The sale of sponsored editorial is up significantly, across almost all big name publishers. BI Intelligence predicts that the native spend will hit $21 billion next year and account for nearly three-quarters of all digital ad revenue by 2021. Similarly, according to our own MediaRadar analysis, native adoption and demand are extremely high. An average of 610 new advertisers use custom content each month. Demand is exploding as native’s impact among consumers – providing a unique ad experience compared to traditional display – has also grown considerably.
Despite this success, there are visible cracks in the foundation. Competition and unsuccessful campaigns are driving unusually low renewal rates. The average advertiser renews only 33% of the time.
Real Results
We analyzed the native ad success of a prominent publisher which doubled their sponsored editorial sales in one year. This represents a major success. However, if we look a bit deeper, the results are sobering. In a year over year analysis, while 71% of advertisers did buy sponsored editorial again, only 43% returned to the original publisher, and 29% stopped buying the format entirely.
The takeaway: As the market matures and becomes more saturated, emphasis must be placed on winning the renewal. The best publishers today enjoy 90% renewal rates, creating a cash machine. There are several reasons for their success.
Clear Objectives: Publishers that see higher renewal rates establish and demand partner campaign objectives in advance. They also test that the objectives are met.
Campaign Duration: Additionally, we observe that those publishers with the longest campaign flights (more than 6 months) have much higher renewal rates. This enables for better testing and adapting, as well as provides a greater sample size of data.
Native Investment: Those winning renewals have also invested in technology and additional personnel for their solutions. They typically see a 49% renewal rate.
Native is a massive opportunity for publishers. However, a lot of work still needs to be done to optimize success and strengthen results. Without the expansion of successful native offerings, demand will outweigh supply, and the bubble could burst.
Does improving page load time positively impact readership?
Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project was launched in February 2016 to address both the increasing bloat of web pages and the subsequent consequences of a diminished user experience for readers, publishers, and advertisers. By creating a platform from which media companies could publish clean, streamlined versions of their articles, AMP promised to speed up the average page load time and make it easier for visitors to stick around and read their content.
But how does it deliver on this promise, and what is the impact on consumer engagement?
The Effect on Publisher Traffic
Chartbeat pulled actual consumer behavior data across 360 sites using AMP and FIA from June 2016 to May 2017. Our research shows that, while usage rates and the subsequent number of articles consumed on each platform differs, it turns out that both AMP and FIA content have been receiving larger and larger shares of publishers’ mobile traffic, and at fairly equal rates. As of mid-May 2017, a typical publisher who implemented AMP saw 16% of all mobile traffic on their AMP content. Comparatively, publishers with FIA saw 14.8% of all mobile traffic on FIA content.
The Need for Speed
These days, web experiences are all about speed. Almost half (47%) of consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less. Even more significantly, 40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load, meaning they never reach the published content at all. So how are AMP and IA optimizing page load times?
Chartbeat analysis shows that AMP loads roughly four times faster than the standard mobile site experience, and Instant Articles load even more quickly. In fact, 88% of Instant Articles load too quickly for us to even register a load time. Now that’s fast.
This is a big deal, and proves that both initiatives are delivering on the promise of providing a much quicker load time to improve reader experience. And publishers are seeing the effects — with less time spent waiting for pages to load, consumers have more time freed up for engaging with content.
Better User Experience, More Engaged Readers
With so many distributed ways of finding content and such short consumer attention spans, every second counts. So how does AMP stack up?
Chartbeat’s data shows that readers engage with AMP content for 35% longer than standard mobile web content. They spend an average of 48 seconds with AMP content vs. 36 seconds with mobile web content when coming from search. The fact that readers are engaging for so much longer than they normally would suggests that user experience really does matter in catching and holding attention.
The Future of High Speed Mobile
One big question still remains: Will publishers continue to scale their efforts and should these high speed platforms become the mobile industry norm?
While the increase in engaged time for publishers who have adopted both AMP and FIA are compelling, the jury is still out on whether the end justifies the means. The numbers here demonstrate that consumers clearly value these optimized mobile experiences and this may just be the evidence we need to validate their potential. However, larger questions still remain around each on both publisher value and quality.
As publishers continue to use these platforms and readers continue to react, it will be interesting to see how AMP and Facebook IA evolve in the future – possibly in two completely different directions.
At the end of the day, visitors deserve a fast, clean, enjoyable reading experience where they spend most of their time – on mobile. And publishers can benefit from a more effective mobile environment where they can distribute and monetize content and scale their success. But at what cost? How can we make this win-win?
John Saroff is Chief Executive Officer of Chartbeat, a leading content intelligence platform used by more than 50,000 of the world’s top media properties in over 60 countries. He has worked on the cutting-edge of media and technology for 17+ years, setting the daily operations and business development agendas of companies as diverse as Google, NBC-Universal and vente-privee. John received his undergraduate degree in History from Haverford College and a joint degree in Law and Business from Columbia University.
There’s no denying that two major phenomena are actively reshaping the existing digital advertising supply chain:
Accountability is being pushed upstream
Not long ago, digital publishers bore the brunt of the blame, shame and liability (financial and legal) for ad-related problems such as performance issues, unauthorized collection of audience data, and security concerns (malvertising). Today, armed with more public awareness (in the form of ad blocking, among others), industry best practices (e.g., TAG, IAB LEAN) and regulations (GDPR anyone?), publishers are finally pushing back on upstream partners when policy-flouting ads are served to their digital environments. And many partners are listening. Now, several other ad tech players on the buy side of the digital supply chain are joining this publisher revolt and to direct accountability for creative issues to their upstream partners.
Advertisers have spoken
Earlier this month, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, P&G’s chief brand officer, Marc Pritchard didn’t mince words when it came to expressing his irritation with everyone’s acceptance of serious flaws with the digital advertising supply chain. He highlighted the complexities of digital advertising and confusing agency contracts. However, what stood out were his comments on the quality of the digital ad experience for consumers:
“Sometimes we deliver a high-quality media experience, but all too often the experience is, well, crappy. We bombard consumers with thousands of ads a day, subject them to endless ad load times, interrupt them with pop-ups and overpopulate their screens and feeds…” Marc Pritchard, CMO, P&G
This comment from the world’s biggest advertiser underscores the importance of digital ad quality in regards to what is being “presented” to audiences today and rightfully so. According to recent research, the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry spends almost 20% of their $225 billion annual marketing budget on digital advertising. Yet retailers and shoppers alike gave digital advertising low marks for effectiveness.
This provides further impetus for more advertisers to focus on improving the digital ad experience, thus putting the sell-side is under immense pressure to not just launch high-quality ads into the digital supply chain but to prove that those are high-quality ads.
New priorities, New challenges
As the digital ad ecosystem evolves, agencies and media buyers need to re-establish trust with both consumers and advertisers. The first step is adopting industry best practices and standards for ad quality and security. This includes being judicious about audience data collection activity and keeping abreast of the ever-evolving guidelines for a plethora of ad formats.
Agencies have a lot of work to do. As depicted here, most media buyers today need to take a more farsighted approach to campaign development and scanning. The assumption that an ad, upon entrance into the digital ecosystem, is exactly the same when it renders on a website showcases this ignorance.
To meet changing advertiser demands for a better digital ad experience, agencies need to adopt a more comprehensive view of the entire ad experience: Creative + ad (the actual creative with all the corresponding analytics code) + landing page, not just the creative.
A paradigm shift in agency priorities is required. Agencies and media buyers are under unprecedented scrutiny to address ad quality as they are where creatives originate. Their inability to meet the changing demands of both advertisers and publishers directly impact the following areas:
Ability to Launch and Serve Ads
As ad formats and standards continue to evolve, meeting these specs across publishers, platforms, and networks impact your ability to serve ads
Ad Spend and Campaigns
Delays in launching campaigns jeopardize ad spend and campaign metrics. Also, the inability to verify the campaign and its success – is the ad getting served the way it should be and to the target audience – could damage relationships with advertisers.
Brand Image
Noncompliance with complex and changing regulations damage brand image and lead to penalties potentially for the advertiser, publisher and the agency itself.
Pressure changes the status quo
The brief to media buyers about what to do and what is expected is clear. But it will be interesting to see how agencies actually adapt to the changing digital advertising landscape. Balancing advertiser demands while trying to achieve operational efficiencies and scale and trying to win a turf war against big consulting firms will likely prove to be a heavy lift for agencies. These bi-directional pressures coming from advertisers on one end and published on the other end of the digital ad supply chain will force revolutionary change. If done right, the end result is a transformed digital advertising ecosystem. Positive UX via an optimized and profitably monetized channel.
Chris Olson founded The Media Trust (@themediatrust) with Dave Crane in 2005. He currently serves as CEO, where he drives the company’s vision, direction and growth plans. Prior to establishing The Media Trust Company, he spent four years as the chief operating officer and board member at Spheric Media. From 1998 until 2000, he was the vice president, global equities at Commerzbank; and from 1993 until 1998, he was the vice president of electronic trading at Salomon Brothers, Inc.
More content is being produced and consumed than ever before. However, one of the biggest obstacles to success for publishers today is the inability to fully understand the value of their content. Yes, publishers are getting more and more data. But with so many different types of ads, targeting, and decision-engines running on a publisher’s site, the revenue generated from a piece of content has become impossible to retrieve beyond general averages.
In fact, as we have previously noted, most publishers merely settle for what’s available (averages) rather than what’s needed (real-time values). However, as we all know, a data-driven business cannot run on averages. That would be like trading stocks based on the average over the past week while someone else is trading based on precise real-time values.
Add to this the silos between the editorial and ad ops and you have an ad stack and content stack that don’t talk to one another.
The Opportunity
So, how can publishers harness bridge these gaps and work smarter? There are three significant opportunities for publishers in this challenging landscape. Those that tap into these will be empowered to do more than simply survive. They’ll have a competitive advantage.
1. Use Data to Fuel Audience Insights
Data should be the glue that connects publishers to their audience. It should enable them to serve more personalized content and enhanced user experiences, so they can better compete with social media platforms. Data should flow between publisher Data Management Platforms, network insights, and 3rd party data providers via APIs. This enables publishers to connect their content with their user and deliver customized experiences based on content type, device and location.
2. Connect Content and Revenue
Publishers need to connect content and revenue so that content can be personalized and optimized for yield. There is currently a lack of understanding about the true value of content. This doesn’t mean the total value of content. Instead, it means knowing the exact value of any article or video at a single point in time and the ability to take meaningful action based upon that insight. When content is a publisher’s currency, and each click is the trigger for revenue, a publisher must connect what they are selling (advertising) with the content that accompanies it
3. See a Holistic Picture of All Revenue
Lastly, publishers need to understand revenue from all sources in a single dashboard, not as individual boxes on the page. Once publishers have access to these insights, they can further optimize to the correct partner, referral source, or set of specific pieces of content to maximize additional revenue. Simply adding more paid links as a way to generate more revenue is sure-fire way to disappoint users, while being counter-intuitive to the principles of yield optimization.
The Power of the Complete Picture
Partners with expansive network insights as well as multiple paid relationships and networks can help publishers meet revenue goals. This model has played out over the last decade, beginning with display and evolving over time to include native, sponsorship, ecommerce and even off-platform distribution. However, the majority of publishers have not yet brought those revenue sources together into a single, manageable view to that they can take direct actions that are maximized for each piece of content.
Connecting content with revenue allows publishers to understand how much RPM value their Facebook referral traffic is delivering compared to all of their other sources. Yield teams can understand which partner delivers the most value. Audience development teams can launch campaigns based on feedback from ad operations about under-delivering sponsorship campaigns. Executives can see how revenue goals in real-time, all based on the connection between revenue and content.
Publishers must break down the walls that are typically built up between revenue and editorial teams. Real-time insights allow them to personalize the content experience, while also considering the value of each piece content. It is clear that publishers need to leverage the appropriate tools and strategies to achieve this level of insight and opportunity.
Dennis Yuscavitch has spent the last several years creating and launching new product, most recently with Outbrain as director of product marketing. When he’s not making publishers and advertisers happy he’s often coaching his local youth soccer team. The consummate early adopter, you can find him online @dennisy or via LinkedIn.
After playing catch-up to evolve their approach to reach Millennials, marketers must move quickly to connect with Generation Z. This generation, born between 1997 and 2011, is estimated to count 2 billion members globally – approximately 27% of the world’s population. Gen Z will present unique challenges to marketers, adding to the already difficult slate of changes that a rapidly evolving digital marketing environment is presenting.
At the top of the to-do list for marketers is a need to gain a rapid understanding of the needs, aspirations and behaviors of Generation Z. To be accepted by this key group, marketers must develop mobile-led creative content that appeals to the generation’s imagination and passions for design and music. Marketers will also have to innovate to build better brand experiences and connected consumer journeys.
For Gen Z, development of more engaging content and more sophisticated, brand-infused programmatic targeting is critical. Less intrusive media approaches that will help play their part in discouraging ad blocking, which Gen Z is prone to. Finally, marketers will have to take advantage of new technologies that enable cross media placements that work together to drive synergies and deliver enhanced ROI. Marketers who most enthusiastically tackle these challenges and embrace these opportunities will lead the way.
Be True and Transparent
Perhaps most critically, while described as both frugal and brand-wary but also industrious and collaborative, Gen Z will challenge not only how brands communicate, but also the very notion of a brand’s authenticity and transparency in digital.
The reason is simple. Gen Z is one of the first groups to come of age in a post-linear digital world. They have knowledge about everything at their fingertips and on demand whenever they want it. They’re also emerging at a time of institutional instability. Consequently, Gen Z presents a conundrum for brands because they place a high emphasis on personal privacy but also expect full transparency from brands.
The Big Shift
Successful brands will need to embrace three paradigm shifts moving forward:
Brands should invest media dollars and focus activity in digital platforms that allow consumers to co-create a shared brand experience. Unlike the personalization coveted by Millennials, Gen Z will be hands-on: They want to try it, take it apart and re-create it.
Brands will need to give their target consumers a deeper look at themselves through owned media (social, apps, and websites). In addition to products and services for sale, brands must share their story, their purpose and details about their supply chain and production processes, so that Gen Z can determine if the brand’s values match their own. This narrative and underlying content will be further cascaded through strategically placed branded and sponsored content.
Brands should aim to shift their focus to right-brained influence. The foundations of the internet and digital media were left brain – with a focus on the linear, factual and linguistic. Digital media for Gen Z will be right brain with a focus on imagination. This may take the form of augmented reality and virtual reality. The emphasis should be on experience through non-verbal immersive formats and stronger visual imagery as well as emotion, emphasizing music and narratives.
These shifts, when embraced by brands, will help drive brand growth and increase the power of digital as a channel for brands to meaningfully connect with this audience, as it exerts ever greater economic power and influence.
Joline McGoldrick is Vice President of Insights and Strategic Marketing for the Media and Digital Practice of Kantar Millward Brown.
Once upon a time, the world was a much simpler place for marketers. Not that many years ago, a 30-second television commercial would more-or-less tell consumers exactly what they were going to buy the next morning. The brand would describe a problem and present the immediate solution that consumers would then rush to purchase. Looking back, it was almost like magic. But the age of a short, predictable consumer journey has come to an end.
The Internet has changed everything. Today, the consumer knows almost as much about the product and the brand as the company. They come to purchase prepared with an arsenal of facts and figures to ensure they are making the right decision.
Conquering the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT)
Google’s Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) Research found that consumers interact with an average of 10.4 items of content throughout their journey to buy. So the question becomes: How many of these pieces of content that will influence the consumer’s decision belong to you?
Brands that aren’t actively doing something to be a part of the online consumer journey and conversation are leaving an opening for their competitors. They also make themselves more vulnerable to the impact of bad reviews, or unflattering articles, that tarnish their brand’s story. The risk of not being a part of this path to purchase is significant. An ad campaign loses much of its effectiveness and becomes exceedingly more expensive if the first time a consumer sees it they have already made up their mind about the brand.
Meet the Consumer at The Right Time and Place
There are three opportunities to grab the consumer’s attention and engage them as part of their online journey.
Search – “I need something, I google it. Whoever answers my needs first wins.”
Social – “I’m on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat. I share, scroll, like. Whoever reaches my friends is also a friend of mine and gets my attention.”
Discovery – “I consume content that is interesting to me on leading premium publishers. Whatever interests me wins my attention.”
Adjusting to the Age of Discovery
The Age of Discovery is upon is. It is an age when everyone gets to choose what they want, when they want it. This is especially true with the younger generation: They aren’t willing to be bombarded with information. They want their content, but aren’t willing to get it in exchange for being interrupted. eMarketer research estimates that more than 25% of internet users this year will have used ad blockers. This figure represents more than 85 million people in the USA, and more than 400 million people worldwide. The age of aggressive advertisements is over. The future is in exploration-based marketing, also known as discovery.
Letting People Discover for Themselves
Understanding that potential customers will consume a number of content pieces before making their purchase decision, provides an opportunity to control as much of these content encounters as possible. Otherwise, a competing brand might do so, effectively control most of your (would-be) consumer’s journey.
What this means is that brands need to collect, organize and, in some cases, create a large assortment of content. This might take the form of customer reviews, a flattering video, funny short clips, an article in a leading content website, a reference in a well-regarded blog or news piece, or a blog post. And in order for more audiences to discover this content, brands need to consider multiple distribution channels — many of them paid.
The consumer’s conversation happens on many levels and a variety of content helps the consumer feel that they have adopted a balanced and objective opinion. The more control you can have over the content they consume, the closer you will come to influencing the consumer’s journey.
Choose Your Path Wisely
Once you’ve decided to prioritize discovery to attract new customers, it is just as important to determine where this discovery will take place. Social networks get a lot of traffic and are an easy platform to reach the masses, but when your content is up against a picture of a colleague’s adorable daughter or a friend’s awesome trip to Barcelona, you may find that you are at a disadvantage.
When people discover your content through a leading and trustworthy website, having already enjoyed or sought out another story, you immediately have the advantage of their attention. Our data suggests that the choices audiences make about what content to engage with is significantly impacted by what channel they are on.
Always Be On
Unlike advertisements, promoting content in this manner works in a way that it is “Always On” and effective throughout the whole year. Content discovery mode ensures that users meet your content at the moment when it is most appropriate for them. When consumers are exploring a leading content website, they are in a mind set to consume more comparable content. And this doesn’t just mean text-based articles, but a wide range of content such as videos, quizzes, and reviews.
Going on the Journey with Your Customers
In order to see the true impact of an investment in discovery, you must make a strategic decision for content to be a substantial part of the consumer journey. The consumer’s journey is constantly expanding—and within it, many decisions are made. All this happens long before the customer sees an advertisement. More opportunities to connect with your customer means more opportunities to for them to discover your brand. It’s time to control of the story and conversations that you truly want them to keep top of mind.
Sophie is the head of marketing APAC & EEMEA at Outbrain. She is a Global Brand Strategist, Co-Founder, and Entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience with a measurable track record of creating successful online and offline strategic branding concepts, product lines and events, each time finding the brand story that inspires action and create a strategy to meet ambitious new growth goals. She shares a passion for innovation, a curious mind, and expertise in defining business initiatives and plans, adapting to a changing business and technological landscape.
From the U.S. Election and Brexit to the summer Olympics; from terrorism to the deaths of David Bowie and Prince, 2016 was filled with stories that 2016 captured our attention. But everyone wants to know what type of content captures the most engagement.
It is heartening to see that it was quality journalism from well-established media outlets, not fake news, that people engaged with most. Chartbeat’s Most Engaging Stories of 2016 ranked the most captivating articles of the year from quality publishers as defined by Total Engaged Time — the total amount of time visitors spent actively engaged in content.
The Chartbeat Most Engaging Stories of 2016 were selected from over 46 million articles on over 50,000 global sites, and registered over 2.5 billion minutes of active engaged time.
From 538’s General Election predictor, which received more Engaged Time than the top five stories of 2015 combined, to personal narrative, longform and interactive, the top stories span categories and formats. More importantly, they teach us many lessons about how news is consumed and shared.
Interactive, data-rich storytelling is alive and well. It’s no surprise that the topic that garnered the most amount of Engaged Time during 2016 was politics, which had nine of the top ten stories. In many ways, this was also the Year of the Interactive. Election prediction pages, live results pages and interactive maps from the likes of 538, BBC, Fox News, CNN and the NY Times captivated our attention and drove billions of engagement minutes.
First person journalism resonates and gets shared. From major investigative pieces rooted in undercover work to the moving letter from a Stanford student to her assailant, first-hand accounts affecting personal and societal rights captured attention as well as empathy. (See “A sexual assault victim’s powerful message to her Stanford attacker,” a first-person narrative from The Washington Post). These powerful, personal narratives were strongly driven by social traffic, demonstrating that when we emotionally connect with a story, we’re more apt to share and discuss it with our network.
The context of premium publisher environments matter. The articles that made the list and came out on top, regardless of topic, were those that stayed true to a publisher’s voice and audience. According to our research, readers that came direct to a publisher’s site were the most loyal and engaged in terms of time spent. Those who came from social and search were less engaged. In other words: All impressions are not created equal.
Promoting articles is not just an art; it is a science.
It is not enough to just write compelling content anymore. Consumer reading behavior varies by device, time of day and referrer channel (i.e. social, search). It also demonstrates specific patterns based on content type (i.e. breaking news vs longform). For example, as we’ve seen in previous Chartbeat research, in times of breaking news like the election, consumers use search first to find what they are looking for, then after the event, they turn to social to interact and share.For publishers producing quality content, it is critical to understand these audience platform patterns across social and search and how best to promote your stories.
We expect consumer engagement around quality journalism to continue well into 2017.
Publishers didn’t shy away from covering the truth in 2016, and if the early stories of 2017 are any indication, we expect this to continue. In fact, readership so far in January (of politics in particular) is seeing extremely high pageview and concurrent levels, indicating that consumers value quality journalism more than ever.
Terri Walter, the Chief Marketing Officer of Chartbeat, works every day to ensure that publishers and newsrooms have the tools and insights they need for quality content to thrive. A digital marketing veteran of 20 years, Terri has worked over the course of her career to position high potential brands and spearhead thought leadership in media and analytics at companies including DoubleClick, Razorfish and Microsoft Advertising.
For many advertisers, programmatic native feels like the holy grail. It brings the transactional efficiency, audience targeting and scale of programmatic to in-feed native units that match the look and feel of a publisher’s content. Additionally, publishers benefit by simplifying native ad sales, with instant access to demand sources through programmatic exchanges. Programmatic native offers real benefits to both sides – buyers and sellers.
However, with so much promise, what does the market look like today?
To find out, we at MediaRadar, took an in-depth look at what programmatic native advertising spend looked like in 2016. For the report, we analyzed programmatic native adoption over the last 12 months, identifying the number of brands buying programmatic native ads through popular exchanges, like Nativo, TripleLift, Sharethrough, Unruly, and Bidtellect.
Here’s what we found.
More Than 4,000 Advertisers: Last year, almost 4,200 unique advertisers placed programmatic native campaigns across the native exchanges we analyzed.
Adoption Grew 86% by Year’s End: Programmatic native surged throughout the year. In fact, the total monthly brands buying campaigns increased by 86% – from 593 in January to 1,133, by November. In Q1 2016 an average of 726 brands placed campaigns each month and by Q4 2016 the per month average leapt to 1,094 brands. This is meaningful growth over just a 12-month period.
Still, Penetration Remains Low: In 2016, 50,605 advertisers placed online ads on just the top-200 largest publisher websites alone. As percent of that 50,605, fewer than 10% ran on native exchanges. This means that for all the significant growth last year, there is significant headroom for expansion in 2017.
Takeaways:
There has been a lot of attention given to sponsored editorial and programmatic native in the press in the past year. While the programmatic native market is still small, relative to the overall spend in the digital market, it is expanding and at an accelerated pace. Renewal rates and advertiser feedback are positive, mostly.
That’s not to say that challenges don’t exist (The Wall Street Journaltackled these issues recently), but we observe that the market continues to be a legitimately bright spot for publishers. We forecast a positive outlook for it in 2017.
Todd Krizelman (@ToddKrizelman ) is Co-Founder and CEO of MediaRadar (@MediaRadar). Growing up near the epicenter of technological innovation in Palo Alto, California encouraged him to become an entrepreneur and co-found of one of the world’s first social media sites, theGlobe.com. Krizelman also held leadership positions at Bertelsmann’s Gruner + Jahr and Random House. With his expertise in ad sales and innovation, Krizelman joined veteran web architect, Jesse Keller, to found MediaRadar in 2007.
It’s been a little over a year since the FTC published guidelines for native advertising. In just 12 months this has led to a significant shift in how native or sponsored content has been implemented. In our original analysis, MediaRadar discovered that in year 2015 75% of publishers hosted native campaigns without any mention of the content being advertising. With the FTC’s guidelines in place however, that number has dropped substantially. Over January we’ve re-run our analysis. Now just 5% of publishers fail to mark native content at all. This is a significant shift in accountability and transparency.
At the time the regulation was announced, some in the industry was concerned that such thorny legalese would dampen adoption of native advertising. But this has not been the case. At all. Here are some quick stats based upon our most recent analysis of native advertising:
We have found monthly increases in the number of brands placing native, in almost every month. There are 16,000 native advertisers buying ads in the past year, up 73% from 2015.
Programmatic native exchanges have become very good at amplifying native, placing 4,182 native advertisers in calendar year 2016. These are advertisers running on exchanges such as Triple Lift, Nativo, Bidtellect, and Giant Media.
There have been very few fines over publishers or advertisers violating the guidelines. The FTC set the new guidelines and the industry has reacted and internalized the feedback.
It is true that there are still examples of native content that is not complaint with FCT guidelines. Folio covered this as recently as last week. But in the big picture, with our country focused on fake news, there is more emphasis on premium content, and premium transparency, than ever before.
Todd Krizelman (@ToddKrizelman ) is Co-Founder and CEO of MediaRadar (@MediaRadar). Growing up near the epicenter of technological innovation in Palo Alto, California encouraged him to become an entrepreneur and co-found of one of the world’s first social media sites, theGlobe.com. Krizelman also held leadership positions at Bertelsmann’s Gruner + Jahr and Random House. With his expertise in ad sales and innovation, Krizelman joined veteran web architect, Jesse Keller, to found MediaRadar in 2007.
Content marketing continues to mature and is now used by over 85% of all marketers (B2B and B2C). But with that maturity comes the hard realization that reaching meaningful results—for example, a significant lift in site visitors, increase in conversions or in brand perception—requires continuous learning and improvement.
Source: Doug Kessler, Velocity Partners Ltd
It’s not a shiny magic tool that solves all business challenges. It’s a daily struggle that requires tremendous investment. CMI’s Joe Pulizzi has said “the industry is in the middle of “downhill slide (as part of the Gartner Hype Cycle) into a ‘trough of disillusionment.’”
By now, most brands have tried to create content. A couple of videos here, maybe a few blog posts there. For many of them, doing so didn’t really move the needle and inevitably, they have given up on their efforts.
But for the successful ones, their ability to stay on top has stemmed from an understanding that they need to address creative, cadence, and measurement in a very different way than previously.
To help prepare for what’s next, here are some of the main themes we’ll hear in 2017:
Chatbots are the new CRM Six months after Facebook launched chatbots for Messenger, there are already over 33,000 chatbots on the platform. Why are chatbots so exciting? Because they can offer brands the opportunity to interact with consumers in a direct and personalized way. Chatbots enable brands to create a one-on-one relationship. It’s like the future of CRM—a conversation rather than blast emails.
Bots can either be scripted or based on AI. Some serve a utility function (like ordering flowers or opening a support ticket) and some can provide answers using content.
In 2017, we’ll start to see many brands who will start to create sophisticated bots that engage with audiences using a combo of their social and support teams as well as their content to enable engagements at scale.
Video Storytelling Most online videos promoted online by brands are still repurposed TV commercials. In 2017, we’ll start to see the shift towards “made for web” videos, not as commercials but rather as stories, both long and short. When creative teams are not constrained to 15-30 seconds spots or how to create a pre-roll that isn’t skipped over after five seconds, they can really focus on storytelling and providing real entertainment or educational value.
Podcasts Just as season one of “Serial” changed the world of offline listening, transforming millions to into huge fans of podcasts, “the Message” by GE is a turning point in how marketers should think about leveraging the medium for content marketing. You can become a sponsor to podcasts, but that’s just another form of interruptive advertising like commercials on radio. Conversely, you could create your own podcast, and make it great. Ebay’s “Open For Business” collaboration with Gimlet Media (the company behind podcast hits like “Startup” and “Reply All”) is another great examples of how brands can evolve from interruptive push advertising to become real content marketers.
Bring Content Expertise In-House While it is important for all marketing endeavours, high-quality content is vital to connecting with Millennials. The challenge is how to keep the right balance between quality and quantity. Many brands are now realizing that the best way to create a scaled operation is to bring the expertise in house. Research by Curata shows that in 2017, 51% of companies will have an executive in their organization who is directly responsible for an overall content marketing strategy (e.g., Chief Content Officer, VP or Director of Content). These people are hiring content specialists (someone who may even be ex-journalists and editors) and having them produce great content that takes advantage of the in-house collective experience in the product and category while conforming to all corporate policies and regulations.
Content Analytics and Content Attribution With the evolution of creative skillset comes the realization that measuring content marketing success requires not only a different approach, but also different tools.
Google Analytics often falls short in providing a clear map of how each channel of promotion is driving engagement with the content and how an engagement with one piece of content at the top of the funnel influences a CRM registration at the bottom of it. Moreover, it is hard to use it to see how a blog view leads to a Facebook app download or a Google search and conversion.
That’s why more and more companies are turning to solutions like Trendemon or Chartbeat to better understand and optimize their true content attribution and engagement.
Mobile It is simply not good enough anymore to ensure that your content is responsive and looks okay in mobile. The whole experience with your brand needs to be evaluated from the perspective of mobile first. If you aren’t making sure of this already, then you are way behind. In 2017, the majority of engagement with your website will happen on a mobile device. How fast does your site load? How easy is it to navigate? How is the design optimized for a mobile vertical view and scroll mode? Do you have experiences especially made for mobile, like a one-click button to call your office, or a link to open Waze to navigate easily? Most brands websites are repurposed desktop experiences, and those will just not suffice.
VR/AR VR is still niche and not mass market. But don’t ignore the hype. It’s important to start thinking about how you can create content for that world, given the expectation that this tech will become mass market in 2018.
If 2016 was all about realizing how hard it is to break through the noise of content, 2017 will be about experimenting with new mediums, skillsets, and measurement techniques. With so-called disillusionment also comes breakthroughs and innovations. We hope to see more of that in the year ahead.
Gilad de Vries (@giladdevries)is the Senior Vice President of Strategy at Outbrain. Gilad brings more than 19 years of experience in the digital media and technology fields. Before joining Outbrain, Gilad was VP of Digital Media and Principal at Carmel Ventures, one of Israel’s top-tier venture capital firms, where he was highly engaged in Carmel’s investments in digital media, Internet and mobile startups. Before Carmel, Gilad was a Senior Director of Marketing and Product Management at Comverse Technology, a leading provider of value-added services for Telco Providers. Gilad holds a B.A. in economics and business management from Bar-Ilan University and a Global MBA cum laude from the IDC Herzelia. Gilad is also a first lieutenant (reserve) in the Israeli Army’s technology unit (Mamram).
The ad ecosystem continues to evolve at a breakneck pace. This velocity can be challenging for publishers who are trying to keep-up with the latest innovations. So, what will 2017 look like? What are the key developments publishers will face?
At MediaRadar, we spoke with our clients and pulled data from our platform to help make sense of it all. With that in mind, here are three critical trends publishers need to consider as we head into the New Year.
1. Native Renewal Rates Are Going Up, and Down With more than 1,000 sites selling native advertising, the market is maturing. But while native is ubiquitous, this does mean campaign performance is so equally widespread. We see and forecast renewal rates on native to polarize. Some publishers are much better implementing and measuring their impact. Strong performance will lift renewal rates for publishers who are consistently showing their advertisers results.
According to MediaRadar data, average renewal rates for 2016 were 33%, with 20% of advertisers at a less than 20% renewal. However, some publishers, like The Atlantic and QZ, have consistently strong performance that outstrips so many. The top native sellers win renewal rates between 60-80%.
2. Significant Programmatic Expansion in B2B Last year was the year of programmatic for national consumer publishers. But there was also substantial penetration in programmatic in B2B publishing. Per MediaRadar data, year-over-year, the number of B2B websites selling programmatic more than doubles, from 39% to 82%.
Today, programmatic has created a paradigm shift. Traditional B2B publishers now compete with companies like Demandbase, Madison Logic, LiveIntent and others who sell online ads targeted to B2B audiences. We predict that programmatic will continue to see dramatic growth in B2B with more sophisticated offerings including PMPs, tiered pricing, and fixed time periods to maintain inventory value. B2B publishers will master programmatic in 2017 and be able to sell inventory at a high rate due to super targeted, niche audiences.
3. Ad Blocking, A Diluted Threat Despite industry fears, ad blocking didn’t take off as expected, nor has it affected ad sales. Yes, many consumers do use ad blocking software. An IAB study found 26% of desktop users as having installed blockers. But we’re not seeing the decline in the number of ads served or total volume of ads purchased.
Ad blocking will continue be more hype (and threat) than it will actually create a ceiling on ad spend. Why? Publishers are making ads more palatable, they are speeding up pages (think Google AMP), and demand from marketers for digital solutions remains robust.
As publishers try to make sense of the year and finalize strategies for the first quarter, these are areas to plan around.
Todd Krizelman is Co-Founder and CEO of MediaRadar (@MediaRadar). Growing up near the epicenter of technological innovation in Palo Alto, California encouraged him to become an entrepreneur and co-found of one of the world’s first social media sites, theGlobe.com. Krizelman also held leadership positions at Bertelsmann’s Gruner + Jahr and Random House. With his expertise in ad sales and innovation, Krizelman joined veteran web architect, Jesse Keller, to found MediaRadar in 2007.
In this year’s Reuters Institute Digital News Project report, “Journalism, Media and Technology Predictions 2016,” Author Nic Newman said that this will be the year of audience engagement—with more than half of all respondents in his study acknowledging that improving audience engagement would be the highest of their priorities in 2016.
And true to this prediction, online media has seen a rise in the title of Audience Engagement Editor. Sites want to know how long readers have engaged with their articles. And above all else, the question remains how to harness this engagement and turn it into results: action, loyalty, monetization.
But what do we mean when we talk about audience engagement? And possibly more important: Do we all mean the same thing?
Digital publishers’ current approach to measuring engagement Parse.ly surveyed thousands of digital media professionals, asking them to share their definitions of “audience engagement.”
From the 130 plus responses, we learned a majority of digital publishers are measuring audience engagement. Nearly 77% of survey respondents considered the ways their organizations measure engagement to be average or better.
Perhaps one reason that digital publishers are so confident in how they are measuring audience engagement is that they have more access than ever to analytics that can help them to better understand their audience. While some publications have a clear sense of how to use this data to help meet their goals, other media outlets are struggling because they don’t have a universal sense of what goals they are trying to reach.
That’s one reason that there’s no common definition for “audience engagement” among publishers—or even within organizations. Over half of the survey respondents said that their organizations don’t have an agreed upon definition.
These two findings seem to be at odds. How can publishers be active and confident in their measurement methods but unsure of what exactly they’re measuring?
Do we need a common definition for audience engagement? One explanation could be that many publishers have access to analytics tools but aren’t necessarily setting a common goal for which metrics to measure.
The survey results showed that many publishers considered shares and engaged time to be the best representations of engagement. Rather than settling on one “golden” metric for defining audience engagement though, many publishers combined multiple metrics, such as “page views per visitor” or “shares plus comments.”
Furthermore, while only 28% of digital publishers considered “offline impact” a representation of engagement, many respondents (when asked to share anecdotes that represented particularly good examples of audience engagement) talked about audience engagement as a personal relationship or interaction with readers.
Take a look:
“Personal replies that make me smile or think.”
“A two-way relationship with the people in our community.”
“To interact in any way with the content or the author — write a comment, answer a poll, follow the author, share, etc.”
“When our audience responds with a question, especially.”
Getting on the Same Page About Audience Engagement A recent audience engagement webinar with panelists from Hearken, MediaShift, and Parse.ly touched on the importance of settling on a common definition within an organization, whether that definition involves one metric or many.
Parse.ly CEO Sachin Kamdar explained, “It’s probably important that you talk with everyone at your organization around how you want to define engagement. But tied into that…is you’ve got to be able to measure it, too.”
He continued, “So, picking the right metrics—and again, that might be a multitude of metrics that are important to you—can help you align your goals of engagement with how you can measure and that can lead towards success.”
Clare Vice President of Marketing at Parse.ly, which partners with digital publishers to provide clear audience insights through an intuitive analytics platform. She writes and speaks about all the ways companies can use digital analytics to improve their operations and reach their audience goals. Prior to joining Parse.ly, Clare spent five years on the publishing side as the Director of Marketing and Online Operations at Greentech Media. Previous to that, she did digital marketing and business development at ThePoint.com, the precursor to Groupon, and Venus Zine. Originally from Ohio, she graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in Environmental Sciences.
Here’s what we found.
Gilad de Vries (
From the 130 plus responses, we learned a majority of digital publishers are measuring audience engagement. Nearly 77% of survey respondents considered the ways their organizations measure engagement to be average or better.
That’s one reason that there’s no common definition for “audience engagement” among publishers—or even within organizations. Over half of the survey respondents said that their organizations don’t have an agreed upon definition.
The survey results showed that many publishers considered shares and engaged time to be the best representations of engagement. Rather than settling on one 
Clare Vice President of Marketing at