Meredith’s overall Q2 ad revenue grew like gangbusters, but digital ad revenue performance was draggy – and will likely be the same next quarter, the company told investors Monday. Advertising-related revenue nearly doubled year over year to $488.9 million – a 111% increase – and digital represents more than $400 million of Meredith’s revenue for its national media […]
The battle between buying audiences and buying context is over. Glossy, splashy magazine brands know they’ve lost the cheap CPM game to Facebook, Instagram and Google. But they’ve regrouped in recent years, figuring out how to connect with advertisers and consumers and shore up revenue by diversifying away from advertising. At Tuesday’s American Magazine Media […]
While some of digital media’s biggest stars and flashiest names make big cuts to make their businesses profitable, others are weathering change just fine. The difference? They’ve always focused on sustainable growth and profitability. Venture-backed companies typically made three key mistakes, according to these publishers. First, and most importantly, they grew costs before revenue. Second, […]
Lately, one of the most popular pieces of apparel worn by professional football players and coaches is a t-shirt featuring NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wearing a clown nose. It’s a blatant sign of disrespect, and a popular way for people to signal their opinion of the unpopular NFL exec, particularly after he makes a controversial […]
The New York Times once worked with thousands of advertisers, but it’s now narrowed its focus to the top 100 global brands. “The business is shrinking in terms of the overall number of advertisers, as there are more places to do longtail advertising,” said Sebastian Tomich, global head of advertising and marketing solutions at The […]
BuzzFeed, Verizon Media and Gannett all had layoffs this week, as the media business struggles to find its way in a digital climate. Over 1,000 jobs went away. BuzzFeed laid off 200 people (15% of its staff), Verizon Media laid off 800 people (7% of its staff) and Gannett laid off more than two dozen […]
Does the world need yet another tech company to combat malvertising on the internet? “Well, do you still constantly see malvertising when you browse the internet?” said Seth Demsey, co-founder of Clean Creative, an anti-malware company started by a handful of security experts and Oath vets who exited before the name change. Touché. Based in […]
Facebook will distribute $300 million across multiple news projects over the next three years to support local newsrooms and help publishers create new business models, the platform announced Tuesday. Donations include a $5 million endowment gift to the Pulitzer Center, $6 million for the UK-based Community News Project and a $20 million expansion of Facebook’s […]
Don’t tell Paul Slavin that book sales are stagnant. Slavin is the CEO of Open Road Integrated Media, a digital marketing company founded in 2009 by HarperCollins global CEO Jane Friedman. “When we put a book in front of somebody, when we market that book, you will see it grow,” said Slavin, who became chief […]
In the past year, advertisers on The New York Times have bought ads with increasingly sophisticated targeting parameters, such as “adventurous” content, stories about to go viral or brand-safety keywords. To make that in-depth content targeting possible, the Times built its own ad tech – Alice, shorthand for ad library service – a year ago. […]
Verizon will take a $4.6 billion goodwill impairment charge in the fourth quarter, acknowledging that its Oath business unit has underperformed, the company said Tuesday. The hit nearly eliminates the $4.8 billion goodwill balance Verizon carried after it acquired and merged Yahoo and AOL and assorted technology holdings into its Oath business unit back in […]
Condé Nast will execute its turnaround with a new leader. Its longtime CEO Bob Sauerberg is departing after 18 years with the company, including eight in the top spot. He’s leaving just months after he announced a turnaround plan for the publisher of Vogue, Wired and The New Yorker that would see it diversify away […]
In-market auto is one of the most prized data segments – and it’s notorious for being inaccurate with artificially large scale, which makes it emblematic of the problems with third-party data. First-party in-market auto data, however, is another story. VerticalScope, which operates over 600 niche automobile sites about various car makes and models, knows what […]
Two years ago, the Timehop app – which aggregates and resurfaces old social media photos – was running on the remaining fumes of its VC cash, enough to stay afloat for just three months. It needed revenue, and, although it had 20 million monthly active users, its inventory was severely undervalued. “We had no real […]
A dozen local news publishers participating in Facebook’s Local News Subscription Accelerator, including The Denver Post and the Minneapolis Star Tribune, flew to New York, Austin and San Francisco this spring for a 12-week program to learn the intricacies of running a digital subscription business. Facebook has had strained relationships with publishers, which hit a […]
As more people use smart speakers, publishers are establishing their own voice. News organization Al Jazeera is exploring how to position its brand on voice, which it believes will be the gateway to an internet-of-things-driven world, said Michael Weaver, SVP of business development and growth at Al Jazeera Network. “Voice assistants are the first entry […]
Cheddar bought Rate My Professors from Viacom on Thursday, and Cheddar CEO Jon Steinberg isn’t just thinking about access to the college-aged audience. He liked that Rate My Professors helps students navigate college course selection. “We need to be in the direct-to-consumer business, where users are doing something other than consuming media. I wanted us […]
One year after first launching programmatic ads, BuzzFeed is doubling down with BuzzFeed Exchange, a formal expansion of its programmatic product offerings. BuzzFeed’s inventory has grown to 3 billion impressions a month, up from the 1 billion impressions a month it offered when it debuted programmatic ads a year ago. The BuzzFeed Exchange aims to […]
Because WordPress hosts numerous blogs and websites – it claims to power 31% of the internet – it has a tough time scaling its ability to police brand safety. While brands can often find their audiences on WordPress domains, they can also find themselves next to unsavory content. So WordPress, which runs an exchange called […]
Publishers who use a consent management platform (CMP) saw CPMs rise 9% and fill rates go up 5% post-GDPR, according to analysis of publishers using Mediavine, which manages ads for thousands of sites. Meanwhile, publishers who didn’t use a CMP for their European Union traffic saw CPMs dive precipitously. With no targeted ads, CPMs fell […]
Meredith will offload its 60% equity interest in ad platform business Viant, the company confirmed on its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call on Friday. It expects the sale to be finalized early in its coming fiscal year. Time Inc. bought Viant in 2016 for $87 million, and the purchase gave an inorganic boost to the publisher’s […]
Tech and publishing are coming together. Uzabase completed its acquisition of Quartz on July 31 and will pay between $75 million and $110 million, depending on this year’s performance. But what does it mean for a Bloomberg-like intelligence platform to join forces with a global business publisher? The two companies concede that they’re still figuring […]
Future PLC has agreed to buy the consumer division of Purch for $132 million. The July acquisition brings together Purch properties Tom’s Guide, Tom’s Hardware and Top Ten Reviews with Future PLC’s tech vertical titles, including PC Gamer and TechRadar. Future PLC’s 100-plus brands also serve non-tech niches like music and photography. The two companies […]
By Sarah Sluis, Ryan Joe, Allison Schiff, Alison Weissbrot and Rae Paoletta Programmatic is expanding, becoming a glossier way to transact and add value to both the buy and sell sides. “We are moving rapidly into a programmatic-first world,” said Sal Candela, president of enterprise partnerships at Omnicom. “There is a surge of quality inventory […]
Travel publishers often miss the boat on attribution. Although their content is an integral part of the trip-planning process at the top of the funnel, there’s no easy way to credit its role in an eventual hotel booking. Fathom, a site that publishes curated destination guides and first-person travel accounts, knew it was leaving money […]
While many advertisers are shying away from news content due to brand safety concerns, News UK is making the case that buying ads alongside emotionally charged content drives stronger results. The publisher of The Sun and The Times loaded its version of News Corp.’s News IQ platform with data about readers’ opinions, emotions and preferences. […]
CafeMedia is selling its entire publishing portfolio to RockYou, choosing to place its bets on AdThrive, the ad management firm it acquired two years ago. The AdThrive business is profitable but the sites being sold by CafeMedia – CafeMom, MamasLatinas, Revelist and Baby Name Wizard – were “break-even,” according to CafeMedia CEO Michael Sanchez. “It’s […]
Ad servers’ primary goal is to deliver direct-sold campaigns in full, so a publisher earns all revenue promised by the advertiser. But ad servers are dumb. They can deliver direct-sold campaigns too quickly, leaving an advertiser without active ads toward the end of the month. Or to ensure that direct campaigns deliver in full, they […]
Reddit is hoping advertisers upvote its latest ad offering: outstream video. The ad unit is being made available to managed partners on Tuesday, and all advertisers will get a crack through self-serve within the next few months – but programmatic is still a long way off. Although programmatic is on Reddit’s road map, “we’re still in […]
USA Today Sports Media Group acquired Golfweek 20 months ago because of its great content and readership of obsessive golf fans. After working with Golfweek on advertising and content partnerships, the Gannett-owned group saw how much more it could do with Golfweek if it owned the property. “We thought we could run it much more […]
