You know this Friday is going to be interesting, right? GDPR Vs Adtech: Starts in 4 days.
But, let’s focus on what-all happened in adtech last week.
Paywalls Vs Ads – Which Side Are You In?
Publishers have been running ads for years to generate revenue. Online advertising has evolved from a passive income to mainstream income for publishers with the help of several programmatic monetization methods.
“No single stream of alternative revenue will make up for the declines that we’re seeing in advertising,”
– Jim Norton, former chief business officer, Condé Nast
But publishers (meant premium) are willing to put a paywall instead of the sneakers shoe ads on their websites. Why?
There’s a common notion exists among the readers – “Ads aren’t better than anything”. Premium publishers took it seriously this time and started to invest in paywalls and getting digital subscribers. Besides, algorithm changes and privacy laws are lowering the revenue day by day.
On the other hand, mid-market and small publishers who aren’t capable of identifying the potential subscribers are left behind. Also, there’s no guarantee that the readers will pay $ to mid-market publishers.
Then, what’s the way out?
Capitalizing on the existing ad units. How can you do that?
- Make sure you employ advanced programmatic techniques such as Header Bidding (actually, it’s been years) and have sufficient demand partners to improve your CPMs.
- Try to experiment with different UI and see how it affects UX. Typically, lesser ad units and uninterrupted content work well. The way you place them matters more than you think.
- Enable ad refresh on your website, but make sure you satisfy advertisers with the metrics.
- Build an audience for your content. For instance, you can focus on developing software reviews as a major category and attract the audience. Then, you have higher chances of partnering with software companies for direct deals.
Finally, Google agrees to talk to publishers!
As per the report, Google has agreed to meet with a group of publishers (trade bodies) to discuss the concerns of its GDPR update. To be frank, publishers and pretty much everyone in the adtech industry has been worrying that this update will further solidify its dominance in digital advertising.
“We will continue to open our doors to our publisher partners to engage in these discussions on GDPR compliance”
– Google spokeswoman
What are the concerns?
Publishers need to obtain user consent on behalf of Google from the EU users so that Google can gather and process personal information. And, it wants to be a “Co-controller”.
Google hasn’t signed up to IAB’s GDPR framework that publishers may use to comply with the law. So, publishers are confused how two systems are going to work together. This also pushes the mid-market publishers to Google’s own CMP tool.
Google’s CMP tool ‘Funding Choices’ will limit the adtech vendors a publisher can work with to 12. And, it’s not available to everyone yet. Typically, a publisher works with dozens of vendors, not just 12.
Most importantly, why Google waited until the eleventh hour to make the update live.
What can we expect?
A clarification on Google’s CMP and it’s compatibility with IAB’s GDPR Framework.
Glossary – What is CMP and how does it work?
Amazon goes head to head with Google
Amazon has been known to chip away the duopoly dominance in digital advertising. As reported by eMarketer, Amazon growth rate in digital advertising was greater than anticipated and for the first time ever, it crossed US$2 billion in revenue last year.
Last week, Bloomberg reported that the Amazon is testing a new display ad tool (later this month) that directly competes with Google.
Display Ad tool?
It’s a tool that will allow the Amazon.com’s merchants to buy spots across the web to retarget the customers who’ve recently viewed similar products or left something in their carts. When clicked, it is expected to take the consumer back to Amazon. Merchants will only pay Amazon when a user clicks the ad.
The company is inviting selected merchants to test the tool. What are the Websites and Apps merchants can show their ads on is still an unanswered query.
But, Amazon is pretty serious about this product. Earlier this month, Amazon stopped using Google Sponsored Products on SERP. So, we’re sure it’s preparing for a grand release. By the way, firms like Criteo literally do the same thing (re-targeting shoppers) to earn revenue.
Podcasting – Publisher’s new pal.
We’ve already talked about the growth of podcast advertising and how listeners (62 percent of them) are ‘okay’ with the brand messages and advertisements that come along with podcast episodes.
26 Percent of all Americans listen to podcasts every week. They’re young, well-educated and have higher-than-average household income. Besides, they’re engaged and consume seven podcasts per week.
– Edison Research
Why is the space unexplored, then?
In a way, you’re right. Podcasting technology is still in its early days and has lagged for both consumers and advertisers.
On the consumer-end, Apple which attracts 65 percent of all listeners doesn’t allow users to discover new content easily. Giants like Spotify and Pandora are planning to implement machine learning algorithms to recommend and provide a seamless podcast experience to the end users. But they don’t have as many listeners.
Can’t we make it Programmatic?
It’s not in the priority for publishers. They’re concerned about the user experience and the quality of the brand messages. Also, as listeners download podcast episodes from RSS feed than streaming, real-time bidding is still a question.
One thing is certain. Podcasting publishers are going to attract more advertisers and brand partnerships in the near future.
Listen to the audio versions of Adtech Roundups here
At Automatad, we help publishers to monetize better without hampering the user experience. Our products are live across hundreds of publishers, earning them incremental ad revenue with every passing second. You can request a free audit to get an estimated revenue uplift today.
