Hearst

Disney got some cash back in its pocket after the OpenAI deal fell apart – but the company still plans to lean into AI.

Atria’s collective approach is a response to growing monetization challenges and the need to protect the value of human journalism in the AI era.

Hearst is stitching together its far‑flung news properties into a single programmatic marketplace to simplify buying local news and shore up its business as the ad market shifts.

Big Tech seems overconfident their ad revenue growth isn’t tied to the economy; Microsoft AI launches a publisher licensing program; and the unique security vulnerabilities of Moltbook’s social media for AI bots.

The MRC’s auction transparency standards aren’t intended to force every programmatic platform to use the same auction playbook – but platforms do have to adopt some controversial OpenRTB specs to get certified.

Publishers can reach relevant audiences at scale and with greater specificity through Optable’s new planner agent.

YouTube backpedals on banning COVID and political misinfo; Tylenol pushes back against Trump’s claims that it causes autism; and Disney doubles down on linear TV and raises Disney+ prices after its Kimmel boycott threat.

Hearst has seen improvements in addressability between 30% and 200% since introducing AURA, its AI-powered ad targeting solution, last year.

Dave Strauss, VP of revenue operations and strategy for North America, spoke with AdExchanger about The Guardian’s PMP priorities and how it’s tapping into other emerging revenue streams.

In today’s newsletter: P&G boosts paid media budgets by 14%; why lower subscription prices aren’t enough to sustain the current rate of ad-supported streaming signups; and news publishers follow the NYT’s lead by using games to retain visitors.

2023 saw SPO become further cemented in the strategies of DSPs and SSPs for capturing market share. But the long-term trend might see SPO become the default for programmatic advertisers.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Disney’s Carriage Ride Disney and Charter resolved their cable carriage dispute on Monday, re-upping Disney-owned networks (namely, ESPN) to Charter’s 15 million subscribers. As part of the deal, Charter’s most popular cable package will include access to the ad-supported tiers of Disney+ and […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Begun, The Clone War Has The robots are taking over, and publishers are fighting back. A growing list of media outlets are attempting to stop AI bots from copying their content, CNN reports. Last week, The New York Times, Reuters and CNN led […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Google Gripe Google is refunding agencies for “billing discrepancies,” aka ads that ran in places where they weren’t supposed to, Ad Age reports. The refunds (which Google refers to as credits) closely follow the viral Adalytics report alleging that YouTube placed TrueView ad […]

After years of courting lower-funnel performance budgets – and charging on a cost-per-click basis – Outbrain foresees further growth in attracting upper-funnel spend. It’s doing so by giving brands a way to measure their return on investment in awareness campaigns by tracking whether people are actually paying attention to their ads.

A lot of ink has been spilled about the value of a publisher’s first-party data, but publishers can’t effectively monetize their data programmatically if they don’t have a standardized way to categorize it. On Monday, ArcSpan released Contextual APP, a data processing tool that enables publishers to structure their first-party contextual data into salable audience segments, including seller-defined audiences, using the IAB Tech Lab’s content and audience taxonomies.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Baby Steps Babylist began as a registry to combine a gift registry and services (like helping new parents by arranging dog walks) with an affiliate revenue model. Although the approach worked well, 85% of Babylist’s sales went to a single retail partner, CEO […]

Ad verification company DoubleVerify has been busy. It followed up its $350 million investment deal last month with a new tool designed to help advertisers take a more nuanced approach to brand suitability. And last week, DoubleVerify – long associated with the buy side – launched the DV Publisher Suite, which aggregates data on one […]

With Chrome bidding farewell to third-party cookies, publishers predict a steep rise in use – and value – of their first-party data. Media companies with their own audiences and direct-to-consumer relationships expect power to accrue to them. And many publishers already have a head start. With Apple’s Safari browser blocking cookies for about 30% of […]

Hearst is building a self-serve ad platform so advertisers can overlay their audience data against Hearst’s to reach readers across sites like Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Elle and Car and Driver. Designed for smaller advertisers, the platform – dubbed Hearst Audience Select – is slated to launch in time for Q4 ad campaigns. Audience Select will also […]

The IAB Tech Lab on Thursday released a new standardization system for third-party audience data and an auditing and credentialing program for data sellers. The effort to bring transparency to third-party data segments has “had a few lives” within the IAB, said Dennis Buchheim, the Tech Lab’s general manager. The longtime problem is that when […]

Hearst Magazines named Mike Smith as its first chief data officer Thursday. When Smith joined Hearst in 2013, he introduced programmatic to its sites and oversaw programmatic buying. As chief data officer, Smith will oversee data use in programmatic campaigns, branded content, direct sold campaigns, sales operations and editorial. “When Troy [Young] became president of […]

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 […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Zuck Abides Readers might be forgiven for thinking this has been a brutal year for Facebook, given the long string of scandals and investigations the company has faced. But in some important ways, Facebook is humming along as smoothly as ever, according to […]

 The magazine industry is consolidating in the face of multiple challenges. Rather than the newsstand, competition is coming from social platforms. Marketers want the performance advertising sold by key digital players. And as print circulation declines, magazines struggle to maintain the steady revenue from their direct-to-consumer subscription businesses. The CEOs and presidents of Condé Nast, […]

Welcome to AdExchanger Talks, a podcast focused on data-driven marketing. Subscribe here. The rollup of magazine media continues apace. Meredith’s acquisition of Time Inc, and Hearst’s buyout of Rodale have reduced much of the sector to just a few large companies. But the competitive set has if anything grown to include tech, digital publishers and “commerce + […]

As the value of publisher data surges, Adam Harris, VP of data products at Hearst Magazines Digital Media, is tasked with maximizing its opportunities. When Harris joined in May, he looked at how Hearst data can be used to create experiences that drive sales, which performance-focused advertisers demand from their digital media. The work builds […]

Although cable operators used to be the primary keepers of TV’s distribution and data pipes, the pendulum is swinging toward programmers and smart-TV providers. Addressable inventory is increasing, driven by a surge in smart-TV OEMs licensing their data directly and local TV companies adding data and automation to their sales mixes. Sorenson Media, which is […]

Major publishers like Hearst, Vice, Time Inc., The New York Times and Meredith have either built or acquired agency capabilities and content studios over the past few years to create synergies between their content and the brands that monetize it. Being owned by a publisher allows digital agencies to tap editorial expertise for engaging creative […]

Facebook is ramping up its publisher-centric strategy by testing a self-serve product powering programmatic direct deals called Audience Direct. In its first iteration, Audience Direct helps publishers sell their video inventory, giving them more control over how they structure direct deals and, eventually, how they guarantee delivery against them. “This enables them to create direct […]