Digital advertising revenue at Time Inc. rose 20% to $73 million in the first quarter. But overall advertising revenue declined 9% to $353 million, and total revenue declined 9% to $680 million. Those declines were still slightly better than Wall Street’s expectations. “We’re in a turnaround, and turnarounds are bumpy,” said CEO and Chairman Joe Ripp. […]
PureWow, a women’s lifestyle website, raised $2.5 million in Series Seed Preferred funding Tuesday. It’s the second pre-Series A round of funding for the profitable property, which raised seed funding when it launched in 2010. PureWow’s audience tripled in the past 12 months. Advertiser RFPs have increased 200%. “The demand is there,” CEO Ryan Harwood […]
Viralnova has been hated and admired for the path it took to find an audience. It rose to the top of the Facebook news feed in 2013 with I-can’t-not-click articles like “If You Own A Microwave, Then You Absolutely Must See This Video.” And its success showed mainstream publishers the importance of social content discovery. […]
The New York Times finished a bright quarter for digital, as both online subscriptions and ad revenue rose. Digital advertising rose the same amount that print declined, 11%, finishing at $42.3 million. However, since digital constitutes just over a quarter of advertising revenue, advertising declined overall by 5.8%. Total revenue declined just 1.6% due to cost-cutting. […]
Polyvore, a site where fashionistas make product recommendations, on Monday rolled out Promoted Trends, a native ad package purchased on a per-day basis. This structure contrasts with the CPC pricing of the company’s Promoted Products, which integrates ads into Polyvore’s news feed. Since its launch in 2013, Promoted Products has more than 300 advertisers, including etailer […]
It’s not enough anymore that Scripps Networks’ channels are, according to its Wednesday upfront presentation, “naturally optimized.” While CPGs know to find food lovers on the Food Network or Cooking Channel, and home improvement brands gravitate toward HGTV or the DIY Network, the broadcaster is working on providing more data to advertisers to enable purchase-based […]
This story is part of a series on publisher coalitions and co-ops around the world. Read our earlier pieces on Pangaea and the Association of Online Publishers in the UK, La Place Média in France, SouthernX in Africa, Project Agora in Greece and Romania, Apex in Australia and CPAX in Canada. The problem with programmatic in Israel was that there weren’t many options. Google and […]
Quizzes perform. They’ve set traffic records at publications like Slate and The New York Times and given rise to platforms like PlayBuzz and sites like Zimbio. That’s why Refinery29 was eager to partner with quiz platform Hone to create quizzes that have the look and feel of Refinery29 articles along with the incredible engagement that […]
When Rich Sutton became Reader’s Digest Association’s CRO in January, his top priority was to extract more revenue from the advertisers accessing its audience of 53 million monthly uniques. “We’re moving to a mix that’s more video, native and high-impact, because those are the formats that are commanding the high CPMs,” Sutton said. “I’m not […]
This story is part of a series on publisher coalitions and co-ops around the world. Read our earlier pieces on Pangaea and the Association of Online Publishers in the UK, La Place Media in France, SouthernX in Africa, Project Agora in Greece and Romania and Apex in Australia. One year ago, the Canadian Premium Audience Exchange (CPAX), a publisher coalition comprising […]
The McClatchy Company’s programmatic strategy didn’t look good when it played second to direct sales. CPMs were low and block lists barred big advertisers. With the support of McClatchy leadership, Tobias Bennett, the digital display revenue manager, removed block lists and implemented Google’s dynamic allocation tool, designed to let all impressions compete with each other. […]
Viewability is stressing publishers out. Brands want more for less. Sites need to be redesigned. Every vendor brings different numbers to the equation. But some publishers, like Condé Nast and Tribune Media, are reaping the benefits of “embracing viewability.” “We’ve seen our yields increase,” said Brad Agens, SVP of digital sales for Tribune Media, who […]
Many publishers don’t know – or don’t want to know – what kind of fraud occurs on their sites. But it’s a reaction not dissimilar to how brands approached fraud before shocking numbers – like the 17% of programmatic ads and 23% of video ads determined fraudulent in the ANA/White Ops study last year – […]
This story is part of a series on publisher coalitions and co-ops around the world. Read our earlier pieces on Pangaea and the Association of Online Publishers in the UK, La Place Media in France, SouthernX in Africa and Project Agora in Greece and Romania. Australian media giants Fairfax and Nine Entertainment Co. wanted to create a coalition with truly unique […]
This story is part of a series on publisher coalitions and co-ops around the world. Read our earlier pieces on Pangaea and the Association of Online Publishers in the UK, La Place Media in France and SouthernX in Africa. In Greece and Romania, online publishers seeking an alternative to Google joined Project Agora, a publisher […]
Soon, UK buyers will have two premium publisher coalitions to choose from. On the heels of the announcement of Pangaea, the UK trade association AOP (Association of Online Publishers) revealed on Tuesday its plans to create a consortium set to make its debut in six to eight weeks, after the publishers involved implement AppNexus technology […]
On April 1, the newspaper assets of the E.W. Scripps Company will go to Journal Media Group – publisher of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In exchange, Scripps will receive Journal Communications’ local broadcast, radio and digital holdings, giving the media conglomerate a total of 33 broadcast properties, 34 radio properties and 150 different digital properties […]
South African buyers and sellers knew from looking at their peers in the US and UK that they needed to develop a programmatic strategy. But publishers were initially reluctant because of the cost of programmatic tech and the old fear that buying in an RTB environment devalued inventory. This concern led WPP to help create […]
IBT Media – publisher of International Business Times, Latin Times and Newsweek – plans to grow programmatic revenue from 30% to 60% by the end of this year. It first started selling programmatically last May and plans to fuel growth by adding programmatic direct to the mix through Rubicon and Sonobi. Buyers can purchase through […]
AppNexus has acquired Yieldex, whose platform provides publishers with analytics, forecasting and sales management tools. The deal might help strengthen AppNexus’ relationships with media sellers at a time when direct deals between marketers and publishers represent a growing portion of the programmatic ad pie. The Wall Street Journal placed the deal’s value at approximately $100 million in cash and […]
PlayBuzz, the user-generated quiz and article site, revealed Wednesday it had raised $16 million in Series B financing, bringing its total funding to almost $20 million. It’s the latest win for the Israeli publisher, which surpassed The Huffington Post three months ago to become the most-shared publisher on Facebook. Investors liked PlayBuzz’s growth potential and […]
The Guardian, CNN International, the Financial Times and Reuters have banded together to sell inventory programmatically through a program called Pangaea. The Economist also will sell inventory through Pangaea but is not a founding publisher. Pangaea gives publishers something they don’t have on their own; scale. It marries that scale with the member publishers’ first-party […]
“The Sell Sider” is a column written for the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Lorne Brown, CEO at Operative. New viewability measurement capabilities and the discovery of rampant fraud in ad exchanges has led advertisers to question whether any online advertising is actually seen by viewers. As a […]
Five of the biggest media players in France banded together to create a joint venture, La Place Media, to grow their programmatic revenues through a data-sharing arrangement. Between its first and second year in operation, the cooperative’s programmatic CPMs jumped 70%. It’s a trend that will continue as La Place Media closes out its third […]
Schibsted Media Group, a Norwegian publisher in Sweden, has lately come to market with a unified programmatic offering. Media agency executive Robert Johansson joined Aftonbladet, the group’s largest Swedish tabloid, in August 2013 as yield manager to work on its RTB offering. Six months later, Schibsted decided to combine and centralize data from across its […]
Being a programmatic salesperson today means tacking between technical and personal considerations. At BBC Worldwide Americas, where programmatic sales channels comprise a full third of ad revenues, the technical end means experimenting with tactics like varying price floors per advertiser in order to maximize yield. “If an advertiser is consistently bidding $20 on our inventory, […]
Sports content consumption fluctuates – down in the offseason, then surging around major sporting events. How can a publisher manage? Gannett-owned USA Today Sports Media Group uses programmatic to pick up the slack. “Programmatic has allowed us to ride those ups and downs of premium sales,” explained Chris Pirrone, the general manager of Sports Digital […]
“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Grant Brown, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Rant. We’ve heard a lot about viewability lately, with the IAB, MRC, ANA and other industry leaders passing significant milestones last year to make viewability a reality. Viewability provides valuable […]
“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Samantha Price, director of ad products for The Weather Company. In 2001, the Sloan Management Review envisioned a bright future for “m-commerce” and a theoretical young consumer named Tommy. “His cell phone beeps: It’s […]
Jewelry and flower brands who briefly ramp up ad spend for Valentine’s Day love their private marketplaces. In early February, they set up private marketplaces with publishers who can provide the right audience and context. They test which sites yield conversions in the weeks before Cupid’s holiday and dial up the spend the final week […]
