When RTB knocks on a publisher’s doorstep, not everyone answers with the same greeting. While some publishers give it a warm embrace, prioritizing that demand or selling exclusively through programmatic channels, others are more cautious or turning it away. Here’s how publishers are tackling the upsides and blocking the downsides of programmatic. 1. Bring in […]
With attention shifting to online, investors have realized that dollars are moving there too, making 2015 a hot year for digital publishers looking for investments or to be acquired. The deals ranged from NBCUniversal’s $200 million investment each in BuzzFeed and Vox, to smaller ones like the $2.5 million PureWow picked up. “The value of […]
2015 is the year that publishers realized the power of platforms to distribute their content. Facebook had been sending traffic their way for some time, but this year, it invited publishers to monetize on the platform through Facebook Instant Articles. Meanwhile, Snapchat launched Discover, with custom-created articles for Snapchatters and the ability to sell on […]
Bauer Xcel Media is a digital latecomer and only began devoting attention to its websites three years ago, but the publisher of J-14, Life & Style and InTouch is operating like a young digital pure-play. Completely separate from its parent organization, which houses the print operation, Bauer Xcel sells 100% programmatically and has quickly embraced platforms, […]
The content-and-commerce model is both highly seductive and deceptively tricky for publishers and purveyors alike. People don’t necessarily want to take their wallets out when they’re in reading mode. It’s hard to create authentic content that also serves business goals. Scale is a challenge. But is there still potential there? Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop empire, which […]
Tribune Media will sink $25 million into Dose Media, a content company founded by 28-year-old media entrepreneur Emerson Spartz, who founded legendary Harry Potter fan site MuggleNet when he was 12 years old. Dose Media, which publishes Dose.com and OMGFacts.com, will use funds from the Series B round to start its sales outreach to brands […]
When it comes to driving traffic for publishers, Facebook is king. Publishers receive 90% of their traffic from the social network, according to social analytics firm SimpleReach. But what about Pinterest? While the site crossed 100 million monthly active users (MAUs) this year, that’s a fraction of Facebook’s 1.5 billion MAUs, and trails behind Instagram’s […]
“If I didn’t work for the Guardian, I would block ads,” said Guardian US CEO Eamonn Store. He’s fed up with the poor-quality ads that slip through on the Guardian and other trusted sites. As an avid reader of the Guardian, he sees ads for loan sharks and other unsavory ventures slip through frequently, leading […]
Could it be that we’re entering the second generation of sponsored content? Nativo CEO Justin Choi thinks so. His case in point: US News & World Report, which started its sponsored content studio, BrandFuse, in 2012. “Publishers are shifting from the first gear of native, which was adoption and seeing if they could find success […]
YouTube’s TrueView has trained viewers to count backward from five – and then click “skip.” It’s a now-ingrained behavior that traditional and even nontraditional publishers like Norway’s VGTV are trying to grapple with. That’s because pre-roll engagement rates are the pits – and they often have an unfortunate effect on the engagement rate for whatever content […]
LiveRail and AppNexus removing resellers from their respective platforms last week were two more nails in the ad network coffin. If any publishers were upset, AdExchanger couldn’t find them. Just the opposite, in fact. While some publishers still use ad networks, most have significantly pared back in recent years, and those that still work with […]
The prospect of a viewable CPM (vCPM) standard for digital media buying had publishers running scared a year ago. Now, many are embracing the pricing model, but transacting this way is not without its hurdles. Publishers not only need to defend the value of their inventory to buyers when 20 to 50% of the ads […]
Since the beginning of the year, the Financial Times has been selling time-based ads, where the advertiser pays only for ads that have spent five seconds in view. It charges based on cost per hour (CPH). The Times decided to charge for an ad after five seconds because data from its viewability provider, Chartbeat, showed […]
The Canadian publisher coalition CPAX officially added four new publishers (Metroland Media, Winnipeg Free Press, St. Joseph Media and Blue Ant Media) on Monday, bringing the publisher total to 18 and expanding CPAX’s presence on the West Coast. Impression volume has also doubled since Index Exchange helped relaunch it last year: One billion impressions flowed […]
For branded content to be a success, it must hurdle two key challenges. First, it must be authentic, entertaining and relevant, and second, it must be distributed effectively. Via a partnership with Guardian Labs, website design company Squarespace is attempting to do just that. The 39-part series “Side Hustle,” unfolding over Q4 2015 and Q1 […]
The Washington Post on Tuesday released a video product called FlexPlay that loads videos faster in diverse environments and customizes them to extract more engagement. Advertisers can use FlexPlay for video ads that run on the Post’s website, as well as those that run offsite, in exchange for a premium on the CPM. The idea […]
Making sure branded content is seen by an advertiser’s target audience is a common problem for publishers. Some redesign their sites to surface sponsored content more often, while others fulfill campaigns by turning to social media, Facebook ads, Taboola and Outbrain. Modern Healthcare, which delivers business news to C-suite health professionals, often runs sponsored content […]
Time Inc.’s purchase of Zooey Deschanel-founded HelloGiggles, a site geared to young women, had its roots in a strategic relationship the companies put in place earlier this year. That partnership saw Time Inc. and HelloGiggles partner to create integrated advertising programs. About 15 dual programs ran with retail, beauty and tech advertisers, mainly with display […]
Managing multiple programmatic partners gets really complicated. It’s even more complicated when you’re a conglomerate of dating sites, such as The Match Group, owner of Match.com, Tinder, OKCupid, BlackPeopleMeet and three dozen other dating platforms. You’re likely working with a good portion of the LUMAscape. When Match.com senior manager of yield ops Konica Ghosh isn’t […]
The best way to cover the pope’s visit to the United States on social media was to highlight the moments where he kissed babies. Such an insight feels intuitively right, but USA Today social media editor Mary Nahorniak only made that discovery using CrowdTangle, a social media tool that helps publishers analyze the best-performing content […]
TheScore, maker of the popular sports app, attributes its revenue growth in a competitive mobile market to one thing: staying focused. TheScore devotes all of its attention to creating the best content and ad experiences for mobile, which includes its mobile app and the mobile web. Desktop exists, but it’s completely an afterthought, making theScore […]
Eyeing a shift to private marketplaces among buyers, Canadian publisher CBC has reordered its tech stack to prioritize its private marketplace over direct deals. Done via an Index Exchange header tag, the move gives CBC’s private marketplace buyers a more favorable setup: the option to look at every user before ad impressions get divvied up […]
Let’s be honest: For all of its success as a business, it’s hard to be impressed with the NFL’s digital presence. Good luck using its overdesigned, slow-loading website to find video highlights of your favorite team’s last game. But little by little, the NFL has opened up its assets to digital experimentation. In January, it […]
The New York Times has a solution to the bot fraud problem: “Buy quality.” So declared Michael Zimbalist, SVP of advertising products and R&D at the Times, speaking at OpenX’s session about trust in the supply chain at Advertising Week in New York City. “You get what you pay for,” Zimbalist said bluntly. “We need to collapse […]
When AOL agreed in June to bring Microsoft’s sales organization into AOL, nearly doubling the amount of front-line salespeople to a total of 1,000, head of sales Jim Norton saw an opportunity. AOL knew there were a number of ways it could improve its sales force to better align with the organization’s structure: custom solutions […]
If ad blocking is war, long-tail publishers will likely be its earliest casualties. “Ad blocking is a threat to the whole industry, but it has an especially high impact for the small publishers who make up so much of the rich fabric that is the digital experience,” said Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the Interactive Advertising […]
Axel Springer will acquire Business Insider in a deal that values the publisher at $390 million, the companies said Tuesday. The German media company bought 9% of BI back in January, and the new $343 million deal will bring its total stake to 97%. That earlier deal placed the value of BI at $200 million, so the sale price […]
With ad blockers increasingly available on mobile devices and adoption increasing, especially among millennials, publishers can’t ignore the issue anymore. But what, exactly, are their options? First, publishers must figure out the extent ad blocking happens on their site – which varies dramatically based on audience composition and the type of site. Gaming sites, for […]
As private marketplaces have taken off, buyers and sellers have struggled to figure out exactly how to negotiate deals and, once a campaign is live, how to optimize so it actually delivers the expected value. None of the existing models quite work. Traditionally, sellers optimize direct-sold deals and buyers control programmatic ones. With private marketplaces, […]
Imagine adorning a Crest branding video with a custom call-to-action that tells the viewer she can buy the toothpaste on sale at a local Target or Walmart for $3.99. To achieve this, Tegna-owned companies PointRoll and ShopLocal are combining their capabilities under a new entity called Cofactor. If the name Tegna sounds unfamiliar, that’s because […]
