Making sense of first-party data has become an industry talking point – but actually using publisher data in a way that attracts buyers is complicated.
About six months ago, Bustle Digital Group (BDG) started beta testing the Magnite Access suite of products, which includes a data management platform (DMP) that Magnite acquired from Carbon last year.
It’s the first time BDG has ever used a DMP, said Evan Pfeffer, the publisher’s VP of programmatic solutions.
The DMP is helping BDG target users it couldn’t reach before, he said, in addition to packaging BDG’s audiences into more granular intent-based segments.
Data-based segments
Magnite invited BDG to test Access as a beta partner for free thanks to their longstanding relationship. They’ve been partners since Magnite’s Rubicon days.
Before BDG used Access, it manually packaged its first-party data into audience segments using Google Ad Manager. The DMP has made that process faster and more automated, according to Pfeffer. BDG can now start pulling impressions for a particular audience segment within days of creating that segment. Previously, doing so used to take weeks, Pfeffer said.
The solution also lets BDG play to its strengths.
For example, BDG often pitches advertisers on its ability to reach parents through its portfolio of sites, including Scary Mommy, Fatherly and Romper. Now it can segment its parenting audience into more granular, interest-based segments, such as parents who buy diapers or parents of teenagers.
BDG places a pixel that allows Magnite to crawl BDG’s sites for contextual signals about page content and to track user behavior across domains, said Adam Soroca, chief product officer at Magnite.
The DMP also provides access to Magnite’s third-party data, Soroca said, which includes sources like LG’s automatic content recognition data, offline purchase information and demographic data provided by data brokers (which Soroca declined to name).
BDG doesn’t collect any demographic data on its users, Pfeffer said, so the DMP has enabled the publisher to slice its audience into age- and income-based segments for the first time.
Magnite’s third-party data also provides BDG with information on brand affinity it wouldn’t otherwise have, Pfeffer said. That allows it to create new intent-based audiences like auto intenders or segments of people interested in certain CPG products.
Demand and scale
BDG can also now categorize more of its traffic into segments based on user behavior.
For example, if BDG has identified a user as a frequent reader of mom content, but that user also reads video game content on its tech site, Inverse, the opportunity arises to target that person as both a mom and a gamer, Pfeffer said.
After integrating with Magnite’s DMP, Pfeffer said, the number of available impressions in BDG’s style and fashion segment increased significantly, though he declined to share specific numbers.
BDG is also seeing more demand after being included in private marketplaces that Magnite builds by pooling inventory across multiple publishers through their DMP integrations.
Doing more business through PMPs and direct deals and less through open auction will be how publishers take more control over monetization in the post-cookie era, Pfeffer said.
“I’m hoping that, once advertisers need to come to us for our data, our open exchange dollars shift to PMP, PG and direct,” he said.
