly network. Just under one third (29%) use some type of paywall. The majority of those use some type of membership paywall or a metered/partial paywall. And barely 2% of our entire network deploy a full paywall.

If you’re considering moving from that 71% group into the reader revenue group, you probably have a number of questions, starting with: is this the right move?  Other big things to consider include: Who should be seeing your call to action? And what’s the ideal “free article” limit?

Parse.ly’s Head of Audience Development Solutions, Kelsey Arendt, encourages clients to find the answers in data for these three questions when evaluating which paywall method makes the most sense for your site.

What subset of my audience are “super-users”?

Super-users are your most consistent and reliable audience. They appreciate your content and they trust you. That makes the valuable as a target group for a paywall call-to-action and as an exclusive audience for premium advertising partners or for VIP offers.

Selecting the right paywall method hinges on an understanding of audience loyalty distribution. To determine whether you have a sufficiently-monetizable subset of loyal superusers, ask yourself:

  • How often do my visitors read?
  • How engaged are they each time they visit?

Reader frequency and article engagement help you decide what the cut-off for your call-to-action to subscribe should be, whether it’s a paywall after five free articles or 10.

To illustrate this, we took a look at a sample of aggregated data from the Parse.ly network. Seventy percent of the audience to these sites visit a single website four times or less per month. They also read less than 10 articles per month. Said another way, those readers would not be affected at all if a site implemented a metered-paywall with a limit of 10 free articles a month.

The promising opportunity lies with the other 30%. Take one of the smallest groups, the 3% of the audience who visit a single website nine times per month or more. This loyal group can, and should, be identified if they are the ones who are most likely to convert into subscribers.

Imagine a moment when you walk into your favorite store, the one you go to all the time and where they know you. If someone tells you that they have something special for you, you tend to trust them and consider their offer.  Audiences that have made it to that “circle of trust” for your site, might be more receptive to the idea of a paid membership model, thus increasing your chance of converting them.

What content belongs behind a paywall?

Another way of asking this question is: What content resonates with your super-users? To find out, consider the sections or topics your most loyal audience already loves.  Figure out what your most loyal audiences pay the most attention to and consider making one of your premium offerings.

Measuring total engaged time reveals the content that resonates the most with readers. Total engaged minutes encompasses both breadth and depth. The team at Slate focuses on engaged time for exactly this reason.

Am I adding value for my readers?

While you have to examine the data behind the potential audience and what they’re most interested in, you should also ask yourself what else you can offer them.

The reason why readers subscribe will always come down to your unique voice and your brand. But as much as people like your content, they also value their time. So, any moment with them must either add value to their life or come at the right time.

There are so many ways to add value to a membership or subscription model. A few that have been explored: exclusive benefits, an ad-free experience, discounted events, direct input into editorial, or VIP access. But don’t limit yourself to what you’ve seen. Maybe your audience would sign up in exchange for a book of coupons to local stores or for an exclusive app download that made them more efficient with their time.

Ask not what your readers can do for you—ask what you can do for your readers.

Paywalls: Not always the perfect solution

At the end of the day, if you want your readers to pay attention to your work, you need to pay attention to their needs and interests. Data can help you understand whether a subscription model might work, and how to get your subscription offer in front of the right people at the right time.

And what if the data shows that paywalls don’t make sense? Paywalls, meters, and memberships are just a few methods of monetization. Even if you can successfully monetize that 3% of super-users, you’ll still need to explore other revenue options.

The other 97% of your audience can still help you generate other types of revenue, like native advertising, merchandise, or advertising. And of course, data can help you find opportunities for those options too.

Innovation

Publishers’ quick guide to serving up relevant—and engaging—content

Let’s face it. A publisher’s job is never done – and it’s never easy. Regardless of the ever-evolving relationship publishers have with Facebook and other social media platforms for sharing content with the world, one thing remains clear: You either need to give readers the content they want, or they aren’t going to engage with what you’re offering.

Personalizing the content that you send to your audience can have a dramatic effect on engagement and time on site. Let’s look at three ways publishers can improve editorial strategy, increase consumer engagement and build brand loyalty by customizing the content that readers see.

Content Customization

As a publisher, your content development and editorial teams already have a pretty good sense of whether a story is best served by an article, video, audio, interactive experience or some combination of the above. They know the story and they have a good sense of the medium best suited to convey that story, but do they know the audience most likely to read – or watch or listen or explore – that story? And if they do, or they think they do, does your content dev team understand how that audience prefers to receive content? Now we’re getting into a murkier area.

Using audience data gathered from a DMP or other audience platform, you may learn that 70% of people watching videos at least three times in the last five days are men, 40% are age 25-34, and 35% are interested in sports. Armed with this knowledge, you can direct your video production team to create videos about football – or soccer, if you live in a country that’s not America. Knowing the composition of your content consumers allows you to publish (or republish) content specifically tailored to their content consumption preferences. When content is relevant, consumers will be engaged for longer and they will be more likely to return for more.

Content Personalization

While content customization helps to modify the types of content your editorial team produces, how can we ensure that the user is getting the most relevant content, in any medium, as they navigate around your digital properties? You may be able to tee up relevant content based on the current article (or video, etc) a user is reading or watching, but what percentage of your site traffic have you seen before? 25%? 50%? For the remaining users who you have no previous data on, how do you ensure the first pieces of content is something that user is likely to engage with?

In addition to making more relevant content by medium, why don’t we reduce the irrelevant content pieces? Content wouldn’t be displayed to users who are not interested, and instead would only be shown to consumer who are interested. This is where Content Personalization comes into play. By linking your digital audience data to your Content Management System’s (CMS) engine, a profile’s rich behavioral attributes can be reviewed and analyzed to ensure each piece of content is served up to each user on an individual basis. This maximizes the chances the user will click or engage – and remain on your site longer.

Now, instead of four out of 10 articles being relevant you can become even more relevant by decreasing the total number served up – it’s now four out of eight articles! It’s not perfect, but we’ve already increased from 10% relevancy to 50%. That an increase of 500%!

Content Recommendation

So now we can ensure the right content is served despite the users’ interest or demographics, but we can’t just keep showing the same article or type of article to the same user.

Content Recommendation can help solve for that. As a user browses the page, to one side or at the bottom of the article a selection of relevant articles should be offered to the reader as additional content to consume. If the user is reading an article about sports, but also have interests in finance and politics, perhaps the list of articles being recommended is one article each of sports, finance, and politics. Integrating your audience data with a content recommendation engine (either proprietary or third-party like Outbrain) will allow these relevant articles to show based on behavioral affinities.

Whichever direction you choose, one thing remains true: When content is relevant, consumers will be engaged for longer and they will be more likely to return for more. And in today’s very competitive world, saturated with blogs, articles and videos, using the insights you have on your audience to show them what they want will make them more loyal and give you a leg up on the competition. Are you ready to get started?

Perspectives

Net neutrality – every voice counts

In a matter of days, the 2015 Open Internet Order is set to be repealed by the FCC. This will give internet service providers (ISPs) the power to control how consumers use the internet. They will have free reign to prioritize, slow down, or block online services and set individual pricing for different types of traffic.

If it goes ahead, the repeal will obliterate net neutrality — the single most important attribute of the internet. Net neutrality ensures that the internet remains a level playing field where anyone can create and share content that can be accessed equally by all.

Without net neutrality, the internet is likely to be monopolized by mass media platforms, which are either owned by ISPs or have the money and influence to cut preferential deals with them. Smaller independent publishers could see visitor numbers and associated revenues plummet. Consumers will be reliant on the content of a select few who pay for control and preference — which is deeply concerning for the future of free speech. And advertisers will be compelled to use these generic platforms rather than reaching consumers though more specific and engaging channels.

The fight for a fair internet continues

The fight for net neutrality is far from over. Senators are attempting to overturn the repeal using the Congressional Review Act, requiring just one additional vote to reach a majority in the Senate. While the bill may struggle to pass the House of Representatives, it raises awareness of the issue. It is also a strong illustration of widespread support for net neutrality. Multiple lawsuits have also been filed against the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) decision to repeal the order – backed by the Internet Association (IA), which represents Google, Facebook and Amazon – including one lawsuit filed by 21 state attorneys general.

In addition to these combined efforts, individual states are taking separate action. Washington is the first state to enact its own net neutrality rules, specifically prohibiting ISPs from blocking or slowing web content, as well as speeding up apps and services in exchange for money from developers or website owners. Another net neutrality bill was recently proposed in California. And it is even stricter than the original 2015 Open Internet Order as it would ban zero rating. That would mean exempting certain types of content from mobile data limits. In fact, action against the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality rules is being taken in 35 states, according to activist group Fight for the Future, including executive orders, filed lawsuits, and state legislation. It is as yet unclear whether the FCC or individual states have ultimate authority to oversee broadband internet services.

Stand together in support of net neutrality

Consumers, advertisers and publishers may think their individual voices won’t be heard in the debate around net neutrality. However, there are many ways to join the fight and make a real difference. Writing to, or calling congressional representatives and senators to express personal views is a first step. The website Battle for the Net is a great place to start. There are numerous petitions individuals can sign, as well as nationwide protests and meetings to take part in.

The legal and political debate around net neutrality will continue well after the repeal date of April 23 has passed. So, for anyone that values a free and open internet, where anyone can create and publish content to be accessed equally by all, standing together in support of this fundamental principle is essential.

Walter Knapp is the CEO of Sovrn – a fast growing, Boulder, Colorado based company helping on-line publishers succeed. Prior to Sovrn he was the Chief Operating Officer at Federated Media Publishing and Lijit Networks. With more than 20 years of business and operations management, Walter has been an investor as a partner and principal for two very successful venture capital funds. He has also built and led large field organizations for two public companies, Novell and Cambridge Technology partners. Walter regularly speaks about monetization and data strategies at industry events covering both online publishing and advertising. Walter holds a Master’s in Engineering from the University of Colorado in Boulder and a B.A. in History from Boston College.

Perspectives

Facebook vs. Snapchat for Third-Party Distribution: 5 Key Insights

In January, Facebook introduced algorithm changes to its News Feed, prioritizing the content that friends and family share and comment on, while de-emphasizing content from publishers and brands. The changes shifted expectations and strategies for content owners who’ve long valued Facebook for both traffic and engagement.

On April 5th, 2018, MediaRadar hosted a panel to discuss the state of the media industry in the wake of these sweeping Facebook changes.  The name of the event was “Facebook vs. Snapchat: What’s Next for Third-Party Distribution?”

Marty Swant, Staff Writer from AdWeek moderated this discussion. I was honored to be a part of this panel, which included four other industry experts with various and impressive backgrounds: Maia McCann, former Editor-in Chief & EVP of Programming from Little Things, Emily Cohn, Executive Growth Editor from Insider Inc., Kieley Taylor, Managing Partner, Global Head of Social, [m]PLATFORM, and Brian Madden, SVP Development at Hearst Digital.

Here are 5 takeaways from the conversation:

1. LittleThings isn’t holding a grudge against Facebook.

Maia McCann entered the panel with an experience completely unique to any of the other panelists. She was the Editor-in-Chief for LittleThings, the digital media firm that recently shuttered in the wake of Facebook’s algorithm changes.

Marty Swant’s very first question of the night was directed solely at McCann. He simply asked, “What happened? Could you tell us about the rise and fall of LittleThings?”

Maia stated that the company was “born out of viral Facebook traffic.” She went on to say, “We toyed with the idea of diversifying traffic, but we made a decision to look at Facebook as five different avenues of distribution. We looked at Facebook as a landscape. There was an idea that this landscape was never really going to change.”

Unfortunately, their strategy did not serve them well, as Facebook’s landscape did change. LittleThings was not built to withstand those changes. It lost about 75% of its organic traffic, which killed their profits and caused the company to shut down.

In light of the outcome, one might assume that McCann could have bitter feelings towards Facebook’s algorithm changes. However, she expressed a much more positive outlook, devoid of grudges. In fact, she appeared grateful: “There’s been a lot in the press about how Facebook killed LittleThings. I really don’t feel that way. I don’t have rage dreams about Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook made my career.”

She noted that Facebook gave her the giant audience that led to her success. Without it, she’d just be “writing somewhere.” McCann also added that there was “probably a route out of it,” in reference to the decisions LittleThings made leading up to its shut down. “Hindsight is 20/20,” said McCann.

2. Traffic sourcing strategies vary greatly.

Something to note in McCann’s comments about LittleThings was how they approached traffic sourcing. They relied almost solely on Facebook. Regardless of LittleThings’ fate, however, this showed one very specific approach to gaining an audience.

When the other panelists discussed their own strategies, it became evident that media companies can, and do, approach traffic sourcing in completely different ways.

Brian Madden of Hearst Digital discussed how the company “never wanted to focus on a single source of traffic.” They focused on multiple sources, to diversify their audience, maximize growth potential, and avoid having a heavy dependence on a single source (i.e. Facebook).

LittleThings and Hearst presented two contrary ways of seeking traffic. Regardless of outcome, however, neither one of these ways is right or wrong. They’re simply different.

3. In media, experimentation is key.

Throughout the panel, one of the consistent themes was that, for media companies, experimenting with different content platforms is crucial. Brian Madden spoke heavily on Hearst’s diligence with experimentation and how it has fueled their multi-platform  and overall success.

“We always knew something else was coming, so we wondered how we’d be first on every platform… Being able to experiment in a lot of different places has been key.”

Even in rehashing the story of LittleThings, Maia McCann stated that, if given a second chance, she would, “diversify traffic, hire people for SEO, look at YouTube, and look at Snapchat.” In other words, she wishes they had experimented with more platforms.

Experimentation allows media companies to better understand which platforms and audiences are the most profitable, and where they might be able to find long-term success.

4. Content should be “story”-driven.

One thing that Snapchat and Instagram do extremely well, is showcase content in a “story” format. Kieley Taylor of GroupM’s [m]PLATFORM expressed her thoughts that “Stories” and “Moments” would be a large factor in filling the Facebook void.

“The story-telling format that we’ve seen the most success with, is the ‘Stories’ format. The thing that is working across a lot of distribution points, where a lot of people are trying to spend their time, is ‘Stories.’ [i.e.] Instagram Stories, obviously Snapchat.”

She referred to this “mobile-first, social native” format as something of great value.

Not only should publishers and advertisers look to tell a story within their content, they should also look to utilize the “Stories” format on Snapchat and Instagram to communicate that content to their audience, and potentially fill the vertical content void left by Facebook.

5. SEO fuels long-term success.

Emily Cohn of Insider and Business Insider was a strong advocate for search engine optimization (SEO), especially as it relates to the long-term success and profitability of content.

“Search is our number one source of traffic,” said Cohn. “Around 80% of our search traffic is to stories that were not published today. One of our top-searched stories is from 2014. Search is valuable to us because it’s making our whole ten years’ worth of content really valuable.”

While media companies may find high rates of traffic from social media, a single viral post may not lead to long-term content profitability.

Maia McCann also expressed her belief in the value of SEO, saying that LittleThings got rid of their SEO team amidst company cuts, and that in hindsight, doing so was a “huge mistake.”

While these takeaways were certainly some of the highlights of the night, the entire panel was filled with many terrific questions from Marty Swant and the audience, and a ton of great insights. Overall, we learned there is a lot of opportunity out there through social media channels. Now, it is up to media outlets to harness and monetize that opportunity.

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