This week\u2019s Media Briefing polled media buyers on the role that verification firms like IAS and DoubleVerify play in the programmatic market, despite publishers\u2019 lamenting that they get the short end of the stick when it comes to brand safety. <\/p>\n
The key hits:\u00a0<\/p>\n
News publishers are increasingly frustrated with how much of a say verification firms like Integral Ad Science and DoubleVerify have in their programmatic advertising businesses. But for the advertisers and agencies buying that inventory, these firms play a necessary, though imperfect, role.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen there is a new technology [in] the marketplace, there\u2019s the behemoth that initiates the technology, and then someone comes in and perfects the technology. [This] is just one of those growing pains,\u201d said a media buyer who spoke on the condition of anonymity. \u201cWe swung the pendulum to an extreme\u201d where the technology was created to try and help advertisers find brand-safe and suitable environments, but now publishers are taking a hit, they added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Publishers including The Guardian and The Independent have said that data scraping performed by third-party verification firms creates slowdown in page and ad load times. When content is incorrectly flagged as not being brand-safe \u2013 in the publishers\u2019 opinion \u2013\u00a0 monetization decreases by nearly 30%, according to The Guardian\u2019s svp of advertising in North America, Luis Romero.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ultimately when asked if they thought the role of verification firms are critical in the open programmatic marketplace, all five media buyers who spoke to Digiday for this article said yes. When asked if the number of private marketplace (PMP) and programmatic guaranteed (PG) deals were increasing to circumvent some of the verification firms\u2019 input \u2013 something that publishers are working to sell more of in order to circumvent the issues caused by verification firms \u2013 the answer was a bit more nuanced.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs more and more brands are buying programmatic media, the role of verification will only grow in importance, as will the scrutiny of how the data is sourced,\u201d said Mike Tasik, director of media at advertising agency MMI. When asked if publishers\u2019 in-house brand safety and verification practices were appealing enough to shift the dollars from the open marketplace to PG deals or PMPs, he said, \u201cYes, but only if they\u2019re leveraging a verification tool that is universal versus a proprietary option.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
As it appears, verification firm data and the grades they assign publishers\u2019 content for brand safety, suitability, fraud and viewability is the common currency among media buyers operating in the open programmatic marketplace, and in their programmatic direct dealings with publishers as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe start to trust [verification firms\u2019] metrics as a currency [and] use verification data to pay [publishers] based off of [their] numbers,\u201d said a second media buyer who was granted anonymity in exchange for candor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Publishers have been trying to put more of the control back in their own hands. But buyers don\u2019t seem to be convinced.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo or three years ago, publishers like CNN and Fox News came to us and they had built their own brand safety and suitability solutions in-house, because they had the resources to do it,\u201d said another media buyer who was granted anonymity in exchange for candor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, these solutions were not enough to win over the buyer. Despite the publishers\u2019 best intentions for themselves and their advertisers, they said that this walled garden approach was unscalable and therefore unsustainable.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf every single publisher builds their own tools, we\u2019re now in an ecosystem where the brand has multiple currency discussions. It becomes very challenging for brands to sift through the clutter of that multicurrency conversation,\u201d the second media buyer added. \u201cI don\u2019t think we as buyers, especially in a digital space, want to divert from [the] current currencies\u201d for brand safety and suitability that are provided by entities like IAS and DoubleVerifiy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the idea that each publisher is able to define their own parameters for verification rather than using a universal model is concerning, Tasik argued, given that it puts more pressure on agencies to differentiate the publishers\u2019 standards from one another and how the quality of the data is ultimately impacted.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For other media buyers, the news category \u201crequires special attention\u201d and having a strong relationship with a specific publisher can make PMP and PG deals based on in-house verification data more appealing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the news, it\u2019s more about credibility and transparency of the news publisher. We know exactly where we\u2019re going to be [and because of that] maybe we [will] adjust our brand safety and suitability settings,\u201d said Molly Schultz, svp and group partner of digital investment and innovation at UM Worldwide. \u201cIf you have the ability and the resources within your team and the publisher is willing to have that conversation, I do think there\u2019s a scenario where you can potentially even get away from using brand safety tags and rely on your direct work with those partners.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In general, Schultz added that there is a gradual movement to the prioritization of PMPs and PG deals over the open marketplaces because those conversations give buyers \u201cmore control and peace of mind\u201d about where their clients\u2019 ads are running.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a publisher is putting a deal together, and they\u2019re applying their own safety settings, it\u2019s definitely worth considering. But if we\u2019re buying programmatically, we can apply additional settings [ from third-party verification firms on top of that]. So it really does come down to testing,\u201d said Melissa Ilardi, vp of media and strategy at Media Two Interactive.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ultimately, it comes down to the media buyers not relying on any singular verification firm\u2019s or publisher\u2019s data. \u201cAs buyers, it\u2019s definitely our job to not just set it and forget it, but constantly do our homework on the backend and make sure that we\u2019re comfortable with where our clients\u2019 dollars are being spent,\u201d Ilardi said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\u201cSomething we do too is clue the audience into what\u2019s about to come. On [videos that use TikTok\u2019s quote-tweet-style stitching feature] we\u2019ll often put the phrase \u2018stitch incoming\u2019 so that the audience knows that [they] might have seen this video already floating around the internet but we have something to add to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/em>\u2013 Stephanie Scrafano, NBC News\u2019 director of social platforms on the <\/em>latest episode<\/em><\/a> of the Digiday Podcast.<\/em><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The Rundown: Spotify\u2019s Stream On event<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Spotify, it seems, is following TikTok\u2019s playbook to get people to listen \u2014 and watch \u2014 more podcasts on its platform. The company yesterday unveiled a new TikTok-like feed \u2014 among other new, podcast-specific features \u2014 at its Stream On event held in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
Here are some other key details from the event:<\/p>\n
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- Spotify has more than 100 million podcast listeners.<\/li>\n
- Since launching the Spotify Audience Network (or SPAN, the ad network that allows podcasters to monetize their video and audio content) in 2021, monthly payout to opted-in publishers has grown by nearly 50%.<\/li>\n
- NPR is the latest publisher to join SPAN.<\/li>\n
- Soon, Spotify will allow listeners who subscribe to creators\u2019 Patreon accounts to listen to their exclusive content on the Spotify app.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Features to improve podcast discoverability<\/strong><\/p>\n
Spotify\u2019s new podcast subfeed will display previews of the \u201cmost engaging\u201d part of a podcast episode (determined by machine learning) as a user scrolls through the feed, Maya Prohovnik, vp and head of podcast product at Spotify, told Digiday. If the podcast episode has video, it will show that in the feed \u2013 if it doesn\u2019t, it will show an animated graphic or transcription of the episode.<\/p>\n
The idea is that these 30-second snippets will help listeners find new podcasts and help creators find new audiences \u2013 one of the biggest challenges for podcasters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Spotify will also now autoplay podcasts, so that after a listener finishes an episode it will play another based on that listener\u2019s preferences.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Push into video podcasts<\/strong><\/p>\n
Spotify is combining its podcast creation platform Anchor with its Spotify for Podcasters platform, so now all creators (not just the ones with shows hosted on Anchor) can upload video podcasts and add Q&As and polls to episodes. Megaphone, Spotify\u2019s hosting solution for publishers, will be integrated into Spotify for Podcasters in the future, execs at the event said.<\/p>\n
Spotify users will also have the option to switch between watching and listening to a podcast \u2013 similar to the feature YouTube announced a few weeks ago<\/a>. When asked if Spotify was competing for YouTube\u2019s dominance as the home for video podcasts, Prohovnik said the new tools are a response to the growth of video podcasts.
\u201cWe hear from both creators and listeners that they\u2019re starting to expect video,\u201d she said. \u201cMore and more [creators] are experimenting with it.\u201d \u2014 Sara Guaglione<\/em><\/p>\nNumbers to know<\/h2>\n
$10 million:<\/strong><\/a> The amount of money that Vice Media allegedly owes to tech consultancy Wipro, the latest in a series of vendors that are chasing non-payment fees from the digital publisher.\u00a0<\/p>\n
51%:<\/strong><\/a> <\/strong>The number of Gen Zers (aged 16- to 24-years-old) who pay for or donate to news publications, compared to 63% of younger Millennials (aged 25- to 31-years-old) and 67% of older Millennials (aged 32- to 40-years-old).<\/p>\n
10,000-plus:<\/strong><\/a> <\/strong>The number of employees that Gannett shed since its merger with GateHouse in 2019, representing nearly half of the 21,300 staffers that were employed by the company that year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
62%:<\/strong><\/a> <\/strong>The percentage of publishers who get at least a little revenue from affiliate commerce, up from 52% six months ago, according to a Digiday+ Research survey taken by 112 publishers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
3,774:<\/strong><\/a> The number of media jobs that were lost in 2022.<\/p>\n
What we\u2019ve covered<\/h2>\n
Podcasters hope to find new listeners on the YouTube Music app:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
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- Podcasters view YouTube\u2019s latest announcement to soon add podcasts to its YouTube Music app as an opportunity to find more listeners, according to conversations with four podcast executives \u2014 at a time when listenership has slowed.<\/li>\n
- But one podcast executive \u2014 who traded anonymity for candor \u2014 wondered what would stop a listener from switching to listening to a podcast on Spotify or Apple instead?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Read more about YouTube\u2019s podcasting ambitions <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n
The Washington Post offers bundle subscription with Headspace app:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
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- The Washington Post began offering a subscription bundle this week with the meditation app Headspace.\u00a0<\/li>\n
- It\u2019s an effort by the Post to market its recently expanded wellness coverage<\/a> to those that aren\u2019t frequent Post readers, and to increase its subscriber base.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Read more about the new subscription bundle <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n
\u2018A clean, unadulterated supply chain\u2019: The Trade Desk on a year into its OpenPath direct deals with publishers:<\/strong><\/p>\n
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- It\u2019s been a year since The Trade Desk started buying ads directly from some of the biggest publishers \u2014 a move it called OpenPath. And what a year it\u2019s been.\u00a0<\/li>\n
- OpenPath is not only being used by some of the most recognizable brands in publishing, it\u2019s also being used by some of the most visited ones too.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Learn more about OpenPath\u2019s first year of impact on the publishing industry <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n
A year on, The Trade Desk\u2019s Open Path is moving toward its goals, but challenges persist:<\/strong><\/p>\n
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- There are around 4,000 domains, including publishers, that are actively selling impressions to advertisers through OpenPath.<\/li>\n
- It\u2019s not the sort of scale that would normally set pulses racing but OpenPath has no intention of achieving that scale.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Read more about why publishers are or are not considering OpenPath <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n
Philanthropy-supported publishers are seeing an uptick in local, individual funders:<\/strong><\/p>\n
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- There is a continued trend of building philanthropic revenue streams for news publishers, both on the local and national scale.\u00a0<\/li>\n
- But a new and growing subset of the coalition is actually individual funders and local donors who are part of the Indiana community as well.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Learn more about publishers\u2019 philanthropic revenue streams <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n
What we\u2019re reading<\/h2>\n
The Washington Post\u2019s publisher is facing a conflict of interest:\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
Last month, four WaPo execs met with the Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel to discuss the possibility of the publication hosting a Republican presidential debate, reported Semafor. After said meeting, Post publisher Fred Ryan took a second meeting with McDaniel to discuss the same topic, but from his role as the chairman of the board of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation.<\/p>\n
Google and Microsoft will be hearing from publishers if AI chatbots keep scraping their content:\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
Search engine operators Google and Microsoft are going to be worsening the fight with media companies and their new AI chatbots are to blame, according to Insider. Publishers\u2019 content is turning up in the chatbots\u2019 responses without the permission of the publishers and now they want to figure out a way to be compensated for the use of their content.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Graydon Carter wants to return to print:\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
The former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter is planning to expand his digital, subscription-based magazine Air Mail into print as well as launch new editorial verticals, according to Axios.\u00a0<\/p>\n