Over the last few years, publishers and digital marketers have been preparing their data capabilities to withstand third-party cookie deprecation and heightened privacy regulations. Data scarcity is the challenge. And the clear solution is data sharing between trusted business partners who stand to benefit mutually.
No wonder we’ve seen a variety of data clean room options emerge as a means for publishers and advertisers to share and match audiences. But now, the industry is taking a much-needed step forward. Data collaboration platforms have emerged as essential tools for marketers’ new customer acquisition efforts. And publisher data is what makes successful collaboration possible.
The deep data insights that marketers can gain from publishers is of heightened value right now. This puts publishers in the driver’s seat, giving them leverage in the ad buy and positioning them as essential partners to marketers. Deepening these partnerships allows publishers to win commitments and preferential deals from marketers.
For any media executives that are wary about sharing their data, it’s time to take a closer look at the controls that are possible today. Publishers can safely and privately permission parts of their audience, pseudonymously, for purposes of learning, analysis, modeling, and segmentation.
Contrary to one lingering misunderstanding in the industry, clean rooms are built for more than authentication alone. They are, in fact, useful to media companies even if they don’t have a great amount of emails to use as matching identifiers. Data collaboration allows businesses to unify and analyze data from any internal sources – breaking down old data silos – along with data from external partners.
Even if publishers don’t have a lot of data on email, they can still benefit from this technology. In fact, this data can include subscribers who log-in, as well as data from content consumers who don’t need to authenticate for access. All of this can considerably grow the amount of data available for analysis and activation, a more comprehensive solution than most traditional clean rooms alone. It can also be a more direct and less resource-heavy arrangement than what some data clean rooms offer.
The value in a fuller picture of the buyer’s path
Of course, as with a clean room, a data collaboration platform is only as effective and valuable as the data that goes into it. And the overwhelming share of brand marketers will find that because they have limited touchpoints with consumers, they have a limited view of the buyer’s journey. CPGs, for example, are big digital spenders whose overall ROI is threatened by their shortage of direct interactions with consumers.
And for any industry vertical, the longer the path to purchase, the larger the marketer’s data blind spots. It’s easy to imagine the implications for industries like automotive, real estate, or travel and hospitality: The consumer will spend a great deal of time researching their purchases, but the brand doesn’t own the data from the overwhelming bulk of sites and apps where that engagement happens. Publishers do.
Therefore, publishers play an absolutely crucial role in data collaboration. They have the leverage in this scenario to drive greater value from the data that they own and marketers need. When marketers are able to analyze their consumers’ browsing patterns across platforms and devices, they can develop a deeper understanding of consumer behavior and preferences, which can make targeting and personalization more relevant and effective.
Newfound scale brings newfound ad revenue opportunities
To envision how data collaboration works, consider how a brand might start with data from their qualified leads – logged-in or deeply engaged users on their own sites and apps – and combine it with a publisher’s data. Keep in mind that many data collaboration platforms rely on an identifier, such as a hashed email, for matching purposes. But this will limit a business’s statistically significant data set to be analyzed. It’s important to open the field to a larger data set – which will entail finding the options that work beyond email identifiers to enable a greater audience overlap.
Patterns in content consumption unlock consumer interest insights that might not have otherwise been obvious or intuitive to marketers. For a real estate company, for example, the marketer won’t be able to overhear in-person conversations between prospective homebuyers and realtors. But content consumption habits can help suggest what a buyer’s longer-term concerns might be – interest in colleges, financial planning, and products for children of specific age groups. Content consumption insights can also provide a wealth of information that enables targeting and personalization on pages that are relevant to the individual consumer, but not directly related to the brand’s own vertical.
Without data from publishers, marketers simply wouldn’t be able to fill out the consumer’s profile this way and reach them in a wider variety of relevant settings. Media companies are now empowered to present a bespoke data package to a preferred advertiser partner, full of uniquely valuable insights and recommendations. And the monetization benefits go beyond attracting new advertisers and drawing existing advertisers closer. There’s also an opportunity for publishers to increase CPMs overall, in tandem with the increase of their data’s value to advertisers.
Becoming an advertisers’ essential partner
Throughout the industry’s process of reshaping how data is used, most businesses have found that first-party data tied to email identifiers, taken on their own, simply aren’t sufficient. Publishers’ data leverage in the ad marketplace becomes even greater with data collaboration platforms. In exchange, publishers can deepen relationships with their preferred advertisers, position themselves to bring new partnership ideas to the table, and win newfound ad spend from brands in verticals and markets they may not have even considered before.
Through data collaboration, media companies can grant advertisers the ability to discover, reach, engage, and retain their best consumers efficiently. They are able to effectively save advertisers from wasted spend, irrelevant targeting, and reliance on multiple point solutions. That’s a very valuable proposition in today’s data landscape, where consumer attention is fleeting. Publishers need to take advantage of powerful data collaboration solutions to cement their place in marketers’ budgets and in the media marketplace well into the future.
About the author
Dave Chokshi is Director of Client Services at Lotame, responsible for managing enterprise publisher accounts in the North America region. Dave brings nearly a decade of industry experience to his client services role, having worked at Comscore and PGR Media.
Top editorial positions within news organizations are crucial in informing and shaping public discourse and understanding. The composition of these positions influences the narratives presented to the public and reflects the industry’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion—and to representing the diverse audience the news media serves.
That said, editorial roles are still largely filled by men. According to Reuters Institute’s Women and Leadership in the News Media 2024, only 24% of the 174 top editors across the 240 brands covered in the report are women, despite the fact that, on average, 40% of journalists in the 12 markets are women.
In its fifth annual report, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism’s Women and Leadership in the News Media 2024 highlights the representation of women in leadership roles within the journalism industry and offers insights into the ongoing disparities that persist. The research finds that, though there has been improvement, it is taking place at a glacial pace.
Under-representation of female editors
Reuters delves into the nuanced dynamics among 240 major online and offline news outlets in 12 diverse markets. The 12 markets include Kenya and South Africa; Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea in Asia; Finland, Germany, Spain, and the UK in Europe; Mexico and the US in North America; and Brazil in South America. The research examines cultural norms, institutional practices, and societal attitudes toward gender roles in each market.
This year’s study shows that although women constitute a significant proportion of journalists in many markets, their representation in top editorial positions remains disproportionately low. The subtle relationship between the percentage of female journalists and their representation in top editorial roles is evident. The research highlights the complex factors influencing career advancement in journalism and the broader news media landscape. Further, it indicates that external societal factors are not the primary impetus for this phenomenon. Rather, they are intrinsic to the profession and industry.
The report’s authors note the periodic industry focus on diversity and gender equity in the news media. Certainly, this is important as it drives change. However, they caution that the current interest in addressing the lack of diversity may be ebbing away.
These observations underscore the complex interplay of factors shaping the composition of top editorial roles. They suggest that addressing the issue requires a multifaceted approach that includes internal practices and industry culture. This recognition is crucial for fostering a more inclusive and representative media landscape that resonates with diverse audiences and rebuilds trust in journalistic institutions.
News media forecast for gender equity
This report emphasizes that while there’s been some progress over the years, the pace of change is very slow. For instance, Reuter’s analysis covering five years from 2020 to 2024 shows a marginal increase from 23% to 25% in the proportion of women among top editors. However, projections cautiously suggest that achieving gender parity in these positions could be an achievable, if a distant, goal. A linear projection based on the observed two-percentage-point change over four years indicates potential gender parity by 2074. Alternatively, conducting an average analysis across five years and 10 markets suggests that achieving gender parity among top editors may never occur at the current rate of change.
Further, the change varies within our sample. In six countries, the percentage of women in top editorial positions increased compared to 2020. Conversely, Mexico (6%) and Japan (0%) remained unchanged, while Germany (from 27% to 25%) and South Africa (from 47% to 29%) decreased.
As the research continues to track developments in gender diversity among top editors globally, it underscores the need for proactive measures to address systemic inequalities. The journalism industry must strive toward a more representative and responsive media landscape by prioritizing a culture of empowerment and support for women in leadership.
We recently hosted a discussion with a panel of industry experts from some of the UK’s biggest publishers. Panellists included Karen Eccles, Chief Commercial Officer at The Telegraph; Nick Flood, Global Ad Product & Revenue Operations Director at Future; Katie Le Ruez, Director of Digital at The Guardian; and Matthew Rance, Head of Commercial Data & Analytics at Immediate Media. Here’s what they have to say about building first-party strategies and direct relationships with advertisers to grow revenue.
Direct relationships
As we (finally) wave goodbye to third-party cookies, publishers are perfectly positioned to provide brands and agencies with the data, insights, and audience addressability they’re looking for through more direct relationships. In fact, they’ve been ready to offer that to advertisers for a very long time, according to Eccles.
“All the publishers on the panel have been putting in place the technology, the products, and the story, for this year for a really long time, and it’s finally here,” he said. “My worry is revenue moving to walled gardens. But my hope – and we’re seeing it borne out in our revenue and the conversations that we’re having – is that there are more conversations between publishers and agencies, but also with clients. At the moment, 75% of our digital ad revenue is transacted as direct-sold or PG,” explained Eccles.
“We can work with clients to help them answer questions that they might have about ‘why isn’t this particular product landing? How do I connect to the target audience? Can I test creative to understand what really resonates?’”
Data-powered
Even while the world still has Chrome’s third-party cookies, exploring these direct partnerships could be very beneficial for advertisers, because only 30% of the open web is currently addressable (even with them still around). Half of consumers already use browsers where third-party tracking is blocked, and 40% of people using Chrome have disabled tracking.
That’s one of the reasons why Immediate Media was an early mover with its data proposition, which focuses on telling a story with its data and presenting this to clients, according to Rance. “Something we’ve found as the most important thing is the story that we tell with our data. It’s so important,” said Rance.
“We launched our data proposition back in 2018, which was, all things considered, fairly early… at the time, it was really interesting and innovative tech, because there were all of these buzzwords that we were mentioning that no one had heard about like cookieless and on-device.
“What we found over time is that it was really interesting to clients and certainly helped get a foot in the door. But it wasn’t the most important thing. The most important thing was the story we articulated with our data.”
But, for any publisher to form an effective data strategy, they need to be willing to put the money into making that a reality.
“It requires investment in the data infrastructure and resources,” said Le Ruez. “At The Guardian, increasingly, we’ve been investing in digital experts, audience experts, data analysts, working very closely with our products. We’re trying to ensure that connection between sales and expertise is really considered and always-on.”
Part of that also means being “more proactive” with advertisers and internally, Le Ruez continued. “So, making sure that we understand not just advertising data, but also the data that other departments within The Guardian have. We try to identify opportunities from sign-ups or review ratings, etc., to get a better holistic view of everything. And then, from there, work out what has value for advertising purposes. It’s an enormous job, but it’s something that we’re really excited about.”
Driving better conversations
While the changing ecosystem, and recognition of the importance of first-party data, are helping to drive more direct conversations between publishers and advertisers, it’s also having a significant impact on how “grown-up” those conversations are, as Flood sees it.
“Two years ago, you would never get a question from an agency about what the audience’s make-up was. Now, especially in the US, I’d say 50% of responses that have some data element, you will get follow-up questions. What’s the source? How have you made a cohort? Are you using third-party? Is it a seed? All those questions,” said Flood.
“I think agencies have increased their knowledge in this sphere, which is good because you can have bigger, more grown-up conversations about better relationships and partnerships.”
These conversations are being driven by agencies now being “held a lot more accountable to their clients,” and understanding that there is more to marketing than just the viewability or clicks numbers. Nonetheless, while those conversations are now more knowledgeable, there is still room for them to start happening much earlier in the process, Flood concluded.
A pivotal role for publishers
Our recent panel discussion shed light on publishers’ pivotal role in shaping the future of digital advertising through data, especially given the open marketplace’s addressability challenges and the decline of third-party data.
The insights shared by Karen Eccles, Nick Flood, Katie Le Ruez, and Matthew Rance underscore the preparedness of publishers to harness first-party strategies and establish direct relationships with advertisers but also highlight the growing accountability of agencies to their clients.
As the industry adapts, publishers remain poised to deliver valuable data, insights, and audience addressability through direct and meaningful collaborations.
n the rapidly evolving digital landscape, content producers constantly seek new ways to engage with audiences and promote their brands. That’s especially important right now as traffic continues to fall from sites such as Facebook and Twitter/X.
One weapon in their arsenal with some powerful potential is LinkedIn, a site that may offer a higher likelihood of referrals and engagement than some publishers have historically considered.
Three reasons why media companies shouldn’t overlook LinkedIn
1. LinkedIn has a bigger user base than you might realize
2. LinkedIn users tend to be millennials and professionals
LinkedIn is typically described as a social network for business professionals. As a result, it doesn’t yet attract much of Gen Z, but it is a site they transition to as they enter the workforce. Worldwide, 60% of users are in the advertiser-friendly 25-34 age bracket.
In the USA, a 2023 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 40% of 30-49-year-olds had used the site. That’s on a par with Pinterest (40%), TikTok (39%) and WhatsApp (38%) and some way ahead of Twitter/X (27%) and Snapchat (30%), platforms many publishers continue to invest considerable energies in.
3. Around 1 in 5 American users harness LinkedIn for news
Further data from Pew finds that 17% of U.S. adults using LinkedIn regularly get their news on the platform. Interestingly, in contrast to other social networks, LinkedIn has the greatest gender parity among news consumers.
Its news audience is not huge, c.5% of U.S. adults. However, this is on par with Snapchat (4% of the total adult population) and WhatsApp (3%).
The site also offers a more educated demographic, 60% of regular news consumers on LinkedIn have a college degree, and just over half (53%) of their users enjoy a household income over $100k per annum. For many media companies, these are appealing demographics.
Five fresh ways media companies can use LinkedIn
Many media companies will already be using some of the most obvious functions on LinkedIn. This includes posting job ads, sharing company news and creating business landing pages.
Those functions will continue to be useful. However, they only scratch the surface of some of the wider potential the site potentially affords publishers and creators.
Tactics for publishers to try on LinkedIn:
1. Publish newsletters
“In the past year, LinkedIn has seen a 150% increase in the number of newsletters being published by publishers and journalists on the platform,” Axios reports.
These newsletters might be native to LinkedIn, offer a remix of content produced elsewhere, or simply be republished on the platform. Audiences can read them on the site, or have them emailed to them. Either way, they can potentially reach large, professional, audiences. Users have more than 450 million newsletter subscriptions on the platform. That’s up 3x year-on-year.
The Wall Street Journal’s Careers & Leadership newsletter, for example, has nearly 3 million subscribers and over 100 editions on LinkedIn. With the WSJ’s company page enjoying 9.7 million followers, that’s a high percentage of users who are digging deeper.
Another LinkedIn behemoth, The Economist, reaches over 3.1 million weekly subscribers with its “week ahead” newsletter, while Harvard Business Review’s Management Tip of the Week reaches over 5 million subscribers with a short article that takes just 1-2 minutes to read.
The pandemic demonstrated the potential for publishers to livestream events. Although we have seen a renewed interest in the ability of in-person events (particularly to diversify revenues), many media companies have retained an online component. Some media providers, like Harvard Business Review, continue to run live events that remain 100% virtual.
Online-only, or hybrid events, are more inclusive, helping to overcome geographic boundaries. But they also present additional income streams.
Forbes, for example, attracted several blue-chip sponsors for their Sustainability Leaders Summit last Fall. If you were unable to attend in person, you could view a live stream on various platforms, including LinkedIn, sponsored by Toyota.
Events, newsletters and posts by a company – or its staff – offer multiple means to engage with users on LinkedIn. Aside from blasting them with news and information, they’re also a space to dig beyond the analytics to garner insights from your audience.
As Meredith Turits, the former editor of BBC Worklife – a vertical that includes the Worklife 101 newsletter – explained to Nieman Lab last year “content that does well is, of course, shared and clicked on, but some of our most important insights come from the comments on the newsletter,” she said. “We’re always looking at conversation in the comments or shares.”
These audience insights can shape future editorial efforts. Moreover, by sharing content that stimulates discussion and offers insights from LinkedIn members, publishers can act as a convener for conversation. That’s an approach in line with the goal of many publishers to move beyond scale by developing direct relationships with audiences.
“Don’t treat it as a traffic play, full stop,” Turtis advises. “One of the things that’s most unique about LinkedIn is that people want to talk, and will talk — it’s UX makes that easy and encourages it.”
4. Drive referrals, subscribers and registrations
Posts on company pages, the feeds of the people who work at them, as well as newsletters published on LinkedIn, can all play a role in encouraging audiences to dig deeper.
USA Today’s weekly consumer news newsletter, The Money, breaks down stories from the past week, and includes links to other USA Today stories. It also highlights that you can sign up for a daily newsletter offering more of the same, more often.
Other outlets, like CNN’s PM Plug In, lean into when audiences might be using LinkedIn. In this instance, providing “a weekday newsletter to catch you up on important news you may have missed during your busy day.”
Meanwhile, Business Insider uses the platform to offer a “shorter version of our flagship newsletter,” which they then encourage readers to sign up for.
The Economist ends their newsletter with a registration link offering three free articles a month, as well as linking to their main subscription page.
Collectively, these approaches demonstrate some of the different ways that publishers are using LinkedIn to support their wider engagement and revenue strategies.
5. Humanize your brand and staff
In some instances, LinkedIn may be your first engagement with a company. A good initial impression can matter, therefore, in terms of attracting potential consumers, subscribers and prospective employees.
Because of this, some media companies are making their LinkedIn presence more personal and approachable.
The Editor’s Digest, a newsletter from the Financial Times, sees an editor pick their top stories from the FT that week. Each hyperlinked newsletter is simply signed off by the author using their first name (e.g. Patrick, or Roula). It offers a casualness one might not expect from such an august brand, even if I personally would love to know their surname and job title!
Elsewhere, Nicholas Thompson the CEO of The Atlantic publishes a monthly newsletter that highlights his picks of The Best Things To Read. Most of this content is from places outside of The Atlantic, increasing its usefulness and making it feel much less like a PR exercise. Thompson also posts casual hot-take videos on different topics, which also makes him – and by osmosis his publication – more accessible and relatable.
Moving forward
According to Daniel Roth, LinkedIn’s Editor in Chief, the platform works with 400 preferred news partners to help maximize their work on the site. These efforts, as Axios reports, include sharing trending topics with partners so that they can tap current audience interests, as well as featuring content on LinkedIn News.
However, for content creators not in this club, there are still multiple things you can do to leverage LinkedIn more effectively. Journalists can get free training on how to use the platform, as well as a free premium membership. They can also use the platform to promote their work, and the work of others, as well as engage directly with audiences.
Your digital and social teams can – and should – do that too. Newsletters, events and posts can create high-quality, relevant content that resonates with LinkedIn’s professional user base. In doing this, outlets may reach new audiences as well as serve existing ones. That can drive traffic and engagement, increase subscriptions and take-up of other products.
As a result, according to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, more media companies are investing in LinkedIn. A survey of 314 media leaders in 56 countries, revealed that four in ten (41%) of executives said they would be putting more effort into the platform in 2024. This is only just behind the proposed prioritization in YouTube and Google Search.
As Sara Fischer the senior media reporter at Axios recently put it, “LinkedIn alone won’t be able to make up for the dramatic reduction in traffic referrals from social media sites to news publishers, but it does offer outlets and journalists a platform to meaningfully grow their audiences amid a broader tech crackdown on news content.”
Put another way, as the tech journalist Ryan Broderickoutlined earlier this week, “the traffic firehose days of the 2010s aren’t coming back. And LinkedIn is not the secret to infinite pageviews.” But, he adds, “finding a home for news publishers in 2024 isn’t about finding a perfect fit, but rather finding one that’s close enough.”
For some content creators and media companies, that might just mean leaning more into LinkedIn in the year ahead.
In Hollywood, where creativity meets commerce, diversity is a central theme, not just on the screen but also behind the scenes. Box-office numbers demonstrate the power and profits wielded by audiences of color and women: People of color dominated opening weekend sales for 14 of the top 20 films in 2023, while while female moviegoers dominated sales for three films in the top 10, according to the latest Hollywood Diversity Report.
UCLA’s annual Hollywood Diversity Report, now in its eleventh edition, offers insight and guidance for the industry in representation, inclusion, and profitability. This report examines diversity within Hollywood’s top films and TV shows, showcasing the realities between demographics and the bottom line. It delves into dimensions such as race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, and disability status. The study offers a better understanding of Hollywood’s diverse landscape using data from sources like The Studio System, Variety Insight, IMDb, comScore, and Box Office Mojo. The report provides valuable insights into the industry’s efforts to reflect society’s diversity by tracking data and their correlation with audience preferences.
Cast diversity
Despite the demonstrated success of diverse casts, the report highlights disparities in gender representation. Despite significant gains, women’s share of top theatrical film leads declined to 32.1% in 2023 from 38.6% in 2022. This decline underscores women’s ongoing challenges in securing prominent roles within the industry.
Moreover, the report delves into the representation of individuals with disabilities, an area that has historically received less attention. While the report shows some progress, adults with disabilities remain underrepresented as theatrical film leads in 2023. Only 7.1% of all top theatrical film roles include actors with a known disability.
Further, the report uncovers disparities within racial and ethnic groups and gender identities. While certain groups, such as Asian and MENA (Middle East and North Africa) individuals, approach proportionate representation, others, including Black, Latinx, and multiracial individuals, continue to face significant underrepresentation.
Budget allocation and financial performance
Budget allocation also emerges as a factor affecting diversity within the industry. The report underscores the correlation between diversity and box office success, revealing that films with casts featuring 31 to 40% BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) enjoy the highest median global box office receipts. Notable titles include Barbie, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, and Shazam!
However, films with BIPOC leads are also likelier to have the smallest and largest budgets, highlighting the uneven distribution of resources and opportunities for diverse talent.
In addition, BIPOC audiences emerge as a critical demographic for the industry, with most opening weekend domestic ticket purchases by BIPOC moviegoers for seven of the top 10 and 14 of the top 20 films in 2023. Additionally, films featuring casts where more than 30% of the actors are BIPOC account for nine of the top 10 and 15 of the top 20 films at the global box office.
Global distribution and the importance of intersectionality
The report also sheds light on disparities in global distribution and representation, revealing that top theatrical films with Black and Asian leads are less likely to have distribution in China compared to other racial and ethnic leads. However, films featuring Latinx and multiracial leads are more likely to have distribution in China.
Moreover, the report highlights the importance of intersectionality. Films featuring casts from 41% to 50% BIPOC post the highest median domestic box office, and those with casts from 31% to 40% BIPOC dominate the international markets. These findings challenge the notion that “diversity does not travel,” emphasizing the global appeal of diverse storytelling. As the industry continues to navigate the dynamics of diversity and representation, this report serves as a vital resource for understanding Hollywood’s evolving landscape. Overall, the report offers insights into the state of diversity in Hollywood and the challenges in achieving true representation. Looking closely at this data shows that having various types of people in movies and TV contributes to their popularity, and profitability.
Last Monday, the ad quality and transparency platform Adalytics generated shockwaves with new research on the high volume of ads on made-for-advertising (MFA) websites. Designed to measure investment in the wake of the ANA’s Programmatic Media Supply Chain Transparency study, the report sheds an unflattering light on where hundreds of prominent brands, including 16 of the 17 named participants in the ANA study, appear online. Within one day, the entire industry was asking how, after the ANA clearly showed that 15% of spend is wasted on MFA, this could still be happening.
When the ANA’s findings rocked the industry in June 2023, media buyers and ad tech platforms quickly vowed to eradicate MFA from their supply chain. Nine months later, it’s clear that their efforts are still a work in progress. All seven agency holding companies were found to be transacting on MFA for prominent clients, as were the top DSPs, ad networks, exchanges, yield optimization services and most SSPs (save for two). Most confounding, many ads on MFA sported tags from vendors meant to combat this problem, including Integral Ad Science (IAS), DoubleVerify (DV), Oracle Moat, Fou Analytics, Pixalate and HUMAN (formerly White Ops).
With so much talk of MFA, these results leave us wondering: “Why is this still happening?” And more importantly: “How do we fix it?”
You get what you pay for. Except when you don’t
No one should be more perturbed by all this than advertisers, whose money is being wasted. Next up are premium publishers, who aren’t seeing the kinds of media budgets they deserve.
Media buyers meet MFAs
It’s easy to blame media buyers who have an unquenchable thirst for cheap CPMs. However, it’s unlikely that any brand cited in the research said to their agency, “Let’s buy some MFA.” Most who publicly stepped up and vowed, in good faith, to stem the flow of ad spend to made-for-advertising content likely took steps to do so only to be foiled by an overreliance on MFA exclusion lists and misaligned incentives that prioritize cheap reach over more costly quality. Also to blame is the inherent complexity of the adtech supply-chain, which thrives on secondary, multi-hop auctions through which even the most carefully-curated domain inclusion list becomes lost.
Case in point: across all of the SSPs evaluated by Adalytics, the only two that were totally free of MFA inventory were the two that represented exclusively premium inventory and did not permit secondary auctions: TRUSTX (the company of which I am CEO, which represents premium news, sports and entertainment content publishers across North America) and The Ozone Project (which represents UK news publishers). Kargo, a mobile rich media advertising platform, was also named as MFA-free.
Never let a good crisis go to waste
While last summer’s ANA report erred on the side of caution, this time, major advertisers have been publicly called out, putting pressure on the buy side to take action. These advertisers are seeking answers, and premium publishers are well-positioned to rise to the occasion.
A quality education about MFAs
There’s a timely opportunity for high-quality inventory sellers to coach their client-side and agency partners on how to get more from their media investments. And the good news is that the solutions are actually uncomplicated.
Establish an inclusion list of high-quality inventory sellers. MFA exclusion lists are like trying to count all the grains of sand on a beach: an exercise in futility.
Buy through direct paths to programmatic supply—i.e., Brand (or Agency) to DSP to SSP to publisher. Every extra reseller hop in the supply chain adds cost and reduces the likelihood that your client will get what they paid for.
Demand the data to validate that their media budget went to the publishers they specified. Log level data is the gold standard for verifying that an inclusion list was honored, though with highly trusted partners, detailed reporting may also suffice. Point being, the buyer should ask for data at whatever level of detail they need to be comfortable.
Why are these steps of critical importance? For publishers, every ad dollar diverted from MFA is a dollar that could be spent on quality inventory. Looking through the lens of an advertiser, the reasons to avoid MFA are even more urgent.
The stakes are high for brand advertisers
MFA is cheap, but cheap can become very expensive. MFA sites notoriously struggle with frequency capping. According to Adalytics, a single site visitor was shown the same ad for one brand 835 times at a cost of $5.49, resulting in an effective CPM of $5491. So, yes, in some cases, you get what you pay for, but not in this one. Encouraging your advertisers to seek out the most direct path to your inventory possible will help avert this kind of disaster.
MFA isn’t brand-safe. According to Integral Ad Science, 82% of consumers care about the quality of the content in which they encounter a brand’s ads. 75% will have a less favorable opinion about brands whose ads they encounter on sites that spread misinformation. Furthermore, 51% say they are likely to abandon a brand whose ads appear in inappropriate content. Clearly, ad placements on MFA, whether intentional or inadvertent, have a negative impact.
MFA is unsustainable. Lowering emissions is a top priority for advertisers, and understandably so—according to McKinsey and NielsenIQ, 78% of US consumers care deeply about the sustainability efforts of the brands they buy from. Given that adtech accounts for 1.5% of global energy consumption, programmatic seems like a good place to start. It should give them pause that MFA generates 26% more emissions on average than higher quality sites.
Adalytics’ findings are another chapter in a demoralizing story that affects our entire industry. Seeing the continued MFA waste must be particularly painful for publishers of high-quality content. But sunlight is the best disinfectant. Thanks to Adalytics’ no-holds-barred research, the insidious nature of MFA has been laid bare for all to see. We think the empirical data opens the door for buyer and seller dialogues on the value of premium inventory, which creates a golden opportunity for premium publishers to talk to their clients about redirecting ad spend to where it rightfully belongs.
With the imminent demise of third-party cookies, the digital media industry stands on the brink of a seismic transformation that will create pressure for publishers to adapt quickly and efficiently. In my role at Dow Jones, as head of advertising product and technology, the urgency to transition towards first-party data and contextual advertising wasn’t just about staying ahead; it was a necessity to ensure our continued success in the digital realm.
This urgency is underscored by a stark reality: according to a 2023 Teads survey, only 16% of publishers felt prepared for the cookieless future. When Google announced the Chrome Cookie Deprecation in Jan. 2020, it became abundantly clear to us at Dow Jones that decisive action was needed to navigate this uncharted territory.
Facing the dual challenges of maintaining our revenue streams and upholding audience privacy, we envisioned a future where we relied exclusively on robust first-party data and developed a comprehensive game plan to bring that vision to fruition. This wasn’t just about adapting to a new set of rules; it was about reimagining our approach to digital engagement and advertising in a way that respects our readers’ desire for privacy and control over their own data.
Building an advanced advertising strategy
As a leading global business and information company that publishes trusted brands like The Wall Street Journal, our strategic vision was predicated and relied upon our subscription business, including the core high-quality audience of dedicated subscribers that serve as our core readership. We evaluated every aspect of our digital footprint, from the ways we engage with our audience to the methodologies behind our ad targeting. This wasn’t a simple process. It required a fundamental reshaping of our operations, systematic execution sustained over time, and a significant investment in new technologies and skills.
By focusing on the wealth of data generated by our direct and long-standing relationships with subscribers, we’ve not only prepared ourselves for the post-cookie world but have also unlocked new opportunities for growth and engagement. We’re now in a position where we can offer our advertisers targeted, effective ad placements based on direct audiences composed of known users and enriched with real, meaningful insights into preferences and behaviors, all while maintaining the privacy standards that our customers (not to mention regulators) expect.
Challenges and opportunities in cookieless digital advertising
However, this shift hasn’t been without its challenges. It’s been critical to strike a balance between maintaining innovative forward momentum and overcoming technical hurdles in a privacy-compliant manner that requires a judicious and collaborative approach to data.
Despite this, the shift away from third-party cookies has presented numerous opportunities. We’ve been able to forge deeper relationships with our advertisers by offering high-quality audience signals, innovative new products and services built on those audiences, and the analysis that demonstrates value and outcomes.
A future built on trust and transparency
As we look to the future, it’s clear that the key to success in the digital media space is a combination of innovative technology and a commitment to user privacy. By focusing on first-party data and contextual advertising, publishers can navigate the post-cookie landscape.
Moreover, the importance of systematic and open collaboration cannot be overstated; engaging with experienced partners and technology providers, especially those who have proactively tackled the challenges of this new digital ecosystem, can provide you with fresh perspectives and new opportunities for growth. For digital media executives navigating this shift, remember: the future belongs to those who prepare for it today.
From Google to Facebook and Instagram to TikTok (and so many more), publishers have spent the last couple of decades chasing their audiences from one platform to another—only to be betrayed by changing algorithms and shifting platform priorities. For years, popular wisdom held that you had to go where the audience is. Now, despite the fact that audiences (particularly younger ones) seek out news and information on social platforms, those platforms are “backing away” from making that content visible. But regardless of a media brand’s position on social media, search has remained the undisputed path to traffic.
Now, publishers face a whole new threat: generative AI search. Years of fine-tuning search engine optimization strategies may all be for naught as Google embraces AI-driven answers in lieu of links to relevant content. Meanwhile, Gartner predicts that traditional search engine volume will drop 25% by 2026 as users shift to AI chatbots and virtual agents for their answers.
The Wall Street Journal reports that publishers expect a 20% to 40% drop in their Google-generated traffic if the search giant rolls out its AI search tool to a broad audience. So, what are media executives supposed to do in the face of yet another shift in the technology landscape that threatens to put them on the outs once again? There’s really only one solution: devise a plan to regain control of their audience relationships once and for all.
Discovery: a problem as old as algorithms
AI search has yet to reach its full potential, but referral traffic is already taking a hit. AI-driven search results that fail to link to the content they scrape from is just one part of the problem. Searchers are often satisfied with AI “answers” and have little need to click through for more. And platforms from across the web are trying to keep more users within the walls of their gardens, and that means the likes of Facebook and Google have gone from partners in traffic acquisition to the opposition.
“We’re seeing an industry in real crisis,” says Jim Chisholm, a news media analyst. While Chisholm says he is not seeing evidence that AI is impacting traffic just yet, that does not mean publishers are not already feeling the squeeze from elsewhere.
Liam Andrew, Chief Product Officer at The Texas Tribune, says that while his team expects generative AI to impact search traffic, they are still waiting to see a substantial impact. The bigger problem facing the Tribune now is social media traffic or the lack of it.
While social platforms across the spectrum are pulling the rug out from under publishers, our old friend search is slowly changing the rules of the game. “Search is still working,” Andrew says. The Texas Tribune sees that explainers and guides still drive traffic and even subscriptions. However, other sites have not been so lucky.
Back in October 2023, Press Gazette found that of 70 leading publishers, half saw their search visibility scores drop—and 24 of those saw double-digit dips. That was the result of one update—more bad news is certain to follow as new updates make their way to the masses.
AI bots: To block or not to block
Publishers may be preparing for a more significant battle when it comes to traffic. However, right now, there’s another fight on their doorsteps: bots are crawling their sites and using their work to train the AI poised to steal their traffic. Some are already taking steps to stop the free—and possibly illegal—use of their content. The Reuters Institute found that 48% of the most widely used news websites across 10 countries blocked OpenAI’s crawlers by the close of 2023. Far fewer—just 24%—blocked Google’s AI crawler.
For Andrew and The Texas Tribune, blocking AI crawlers is not a major concern. They already have an open-republishing model and are used to seeing their content scraped and used on other sites (often without the requested attribution). “It improves our readership and impact, but we compete with ourselves for SEO,” he says. He also says they see versions of their stories on news sites where the content is entirely AI-written. However, it is “not affecting our core audience traffic,” according to Andrew. So — at least for now — The Texas Tribune is not planning to block the bots.
Meanwhile, Google is reportedly paying publishers to use its AI tools to write content. While in the short term, this may offer (smaller) publishers relatively small sums as well as an easier way to create low-lift content, like other Google News Initiative (GNI) projects, there’s an underlying concern that Google is not focused on publisher health in the long term.
Developing a direct-to-reader strategy
As Andrew and the product team at The Texas Tribune look toward a less search-dependent future, they are changing strategies. For 2025 and beyond, “we are not going to be focusing on a really good SERP [Search Engine Results Pages] unnecessarily,” Andrew says. Instead, they’ll focus on products built directly for readers.
“Newsletters have been part of our model for over 10 years. It’s nothing new, but we’re continuing to see success with it,” Andrew says. Not only do the newsletters still drive traffic, but they also drive conversions. Subscribers become members at a higher rate, vital to a publication that does not depend on paywalls for revenue.
DCN conducted an informal survey on concerns around the impact of AI search on traffic, and while the sample size may not hold up to scientific scrutiny, it was clear that newsletters are a crucial tactic for publishers looking to own their audiences. Other stats suggest this is a good move. Storydoc research found that 90% of Americans subscribe to at least one newsletter. That number goes up for younger audiences as 95% of Gen Z, Millennials, and even Gen X receive newsletters, compared to 84% of Baby Boomers.
Experiment with engagement approaches
The solutions to the Google problem don’t end at email, though.
“We also have a big robust event system,” Andrew notes. The Texas Tribune holds dozens every year. They range from “pre-gaming the Texas primary” to deep dives into transportation in the Austin/San Antonio area. They gather experts and pundits to share their expertise on topics that interest readers. The team also live-streams these events — a universally important tactic for engaging younger, more diverse audiences. These events also turn out to be effective for converting casual readers into subscribers and members.
Andrew alluded to products his team is working on that are still under wraps. Still, it’s clear that, like many publishers, The Texas Tribune is preparing for a future when search no longer drives most traffic.
Chisholm thinks mobile apps are another excellent direct-to-reader strategy, and research backs this up. Pew reports that “A large majority of U.S. adults (86%) say they often or sometimes get news from a smartphone, computer or tablet, including 56% who say they do so often. This is more than the 49% who said they often got news from digital devices in 2022 and the 51% of those who said the same in 2021.” Cultivating a relationship with readers through their mobile devices—where you can use push notifications and other native capabilities to grab their attention—will likely be one of the many tools publishers must deploy going forward.
“I’ve been in the news industry – which I love – for 48 years. Now we are at a crossroads,” says Chisholm. “Either we choose the road to recovery, rebuilding relationships with our readers, or we continue down the road we are on, subject to algorithms, more confusion between legitimate news and social media infested with AI nonsense.”
As a longtime creative director in digital advertising, I consistently saw the same challenges across publishers: tension between revenue and creative, between premium ad offerings and relentless efficiency, between trying new approaches and sticking to the playbook.
Here are three insights I often share our clients now that I’m at Clipcentric to show that digital publishers don’t need to view these perceived tradeoffs as either/or dilemmas.
You can reduce ad inventory without sacrificing revenue. Really.
It sounds counter-intuitive, but many digital publishers have successfully reduced ad inventory without sacrificing revenue. Fewer ads on a page creates a better experience for the audience, and higher-quality, premium ads command a premium for the advertiser.
One of Clipcentric’s partners currently fills about 20% of its inventory with direct-sold advertising, but that 20% accounts for almost 80% of its ad revenue. Trading programmatic pennies for direct-sold dollars works. Another partner recently reduced overall ad inventory by 50%, but didn’t sacrifice revenue at all.
More ads don’t always equal more money. Shifting available ad inventory away from open programmatic to direct sold, and then offering compelling, premium units for those ad slots, gives you more control over your revenue and creates a better experience for advertisers and audiences.
Premium publishers should serve premium content and premium ads.
Premium publishers invest a lot in building an audience around top-shelf digital content that keeps audiences coming back for more. But serving low quality ads next to that content can diminish the entire experience of a site or app.
We’ve all encountered a poorly placed programmatic belly fat ad next to a piece of premium content. Even running house ads that promote your own content (for example, from your branded content studio) can sometimes be preferable to low-revenue, low-quality ads on a premium site.
However, in addition to elevating the look and feel of your site, premium ad offerings can effectively differentiate you from the competition and help your ad sales team close more deals. Aligning features from different ad products to advertisers’ KPIs (a dynamic map in the ad unit to drive in-store traffic; a countdown timer or in-banner add-to-calendar feature to raise awareness of an event) allows you to quickly respond to RFPs and develop ad proposals that truly excite clients.
A prime example of this from my time at CBSi was when a client wanted to position its brand in a memorable way. CBS Sports had a popular fantasy football league. We proposed targeting fantasy football users with personalized ads that included each user’s fantasy team name and feedback on their draft choices. The advertiser loved the idea, and it was something only CBS Sports could offer. We linked our fantasy API to the ad unit (with Clipcentric’s help) and developed a unique offering that the advertiser loved – and that perfectly aligned with CBSi’s own content.
Custom ads don’t require in-house engineering – just the right tech partner.
In my publisher days in creative services, there were so many times the ad sales team approached me with requests for complicated ads:
“Can we create a quiz?”
“Is it possible to put multiple videos in one ad?”
“Can we create an interactive game inside a 300×250?”
“Can we use our data to change what’s in the ad?”
“Can we put a flying dragon on the page? Okay what about four flying dragons?”
…and so on. There was no shortage of ideas, but with limited resources there was a hesitancy to say yes.
Publishers often streamline ad product offerings into their simplest form so ad ops teams can run very lean and produce ads efficiently. But that often leads to always saying “no” to advertisers who want anything beyond ordinary. Saying “yes” can unlock revenue premiums and demonstrate to your advertisers that your pub is responsive and collaborative and can deliver not just the audiences they want to reach, but the creative that will engage them.
Ads with advanced creative features – dynamic video, data-driven features, all kinds of interactivity – can drive CPM premiums without needing to develop or retest an entirely new ad unit. At Clipcentric, we work with publishers to develop flexible ad containers that are tested and approved for their sites. Inside those containers, (almost) anything goes. The right partner can help you respond to custom requests to make an advertiser’s vision come to life.
Many media executives probably already know all these things. But sometimes it’s difficult to choose a path that seems more complex than what an organization is used to. Fewer ads, of higher quality, with better features and higher CPMs are not nearly as complicated to pull off as most publishers think. Ad operations professionals, myself included, welcome the opportunity to put real creativity back into ad products.
About the author
Jeff Hill was a director in ad operations and creative services for 15 years at major digital publishers like CBS Interactive and Red Ventures. He joined Clipcentric in July 2023.