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What 2016’s most engaging content teaches us

February 14, 2017 Terri Walter, Chief Marketing Officer—Chartbeat

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.

Advertising | Industry-Research | Perspectives

Programmatic native: a nascent and growing category

February 8, 2017 Todd Krizelman, CEO – MediaRadar

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 Journal tackled 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.

Industry-Research

Is it good business for your native ads to comply with FTC guidelines?

January 18, 2017 DCN

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.

AI | Perspectives

Three key advertising trends for 2017

December 20, 2016 DCN

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.

Industry-Research | Perspectives

Everyone talks about audience engagement. But what does it really mean?

December 6, 2016 Clare Carr, Vice President of Marketing—Parse.ly

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.

Perspectives

Publishers can’t afford to chase the revenue dragon without keeping an eye out for real data danger

November 29, 2016 Matt O'Neill, General Manager, Europe – The Media Trust

In October, The Guardian’s Chief Revenue Officer revealed that numerous ad tech providers in the ad supply chain were extracting up to 70% of advertisers’ money without quantifying the value to the brand. Yes, this revenue loss situation is eye opening, but it’s not the only activity affecting publishers’ bottom line. Protecting data assets is critical for maintaining and maximizing revenue. Inability to control digital audience data within the supply chain is a catalyst for revenue loss. The looming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regulations, that take effect in May 2018, makes the case for data protection that much stronger.

Data: a Publisher’s lifeblood
Every digital publisher intrinsically knows that one of their most valuable assets is their audience data: It drives a publisher’s stickiness with lucrative advertisers, their inventory value, and ultimately their brand image.

Data leakage is the unauthorized transfer of information from one entity to another. In the digital ad ecosystem, data loss traditionally occurred when a brand or marketing agency collected publishers’ audience data and reused it without authorization. Today, this scenario is much more convoluted due to the volume of players in the digital advertising landscape, causing data loss to steadily permeate the entire digital ad industry.

Publishers lose when they can’t control their valuable consumer data:

Depleted market share
With your audience data in their hands, advertisers and ad tech providers can always go to other publications and target the exact audiences, thereby devaluing your brand.

Reduced ad pricing
When advertisers or ad tech providers can purchase your audience at a fraction of the cost it decreases the demand for your ads, thus devaluing your ad prices.
Exposure to regulatory penalties & risk mitigation
Collection and use of consumer data is a publisher’s prerogative, but protection of this data is a weighty responsibility. Inability to safeguard data gathered from your website leaves a publisher vulnerable to running afoul of government regulations. Saying the penalties under GDPR are severe is an understatement. The repercussion of noncompliance is losing up to 4% of your total global turnover or €20 million, whichever is greater.
Reputation loss
Ultimately, data loss and any news of noncompliance could negatively affect consumer trust and brand reputation.

The hands behind data loss
On average, The Media Trust detects at least 10 parties contributing to the execution or delivery of a single digital ad, and this is a conservative figure considering that frequently this number is as high as 30, and at times more than 100, depending on the size of the campaign, type of ad, and so forth. The contributing parties are typically DSPs, SSPs, Ad Exchanges, Trading Desks, DMPs, CDNs and other middlemen who actively participate in the delivery of the ad as it traverses from advertiser to publisher. Any upstream player, including the advertiser or original buyer, has access to a publisher’s proprietary audience data if not monitored for compliance.

The advertising ecosystem isn’t the only offender. The bulk of third-party vendor code that executes on the publisher’s website goes unmonitored, exposing the publisher to excessive and unauthorized data collection. In these cases, a publisher’s own website acts as a sieve leaking audience data into the digital ecosystem.

Ending the chase
Resolving revenue lost from data leakage isn’t an unsolvable conundrum, but one that can be addressed by applying the following:

Data Collection
Get smart about the tools used for assuring clean ads and content. Your solution provider for ad quality should check for ad security, quality, performance and help with data protection. Reducing excessive data collection is the first step in addressing data leakage.

Data Access
With GDPR, EU-US Privacy Shield, and many more such timely regulations, the onus is on the publisher to understand what data activity their upstream partners engage in via advertising. Instead of today’s rampant mistrust, the supply chain must move to accountability for non-compliant behavior.

Governance
Publishers absolutely need to start adopting and enforcing stricter terms and conditions around data collection and data use.

Ultimately, every publisher needs to monitor and govern third-party partners on their website to close loopholes that facilitate data leakage before pointing fingers at others.

Matt O’Neill currently works with The Media Trust as European General Manager. Since 1999, Matt has been working on the front line of digital advertising in an industry-facing capacity, consistently striving to generate industry consensus from senior leaders and drive innovation through collaboration. He is a frequent speaker, panelist, and chair at conferences including Digiday, IAB, dmexco, AOP (UK), Admangerforum, AdMonsters and corporate-operated events. He serves as an adviser and investor for advertising and marketing technology firms and an active partner at AtlanticLeap.

Perspectives

Trump and the Game of Thrones Effect: Why the election polls got it wrong

November 18, 2016 DCN

On election day morning, according to the majority of pollsters, Hillary Clinton seemed to have it in the bag. Nate Silver, predicted Clinton at a 71% win. A Clinton win was also forecast by 61 other national polls, including Fox, Reuters, Economist/YouGov, USA TODAY/Suffolk, and NBC News/SM. Indeed, as the votes started coming in on election night, you could feel the palpable shock among newscasters, as their precious data proved to come up so clearly wrong.

So, how did beloved data whiz Nate Silver and 61 other national polls mess up so “bigly”? Did the polls happen too late, before the impact of the additional Clinton email scandal hit? Did voter turnout have a play in it? Were samplings flawed? Or was it something else—something that perhaps speaks to deeper gaps in our understanding of human behavior and flaws in our overall approach to polling?

Public vs. Private Personas
One angle that is circulating is that many polled who said they were not going to vote for Trump were not telling the truth. Indeed, polling firm, Morning Consult reported that voters were more likely to say they want Trump in the White House anonymously online versus a live telephone interview. Meanwhile, Arie Kapetyn, director of the University of Southern California (USC) Dornsife Center of Economic and Social Research, whose organization jointly runs The Los Angeles Times/University of Southern California tracking poll (one of the few polls that did predict Trump as the winner) told reporters, “There’s some suggestion that Clinton supporters are more likely to say they’re a Clinton supporter than Trump supporters are to say they’re a Trump supporter.”

This theory that there was a discrepancy between what Trump supporters shared publicly versus what they did privately, is also supported by our Outbrain study authored by Roy Sassons, Outbrain’s Chief Data Technologist and Ram Meshulam, Outbrain’s Organic Recommendations Team Lead. The study revealed a significant gap exists between what we read privately and what we share publicly with friends.

Outbrain’s Research
Sassons and Meshulam’s research was comprised of two billion views on several hundred thousand articles from the world’s largest content and news websites. These views were then observed over three time periods between 2015 and 2016. Online content was split into categories using a natural language algorithm and was rated according to the ratio between the number of readers that read an article about a certain topic, and the number of readers that shared the article on Facebook.

What this data ultimately revealed is that categories that received many views and few shares did not reflect well on the personality of those who consumed them. In fact, most of them could be considered superficial, sexual or blunt.

On the other hand, categories that received many shares and little views were much more flattering. They tended to be more deep and intellectual.

And Outbrain’s data also revealed that this wasn’t isolated to a certain country or region—it was a global pattern. (Which might also explain why polls were so wrong regarding the controversial Brexit vote in the United Kingdom.)

Take, for example, specific content like “Game of Thrones.” When Sassons and Meshulam did a deeper dive on this content, they found that articles that were shared the most on Facebook focused on profound analysis and storyline prediction. Additionally, articles with a feminist spin that were focused on strong female characters, were also extensively shared.

Meanwhile, while the articles people read the most were focused on the show’s violent and sexual scenes, they rarely shared these stories on Facebook feeds.

The Silent Majority
Call it what you will: the “Game of Thrones Effect,” the “Trump Effect,” The “Brexit Effect,” what it adds up to is all the same. When it comes down to it, what we tend to share and present to the world is ultimately very different than who we are privately. This is something that the majority of election polls seemed to neglect in their analysis.

Further, if you couple this with our current social network-dominated society, in which the ordinary reader has tremendous power, sometimes equivalent to that of a magazine editor, you can also see why so many in the media world—Nate Silver, the pollsters, the bewildered newscasters reading the results on TV—may have felt like the rug was pulled out from under them.

In the age of social media, we decide what content we see based on our surroundings. The people connected to us in our network are exposed to the content we share and that, in turn, dictates what is exposed to others in their network. Since that decision is not always made based on the level of interest we really have in that specific content, the current “world map of interests” that everyone sees becomes distorted. This, in turn, eventually feeds the algorithms that recommend more content to us.

A recommendation system, be it human or automatic, must take this under consideration. It should find creative ways to fix these biases, or balance these representations with rich data from a source that reflects reader’s true preferences. Otherwise, expect more polling misses ahead.

Jennifer Bassett (@Jabers) is Outbrain’s Managing Editor. She has 10+ years of experience in the content strategy and editorial space. She began her career as a book editor and has consulted for top agencies, non-profits, and media companies including Memorial Sloan Kettering, Havas Worldwide New York, and Interbrand. When she’s not talking content, she’s playing music with her bands The Missing Footage and The Living Kills. You can read more of her writing at Outbrain.com and jennifer-bassett.com.

Industry-Research | Perspectives

Six things we now know about native advertising

November 2, 2016 DCN

It has been a few years that native advertising is being actively placed in the market. With the year-end approaching, it’s a good time to take stock of what we now know. At MediaRadar, we’re now not just tracking native ads, but also studying how native is bought & sold, and are coming to a view of what is best practice. Posted below are some of our key findings.

Native, a saturated market? Surprisingly the market is not yet saturated. Over Year 2016 we’ve tracked a median of 610 new advertisers buying native, for the first time ever. This is substantial. And we’re finding native ads across b2b, enthusiast, regional, and science media. Native is no longer for certain large consumer sites.

Renewal rates. To provide an average here would be misleading. In fact what we see is polarized renewal rates. Out of the ~1000 websites that sell native, most have low renewal rates, under 30%. This is going to make scaling up native advertising a significant challenge. In contrast, there are a few dozen firms that are very focused on client success. They enjoy renewal rates above 70%. This includes some of the best performers, including brands like Quartz (QZ.com).

Campaign packaging. We observe that it’s exceedingly rare to see native advertising running stand-alone. It’s much more common that native advertising runs as part of a broader campaign. The most common campaign is to run display for 30 days, then 30 days of both native and display, and then a final month of display.

Duration analysis. Across 16,998 brands that have placed native over the past 2 years, the most common is one month only. It’s surprisingly brief. Just under 20% of brands are running campaigns for six months.

Programmatic vs. Direct. In the past two years we’ve seen the rise of programmatic native – both display and in video. Without question, the product is marketing different than direct native. Programmatic native is display advertising that looks-and-feels like editorial. However, these ads don’t typically link to sponsored editorial. In contrast, direct native does. This is the kind of programming that Buzzfeed, Forbes, and Huffington Post are especially so well known for. Posted below is an overview of the massive growth we’re seeing from some of the leading programmatic native companies. This includes name native exchanges such as Nativo, TripleLift, Sharethrough, Bidtellect, Teads, Unruly, and Giant Media.

Recommendation. Native advertising renewal rates correlate tightly with campaign duration. Those winning six-month deals have the highest average renewal rates, with the lowest renewal rate variance. In surveying those most successful publishers we heard consistent feedback: Require clients to commit to longer term deals. This gives you, the publisher, more time to course-correct, to respond to client needs, adjust creative, adjust marketing support, to absolutely make sure that you’re helping the client meet their campaign objectives. This, more than anything, drives up renewal rates.

Number of programmatic advertisers placing in the year 2016

Advertising | Industry-Research

Programmatic versus publisher-direct online ad buying: What do the data say?

October 25, 2016 DCN

Anyone who’s been buying digital advertising for more than a minute has been faced with the daunting question from marketing and non-marketing executives alike: “So, how much of this advertising is actually legit, anyhow?”

The industry has been hounded by issues relating to viewability, engagement, and outright fraud for the past couple of years, and the general business press regularly covers the subject matter. So the very same executives who authorized TV, print and radio advertising budgets without raising question one only a few years ago – when the “half of my marketing budget is well-spent, but I’m not sure which half” maxim was fully embraced – now regularly engage in forensic assessments of ad buys. Such is the life of the digital marketer.

So it is helpful that companies like Integral Ad Science (though not an entirely objective player in the digital marketing ecosystem) working to keep track of developments via its bi-annual Media Quality Reports.

However, depending on one’s point-of-view, the data can be considered a sign of improving conditions, or confirmation that we marketers knowingly *throw away* 10% or more of our budgets to fraud, deception, and advertising malpractice.

Here’s a look at IAS’s most recent report, which offers an analysis of “hundreds of billions” online display and video ad impressions during the first half of this year:

Conditions Are Improving. Though there continues to be a good deal of waste in the system, the overall state of online advertising is showing signs of improvement. For example, the U.S. market saw a significant drop in “objectionable content” impressions during the first half of 2016 versus the previous period (9.5% versus 14.0%). Most industry experts agree this is due to more sophisticated tools and digital ad buying practices, as one would expect in a growing and evolving industry sector.

Buying Direct Has Its Benefits. The incidence of ad fraud when buying advertising direct from publishers is dramatically lower than when buying programmatically (2.2% versus 8.3% in the U.S.), though it’s also typically more expensive, making the equation palatable for most marketers.

Viewability & Clutter Are Continuing Concerns. Fewer than half of all display ads – regardless of how purchased – get viewed for more than five seconds, and more than 10% of ad impressions are jammed onto pages with more than four ads on the page. These issues are compounded via mobile devices, which we cited in a recent article on the pros and cons of programmatic as “just a messy consumer experience”.

Bigger & Vertical Are Better. Large format, vertically-oriented display ad formats (300×600, 300×1050, 160×600) all tend to have better viewability than their smaller, rectangular and square counterparts – being viewed for more than five seconds about half the time.

Global Video Ads Are Best Purchased Direct. Viewability of video via programmatic means are only viewable at a 3-in-10 ratio, versus nearly 7-in-10 via publisher direct. This metric constitutes the biggest relative weakness of programmatic in the study.

While IAS’s analysis of the first half of 2016 has many encouraging findings, it’s also clear that the programmatic marketing industry has plenty of opportunities for improvements in the coming months and years.

Tim Bourgeois (@ChiefDigOfficer) is a partner at East Coast Catalyst, a Boston-based digital consulting company specializing in strategic roadmaps, digital marketing audits, and online marketing optimization programs.

Perspectives

Facebook did the digital publishing industry a favor

October 10, 2016 DCN

For more than a decade, desktop pre-roll video has been the one safe ad format for publishers facing a market full of ad products with declining CPMs. TV-based digital properties have prospered while those lacking video content have struggled to participate in this lucrative market. With the shift to mobile, however, the game is changing for everyone – but in a positive way for once.

While Facebook is seldom viewed as a solution to publishers’ revenue woes, it has done the digital publishing industry a big favor with its video ad products. Rather than adopt the pre-roll ad model, Facebook adopted an inline video product optimized for mobile and convinced advertisers it is as valuable as pre-roll.

For years, in-banner video on desktop was considered inferior to pre-roll largely because the video ads were disassociated from video content. Using its market leadership, Facebook was able to decouple video ads from video content while overcoming the perception that inline video ads were worth less than pre-roll. If a user watches a video ad, does it matter what they watch or read next? The enormous success of Facebook video has proven it doesn’t.

For digital publishers, with or without video content, this shift in ad buyer perception has created a massive opportunity to participate in video ad market. A number of ad tech companies and publishers themselves have responded with new video ad formats that run independent of video content and are optimized for mobile – outstream.

Outstream video advertising is defined by the IAB as anything that takes place outside of in-stream video content, which includes native video, in-feed video, in-article/read video, in-banner video, and interstitial video. Outstream solves for pre-roll’s shortcomings on mobile by providing a better user experience-a thumb-friendly, mobile-first ad format-while opening up premium video inventory.

Rather than running in fixed ad positions on story pages, some outstream ads appear dynamically within the page body, causing the content to split above and below the ad. While the page separation may be a little annoying for some users, frequency controls can regulate the how many ads appear on a page or are served to the same user. When no ad is served, there is no ad position on the page, providing a superior user experience and eliminating low quality, low priced remnant ads.

The outstream market is established enough to provide publishers with the confidence to adopt the format, but still new enough to command a premium. Last month, Mixpo surveyed 68 advertisers and agencies and found that 27% of advertisers and agencies currently buy outstream ads, with another 18% planning on buying next year, with premium inventory being cited as the top benefit the format provides. While adoption isn’t yet widespread, 71% of advertisers and agencies see the adoption of outstream video ads increasing in the next year. Digital ad spend is projected to surpass TV this year, but with the continued hunger for video and a new crop of video ad formats popping up, we can expect to see the shift from TV ad spend to digital faster than expected, into formats outside of pre-roll.

Mobile users on tight data budgets have driven the rise of ad blockers to avoid the literal cost of watching a pre-roll video ad. Recent stats from eMarketer show that 30% of ad blocker use is specifically to block pre-roll video ads. Outstream helps publishers improve the video ad experience by enabling users to simply scroll past the ad, with the video stopping when the ad passes from view. Importantly, the outstream ad is not forced in front of the content, but stats can be collected to show advertisers how many users watched the entire ad.

While pre-roll’s position is safe, outstream will provide the inventory to absorb the unmet demand for video advertising. The two will soon rival for the most valued video ad format on the web.

Charlie (@ctillinghast) is a strategic and resonant leader with over 30 years of industry and management experience at start-ups, large corporations, and joint ventures. Prior to becoming Mixpo’s President and CEO, Charlie served on the Mixpo Board of Directors for two years. Charlie held management positions at MSNBC Interactive News (msnbc.com), the last eight as President and CEO of the former joint venture between Microsoft and NBC News.

Advertising | Perspectives

Seeing the data for the trees: Overarching themes from Advertising Week

October 4, 2016 DCN

Pictured: (from left to right) Simon Whitcombe, Group Director, Global Marketing Solutions, Facebook | Jen McIsaac, VP, Retail Partnerships, Oracle Data Cloud | Paul Jankauskas, General Manager and Chief Revenue Officer, Verifone Media | Christopher Heine, Technology Editor, Adweek

I won’t lie: My positive experience at Advertising Week wasn’t that different from previous years. But, when you consider the magnitude and impact of an event such as this, that’s really no small feat.

Whether it’s brushing shoulders with some of the greatest minds in the industry, or gaining a pulse for significant topics—be they bubbling under the surface and overflowing within every category in the marketplace—there’s value to be lifted from the experience. Advertising Week is ultimately the place where crucial conversations take place in real-time about the real challenges we’re presented with at this particular moment in digital.

Nothing could be more advantageous.

The live performances weren’t anything to scoff at either, with musical acts from the likes of De La Soul, Common, The Roots, and Sting. Entertainment and networking aside, my focus was getting to the bottom of the massive data explosion in the industry and better understanding its grip on media companies, agencies, publishers, and marketers alike.

Getting on the Right Side of the Data Track
At Outbrain, a growing number of our internal marketing initiatives are being driven by data-supported research. And as a recommendation network that is powered by its own sophisticated algorithms, it has always been important for us to communicate the value of that data on both the brand side and media company side.

While more data is a huge opportunity, it is not without its complexities and challenges. This past week, our own struggles with data were echoed by leaders in the industry and solidified into some key themes:

1. Solving for Too Much Data Involves a Simplified Approach

With this new level of granularity, data is changing the conventions of how many brands have been built up until today. More importantly, it has raised a glaring issue, which was shared across panelists who have represented and worked alongside many legacy brands, including Jon Suarez-Davis, Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer at Krux Digital:

“We’ve put together dumb pipes. And It’s not about putting in smarter dumb pipes, it’s about changing the system entirely.”

First, there needs to be a much deeper understanding of how the data has changed. Second, while data is now far more actionable than ever before, we can’t lose sight of how it drives business. This means applying clear objectives.

That’s because data can mean a lot of different things. From a user ID, to post campaign analysis, or, in our case, the consumption patterns of how audiences are interacting with our content across publisher sites.

The trick, according to Julie Fleischer, Managing Director of OMD, is simplicity and focus:

“The key is keeping an eye on what I’m trying to understand, what the best measurement approach available is, and what that mean in terms of whether it’s a complete or partial view. We need to stop looking at data as an answer, but more as an input to what we do. If we challenge where the flaws in measurement are, we can get to a better understanding of how to fill those gaps.”

.@jfly and @charliechappell on using data to drive brand decisions and what to be more mindful of | #AWNewYork #TestAndLearn pic.twitter.com/RN7dHdvaNy

— Outbrain (@Outbrain) September 28, 2016

When it comes to the data explosion, the challenge—and goal—is to find the metrics which are most indicative of wins and learn to measure what matters.

2. We Need to Put Data in the Hands of the Right People

A multitude of data types means a multitude of applications and outputs for data. And with that, a variety of potential business objectives that impact a variety of different stakeholders—whether it is informing product decisions, leading creative decisions, or driving better customer journey’s within the context of the content funnel.

Yet, currently, organizations struggle with interpreting and communicating all the data they now have at their disposal. Many are noticing a major talent gap when it comes to making their data actionable, due to poor cross-department translation and communication.

Charlie Chappell, Head of Media and Advertising at The Hershey Company, declared, “We need to get much more comfortable with much more data. We have to make that transition.”

Global Director of Business, Jeffrey Rossi shared similar sentiments about how data is used at Spotify, stating, “It’s not about just using data. It’s about living data. For us, the data goes into driving a product, we can market ourselves with data, and have conversations with data. It can’t be some jenky add on.”

So, while the digital advertising ecosystem is currently built to solve individual problems, we all need a much deeper understanding of the big picture to change the entire infrastructure of what we do. That means teaching up current talent and scouting the right new hires.

The only way to do it is to learn it.

3. Targeting for the Entire Dartboard and not Just the Bullseye

It’s easy to get swept up in the promise of reaching the right consumer on the right platform at the right time with the right message through data-enabled microtargeting but these insights don’t always live up to the hype. A real problem has been an over-reliance on these targeting capabilities as we try to lead with precision first. At the end of the day, though, context still matters.

In fact, that’s a large part of why Outbrain has been working with brands to better sequence the experience consumers have with their content. Overall, as an industry, we need to be thinking more holistically. Rather than just considering how we’re going to reach consumers, we need to invest in understanding all of the different touch points within the customer journey and create value for consumers at every point.

The impact of sequencing content for the customer journey with Outbrain, told by @EricHad during #AWNewYork‘s session on content & commerce. pic.twitter.com/z9ftC5dl6V

— Outbrain (@Outbrain) September 29, 2016

In the words of Tamara Alesi, Managing Partner and Integrated Planning Strategy at Mediacom, “You don’t always have to use the data on the front end, but to get smarter on the back end. That’s where you see your ROI.”

Looking Forward
As marketers and brands we sometimes get lost in our own worlds and forget about how our data impacts the customer experience. In order for us to not completely silo ourselves or our data; events like Advertising Week help center our work.

This week and fresh into Q4, we can all take these learnings and focus on innovation as well as better empowering the audiences we cater to online. In the quarter ahead, we will need to discipline ourselves when it comes to our data—focusing on how we want to use it and how it impacts our customers. Otherwise, all our data and tech is ultimately useless.

Eric Hadley (@erichad) serves as Head of Global Marketing at Outbrain (@outbrain). He joined Outbrain in 2015, and is responsible for the company’s global go-to market strategy and for driving strategic value and large scale opportunities with its premium brand and agency partners. Hadley has over 20 years of experience in marketing leadership positions in consumer, media and technology companies. Previously, he served as Head of Partner Marketing at Pinterest leading the social network’s agency outreach organization. Prior to his work for Pinterest, he held roles at Yahoo, The Weather Channel, and Microsoft. While at Microsoft, he was involved in the launch of its search engine, Bing.