Programmatic promoting is drifting away from open auctions and towards curated non-public marketplaces (PMPs).
This spells alternative for publishers – notably these with loyal audiences and powerful proprietary information units, in response to Dave Strauss, The Guardian US’s new VP of income operations and technique for North America. He joined in October.
PMPs “make sense as a purchaser,” Strauss informed AdExchanger. “You realize precisely what stock you’re shopping for, and the writer can apply focusing on on their facet with first-party information.”
However chasing PMP offers requires a extra sales-driven technique and schooling to foster a brand new method of working with programmatic companions, stated Strauss, who beforehand led income operations for Dotdash Meredith and Hearst.
Strauss spoke with AdExchanger about The Guardian US’s PMP priorities and the way it’s tapping into different rising income streams.
AdExchanger: What’s The Guardian US’s break up between programmatic and direct advert income?
DAVE STRAUSS: We’re fairly evenly break up. This trade is shifting towards PMPs, and that’s our greatest alternative. We’re under-indexed there.
Why are PMPs sizzling proper now?
Cookie deprecation. As cookies go away, patrons wrestle to successfully discover their audiences [through open auction buys], so that they’re slowing down that spend and trying to direct partnerships with publishers, which take the type of PMPs.
Direct spend will go up, too, however programmatic finances is shifting towards PMPs.
How are you leaning into the PMP alternative?
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We’re coaching our direct gross sales workforce. We don’t need only one programmatic specialist; we would like everybody to be an skilled. We don’t have a video vendor or a show vendor. You promote the complete bundle.
SSPs are nice companions and so they have big gross sales groups. They curate stock, create offers and promote these offers to businesses and direct to purchasers. We need to pitch their purchasers collectively.
How do you resolve which SSPs to prioritize?
We now have a whole lot of companions on the web page proper now. We wish fewer direct integrations however higher companions. We’re going via all of our SSPs to ensure they carry distinctive demand.
The Guardian reported 2024 income of $327 million, down 2.5% yr over yr. Was this on account of softness within the advert market?
We’ve seen CPMs drop for a brief time period, however our open public sale yield is up over 30% since October. North American revenues have been gaining each quarter this yr.
Programmatically, there was hesitancy to spend for [the two weeks prior to the election]. Individuals had been attempting to not overstimulate an already stimulated consumer base. Political advert spend was immaterial and never one thing we targeted on.
Are brand-safety distributors an issue for The Guardian US?
Model security just isn’t the dangerous man. I need us to see them not as one thing that makes us much less cash, however the reverse. We’ve been assembly with the main brand-safety corporations regularly. We wish them educating our gross sales workforce.
How dependent is The Guardian on Google for monetization?
Google is a powerful monetization associate. They’re additionally our advert server. [But] we’ve seen so much much less demand coming via Google’s pipes. I don’t know if that’s intentional, and so they’re beginning to deal with different areas of their enterprise. Perhaps different SSPs are simply getting higher.
Do you suppose any of the options floated by the DOJ within the Google advert tech antitrust trial could be helpful to publishers?
I’m a numbers man, so I simply need whoever bids essentially the most cash to win the impression, until it’s reserved for a direct marketing campaign. I can’t communicate as to whether something is unfair, however my solely hope for an final result is that nobody has a bonus and everybody has an equal taking part in area.
How dependent is The Guardian’s advert enterprise on third-party cookies?
Not very. Our direct advert enterprise is all first-party information.
From a programmatic standpoint, it’s nearly arduous for us to know. Patrons within the open market are in all probability utilizing third-party focusing on options, that are shifting to PMPs.
What are you doing to capitalize on the pivot to contextual focusing on?
Focusing on based mostly on content material is a large a part of our providing proper now, whether or not it’s takeovers on sections [of our site] or takeovers on key phrases. We’re constructing extra granular taxonomy options.
Is The Guardian contemplating a paywall?
We’re residing in a time when a whole lot of information and non-news publishers are placing up some sort of paywall. From a enterprise perspective, I don’t suppose it’s the precise mannequin, as a result of it doesn’t maximize income. And from an ethical standpoint, I don’t suppose it’s applicable for information organizations to be limiting who has entry.
The Guardian doesn’t have a paywall, however it does solicit contributions from readers. This yr, you netted $111.8 million from over 100 million contributors, up 8% YOY. How vital is that this income stream?
I’m not answerable for that space of the enterprise, however it’s immensely vital. This development demonstrates the worth of our customers. They’re dedicated readers who’re voluntarily donating their cash. They’re coming again a number of instances a month or a number of instances every week, lots of them regularly all through the day – and so they’re coming straight to our web site, not discovering us via social hyperlinks or different avenues.
Do you at the moment have any various IDs built-in?
Not but. We’re actively exploring. Nevertheless it’s difficult as a result of we’ve a world method and we’ve to respect worldwide legislation, particularly GDPR.
Affiliate marketing online was a precedence for The Guardian a decade in the past. Is that also the case?
We lately launched The Filter within the UK, which is a refreshed tackle commerce, product evaluations and affiliate content material. I’d like for us to essentially deal with that subsequent yr. Not solely does it present a brand new income stream, however now we’ve this lower-funnel providing and we’ll have first-party information based mostly on lower-funnel behaviors. There are additionally partnerships to be made with retail media networks.
We’re desirous to see how this check goes within the UK, and hopefully we’ll implement it [in North America] quickly.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
