The publisher plight and the importance of monetizing news content safely

By Dave Constantino, Vice President, Client Partnerships, Oracle Advertising

The media is covering news from more angles – and at more depth – than ever before. With the amount of content generated, it’s easy to see how the web has a life of its own with content branding out across industries and categories. Yet, in many cases, it can be hard to discern what is considered a critical piece of news content and what isn't.

Unfortunately, in the pursuit of safety and ensuring that their brand is viewed in a positive light, many advertisers are cautious, using rigid brand safety practices that often lead to over blocking. This type of behavior makes it challenging for publishers to bring important conversations to the fore. As a result, many advertisers sit on the sideline, as journalists explore the various facets of evolving news.

Early last year, the advertising industry experienced a pullback due to Covid-19 coverage. It illustrated the negative impact this can have on brands, publishers and the consumer experience in general. During this time, traffic to major US news sites jumped more than 50% compared to the same period the previous year. Yet there was no correlation between the increased visitor time and attention to increased revenue. This was due to the fact that advertisers were steering clear of any content referencing the virus.

The root of the problem lies in a “blocklist” approach – a simplistic brand safety tactic that stops ads from being served based on keywords appearing in URLs or adjacent content. According to news reports, “coronavirus” was the number-one term on industry blocklists, and more than three thousand advertisers have blocked ads from appearing near it.

There is a tremendous amount of opportunity for publishers to take more active control of their content strategy and move the conversation past the purely transactional. By offering curated inventory packages that are both contextually relevant and brand suitable, publishers are able to address advertisers’ brand safety concerns and provide advertisers with greater control over the audiences they are reaching and the content they are aligned with.

News content holds digital advertising’s future

The news will always have complexities and nuances, but over-restrictive blocklists impact both publishers and advertisers. According to GroupM, “There are simple ways to advertise in news without compromising brand safety, but to avoid hard news, or even bad news, flies in the face of the facts.”

Adapting to fast-paced news cycles requires you do the following two things:

1.) Take advantage of contextual intelligence

Evolve from the brand safety of yesterday to focus instead on understanding the context of the content surrounding the brand message. Contextual intelligence helps advertisers and publishers understand and evaluate billions of web pages and other digital content, so they can evaluate supply and identify brand-suitable environments for advertising based on overall page context or meta data, and not on a single word.

Edwin Wong, SVP of insights & innovation at Vox Media, notes: “When quality content is matched with people’s passions and interests, it creates a much richer picture of who the audience is, why they are there and what motivates them. When we do this right, we no longer base contextual targeting on just the individual, an individual action, or an individual piece of content, but on what our platforms deliver for the audience holistically. It changes the retroactive perspective of targeting and makes context targeting future-facing.”

2.) Implement meaningful ad measurement

Establish baseline metrics: Consistent monitoring and accounting for viewability, invalid traffic, and brand safety helps protect your advertisers’ brand dollars.

Life beyond verification: Connect your campaign to data sets that reveal meaningful impact so that attention becomes an outcome to pursue in tandem with traditional KPIs, such as viewability and verification.

Measure across channels: Publishers and platforms will look to brands to maintain consumer loyalty and trust in their expertise. This calls for both robust content and multichannel dissemination.

Evolve KPIs to gauge true engagement and impact: Innovative marketers who experiment with formats beyond traditional social media posts and editorial-style content learn more because verification alone won’t tell you about impact post view. As marketers seek further control over their ad spend and a better understanding of campaign efficacy, measuring advertising outcomes like consumer attention will become crucial.

When you move measurement beyond ad verification to attention, you’ll show advertisers how your inventory helps them drive success and hit their KPIs - a sure-fire way to keep them coming back for more.

Driving more revenue through agility

Changes to ad targeting, data collection and privacy regulations will continue to challenge the digital advertising ecosystem to evolve and bring new solutions to the market that support its future. The ability to stay agile and adapt to the changing industry will be critical for publishers. Increased collaboration across the ecosystem will provide not only innovation, but also an increased customer experience, and every stakeholder needs to rise to the occasion.