Distribution Archives - Sovrn, Inc.

What You Should Know About Summer Seasonality

sovrnmarketing — Tue, 03 Jul 2018 17:16:39 +0000

While you prepare to enjoy the fourth of July, make sure to take some time and check in on your performance. Seasonality, one of the biggest factors in the ad tech industry, is in full swing and can be somewhat difficult to track. In order to help you understand your best ad serving options to combat seasonal swings, we’ve pulled together some data and tips for success that can make your holiday even more relaxing!

Back up… What does this mean?
Almost every year we see a ramp up in spend as we approach July 4th. Advertisers know that you can’t live without that new patio furniture or bbq grill for your much summer festivities. Then, right at the start of the second half of the year (July), buyer behavior changes while adjusting to new budgets. This, along with brands and agencies changing their budget allocation, results in low advertising spend and publishers tend to see a drop in fill rate.
Here is a typical representation of what we see this time of year.

*This is a symbolic curve, representing trends based off of real Sovrn data.
As you can see, spend starts to increase towards the end of the quarter, most notably in June. Here’s a closer look at July 4th.

To prepare for this industry shift, there are a few things you can do.

Adjust your price floors. In an industry where much is left out of your control, this is one thing you can do alone or with the help of Sovrn’s support team. With industry spend down and CPM floors in place for publishers, fill rates will decline, in turn causing your yield to drop. Lowering price floors to help encourage buying on your site can help mitigate this effect. Your CPMs may be lower, but by encouraging buyers in this way and monitoring your performance, you’ll be able to better maintain your yield (CPM * Fill Rate).
Utilize Viewability – Your most powerful asset. When spend is down, buyers want to spend their money on high-quality inventory and publishers want to find ways to mitigate revenue loss. Q3 is a great time to test new products like Viewable Engagement Time (Signal). Sovrn’s Signal technology allows publishers to leverage highly engaged readers by reloading existing ad units. Signal is purely additive and provides buyers with much more premium inventory.
Monitor your performance! Perhaps the most important, monitoring your performances allows you to make intentional, calculated decisions while adjusting your setup. Look for trends in revenue, impressions, and CPM. Prior to panicking, talk through your performance with your partners – they’ve seen this before and are here to help make changes that work for you!

If any questions, concerns, or comments arise, head over to The Sovrn Community to start a discussion or submit a case!

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Join Sovrn in Support of Net Neutrality

Sovrn Publisher Advocate — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 08:00:05 +0000

Updated Dec. 18, 2017

Sovrn is committed to supporting unique content from enthusiastic content creators online. Our business is built on solving problems for content creators, helping them make money, understanding their audiences and distributing their content.

The threat of changing Title II classification puts this at risk by allowing ISPs direct capabilities to block websites, slow sites down to give some sites an advantage over others, and split the internet into “fast lanes” for companies that pay and “slow lanes” for the rest.

Net neutrality is the single most important attribute of the internet. Allowing ISPs to control how we consume the internet is deeply concerning both philosophically and economically. The web is not owned by any one of us; it is shared by all of us. That is why net neutrality is so important.

How can you help?
FCC chair Ajit Pai presented a plan this year to gut net neutrality, and on December 14 the FCC voted in favor of that plan, ending FCC support for net neutrality. Congress, however, has oversight over the FCC and can slow this down or force the plan to be abandoned.

Join us by writing and/or calling your congressional representatives and senators, telling them you support net neutrality. The website Battle for the Net makes this process easy, providing emails, phone numbers and sample scripts.
Vital for publishers and users
In an opinion piece for WARC, Sovrn CEO Walter Knapp explains why net neutrality is so vital for publishers and internet users alike:

“Net neutrality allows smaller, independent publishers who are experts in their field and passionate about their subject area to create high quality niche content that can be accessed equally by all,” he writes. “If the 2015 regulations are reversed, a powerful few will be able to take control over how people consume, share and converse online. This is deeply concerning for the future of free speech.”

Additional resources

- Read Sovrn CEO Walter Knapp’s piece on “Why Net Neutrality Matters.”
- The best way to take action and show your support for net neutrality is to write and/or call your congressperson. The website Battle for the Net makes it easy to figure out who and what to say.
- On Tuesday, December 12, the group Fight for the Future is asking us all to help “Break the Internet.” Here’s how you can do it.

For even more background on the issue, check out Rand Fishkin’s Whiteboard Friday video on “Why Net Neutrality Matters for SEO and Web Marketing”:

Net Neutrality – Whiteboard Friday_1

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Video: What is Google AMP?

sovrnmarketing — Tue, 13 Sep 2016 17:58:29 +0000

Google AMP is short for the Accelerated Mobile Pages Project and it’s an open source initiative led by Google designed to make publisher’s content load fast on mobile devices. Sovrn has been involved with the project since last fall and we’re excited to be part of an effort designed to support independent publishers and the open web.

Google AMP overview

In short, Google Accelerated Mobile pages are special mobile-optimized pages built in a Google-created version of HTML. The pages are made to load instantly on mobile devices and show up as “cards” on the Google mobile search results.

How Google AMP is optimizing the mobile web

The key feature of Google AMP HTML web pages is that they are optimized for load speed and reader experience more than anything else. While the text content of the page loads instantly when a reader lands on the page, elements such as ads and images are not loaded until the exact moment they are scrolled into view.

How does Google AMP effect SEO?

It remains to be seen how much Google AMP will influence Google’s mobile search results, but we suspect it will have a significant impact, given how important load time is to SEO, particularly in the mobile-specific search signals. The AMP cards, however, are prioritized in search results and have been given premium positions at the very top of the page, right below the first two SEM ads. Because the cards feature large images and big headlines, they are much more likely to get clicked than a normal text-only search result.

Why now?

Taking the 30,000 foot view for a minute now, let’s discuss why Google is doing what they are doing and why publishers should be rooting for Google’s success. Ultimately it comes down to competition and choice.

Over the last few years, SEO dominance has waned as social has been an increasing source of traffic for publishers. As a result, publishers have been essentially seeding power to Facebook and away from Google and their own web pages.

While Facebook Instant Articles and Apple News are closed systems where publishers have less power over their content and fewer monetization options, the AMP project is designed to keep the web open. Many critics of Facebook’s Instant Articles and Apple News are bullish on Google AMP because of the openness of the project and Google’s efforts to bolster their search business and strengthen the open web.

One way AMP is more open is that publishers will have their choice of ad providers and will not be locked into using Google products as they are with Facebook Instant Articles and Apple News. AMP will also support subscriptions and paywalls.

Most content-rich publishers will be able to easily adopt AMP, but there will be some custom coding required.

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The Biggest Trend In Mobile Publishing

sovrnmarketing — Wed, 04 May 2016 22:21:41 +0000

There’s a new wave coming to the wide world of mobile publishing. As users move away from desktop to mobile, social platforms are beginning to dethrone SEO. Until now, mobile experiences have been subpar, which has lead the large content publishing platforms like Facebook, Google, and Apple to respond with simplified distribution to better engage their visitors.
Each company brings something a little different to the game. Facebook Instant Articles, Google AMP, and Apple News are the respective publishing platforms being promoted by each of these companies. Each one of these services were created with the mobile user in mind, streamlining the user’s content consumption experience.

Meet the Big Three in Content Distribution

Facebook Instant Articles

Instant Articles are a new way to share your content on Facebook. As the name implies, Instant Articles are a stripped down version of your web content that load almost instantly inside the Facebook app. Instant Articles supports all styles of articles, from news stories to long form pieces.

Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

The Google Accelerated Mobile Pages project, or Google AMP, is an open source initiative aimed to improve user experience for content viewed on the mobile web. Accelerated Mobile Pages are fast, streamlined and clean. AMP also supports advertisements without slowing down the page load time.

Apple News

Apple News is a mobile app that was launched natively in iOS 9. Much like AMP and Instant Articles, News articles are streamlined articles and stories that are optimized for performance and beautiful layouts. By publishing your articles on News, you can easily distribute your content to millions of Apple users.

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#asksovrn: How Can I Use Sovrn and AdSense Together?

Sovrn Publisher Advocate — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 21:41:51 +0000

As we’ve stated before, sovrn and AdSense make a killer combination. The best way to use them together is to have Sovrn pass back to AdSense, and publishers almost always make more money by using both than by using one or the other.

This video covers:

How to use AdSense to fill all unfilled ad requests and increase overall yield
CPM vs. RPM
The difference between Sovrn and AdSense’s advertisers
An explanation of why we love partnering with publishers using AdSense

Any questions? Reach out to us at support@sovrn.com.

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What is Google AMP, and How Will it Affect Independent Publishers?

sovrnmarketing — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 23:46:08 +0000

Accelerated Mobile Page (or AMP, for short) is Google’s open source initiative designed to improve the performance of the mobile web. With the 2015 launch of both Facebook’s Instant Articles and Apple’s News App, AMP is Google’s answer to the increasing demand for a fast and stream-lined mobile experience.

What’s unique about AMP is that it is built on existing web technologies, allowing publishers to host their own content and manage their own advertising while still providing an optimal mobile experience to their readers.

What is Google AMP and how does it work?

Accelerated Mobile Page is designed to load content lightning-fast. It does this in many ways, including allowing only asynchronous scripts, sizing all resources statically and keeping all third-party Javascript out of the critical path.

The result? An extremely lightweight web page that loads incredibly fast.

AMP is segmented into three separate parts. These include:
AMP HTML – HTML with custom AMP properties.

AMP JS – The AMP JS library stores resources for AMP users and custom AMP tabs.

AMP CDN – The AMP CDN is a proxy-based CDN that helps delivers AMP documents. Publishers aren’t required to use the AMP CDN.

What does AMP look like on a mobile screen?

AMP appears as a “cards” above the blue links in search results.

As you can see below, AMP helps publishers use rich media like image carousels, maps, social plug-ins, data visualizations and videos.

How will AMP affect mobile advertising?

AMP enables publishers to work with the mobile ad partners of their choosing as long as they don’t hurt user experience.

As stated on the Google blog, “Any sites using AMP HTML will retain their choice of ad networks, as well as any formats that don’t detract from the user experience. It’s also a core goal of the project to support subscriptions and paywalls.”

Essentially, the focus with advertising will be user experience first – keep it lean, fast, and pleasing to the eye.

How might AMP negatively affect publishers?

AMP’s longterm effect on publisher revenue and readership is still unclear. While Google hasn’t confirmed this explicitly, it seems that publishers who do not adopt AMP HTML will be penalized by Google in search results. In addition to an SEO hit, publishers who do not use AMP may also lose readers who prefer the fast and streamlined AMP experience.

How can publishers get started with Google AMP?

Any publisher will soon be able to adopt AMP. However, publishers will be required to do some custom coding when implementing AMP HTML onto their sites.

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Future of Online Publishing on Social Networks

Sovrn Publisher Advocate — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 21:47:34 +0000

John Battelle Interviews Ev Williams, CEO/Founder of Medium

Talk about a meeting of the minds! John Battelle (Wired, Federated Media, NewCO) sat down on stage to interview Ev Williams (Blogger, Twitter, Medium) and let’s just say that he left no stone unturned. Their conversation ranged from the future revenue strategy for Medium and their plans for bringing brands into the picture (Marriot is one of few brands already publishing on Medium today), the “dark arts” of Facebook and their monopolization of content distribution, right down to Williams’ personal reflections on the state of Blogger and Twitter since his departure.

Williams beat around no bushes when it comes to the challenges publishers are facing and will continue to tackle as Facebook and other platforms (perhaps Medium is in that mix now?) further encrypt their secrets to discovery. But while some of his postures were bleak at best – see Forbes article titled “Medium’s Ev Williams to Publishers: Your Website is Toast” – he was optimistic about the potential for publishers to share their voice and ideas through online content.

Williams also had a strong reaction to questioning from Battelle about the current advertising ecosystem.

Williams: Native ads are the only thing that can work. Other stuff hasn’t been a win-win especially for users. It’s on its last legs. I’m not saying you’re done. It’s not tomorrow. But everybody knows the banner on the web page is not going to be paying your bills in five years. Not a video or a takeover either.

Battelle: Isn’t there some value in connecting the right advertiser with the right group of people?

Williams: But Facebook will do that. It’s just not going to be on your website.

Yikes.

And my personal favorite moment from the interview…

Battelle: What do you think of Blogger as it is today?

Williams: It kills me… Blogger was the first company Google ever bought. They didn’t kill it. In that era, thousands of small companies went to big companies.. and got shut down. I appreciate that, though I was frustrated the whole time. But there was a period of a year after I left when it didn’t even have a product manager… even though it was the biggest site on the Internet.

Battelle: What’s going on with Twitter? Will it be fine?

Williams: …Everything’s going to be fine.

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What Facebook's Content Strategy Means for Publishers

kfagan — Mon, 20 Jul 2015 16:53:45 +0000

Lately, Facebook has been very active in the online advertising and publishing space, but are Facebook’s developments going to be a boon or bust for online publishers? Let’s examine how publishers can use Facebook’s latest efforts to their advantage, and what they need to look out for.
Recent articles by the New York Times and Fusion revealed that Facebook is a large source of traffic for publishers. As the most popular social network, Facebook is a powerful way for publishers to reach larger audiences, especially as it follows through with its plans to feature more content from publishers within its mobile app. The main gist of the argument is that hosted content will load quicker, thus resulting in a better reader experience.
Given that Facebook generated over $3.85 billion in Q4 2014, an ad-revenue sharing arrangement with Facebook looks very enticing. Who wouldn’t want even a small slice of that pie? It that weren’t enough, Facebook generates over 66 percent of its ad revenue from mobile advertising; something that publishers have mainly failed to replicate despite consumers’ shift from mobile to desktop.
With all these good reasons, it would be tempting for publishers to focus their efforts on Facebook. If reports are to be believed, Facebook is already in negotiations with The New York Times, Buzzfeed, and National Geographic to host their content directly in its platform, rather than redirecting readers to the publishers’ websites.
However, while publishers should make plans to take advantage of Facebook referrals and the ability to publish more content directly on that platform; publishers shouldn’t neglect direct traffic for two very good reasons.
Firstly, direct traffic represents a publisher’s most loyal and engaged audience, as can be seen in the following chart, which is from recent research from Chartbeat that compares visitor return rates by traffic source. As you can see, direct visitors are the most loyal. After all, they took the trouble to either memorize your URL or bookmark your site. Neglecting this audience segment to focus on referrals, who may only have a temporary interest, could be detrimental.

[Chart 1 – Site Visitor Return Rate by Referrer. Source: Chartbeat, Oct 2013)
For example, advertisers are increasing their use of engagement metrics—such as viewability, hover-over, and recall—to buy online advertising. The Financial Times, which is currently selling some ad units by time-spent on page rather than by impressions, is one very prominent example of this. By overlooking your most loyal audience, you risk reducing your overall engagement levels, which could negatively impact your ad revenue as engagement data becomes mainstream.

Secondly, because direct traffic represents your core audience, it’s also one of the richest sources of audience data, which publishers can use to make informed decisions about editorial content, marketing strategy, and to improve monetization. To this last point, being able to target ads by different audience segments is key to gaining higher CPMs and yield and also a great way to optimize your content. Buzzfeed is an excellent example of using data to improve its business. If too much traffic comes from Facebook and it becomes the dominant referrer, publishers will lose this data and a valuable connection to their readers.
As an indication of how valuable this data can be, Facebook’s latest patent is largely based around combining its social data with data provided by third parties, such as what articles people have read on a publisher’s website, to optimize content on both Facebook and external sites. This not only has applications for better user experiences, but may significantly improve its ability to target Native advertising and video – two very power and lucrative forms of advertising. Currently this data must be fed to Facebook, but how much easier would it be to collect this data if the articles were hosted directly on Facebook?
So how do publishers get the best of both worlds? While publishers should take advantage of Facebook’s mobile app for incremental traffic and revenue, they should also ramp up their multi-channel contact strategy, such as newsletters, top stories widgets or new content push notifications. This will help them to retain a direct link to their core audience, as well as encourage first-time referral visitors to come directly back to the site. Research from the IAB, which states consumers value apps for web discovery and that many links in apps lead to mobile web visits, points to this being a viable strategy until apps change the way they ingest 3rd party content.
In addition, to provide more value to their advertisers and protect their revenue, some publishers may decide to form co-operatives. By banding together, publishers can extend the reach and audience insight that they can offer advertisers, which would work well if the publishers share a mutual audience set or premium brands. A recent example of this is the Pangea Alliance, which was formed between the Guardian, CNN International, The Financial Times, Reuters, and the Economist—premium publishers whose audience is very much in the professional and financial space.
Interestingly, while early thoughts were that larger publishers would be immune to Facebook’s allure, recent developments and our research shows that smaller publishers may have more time to prepare for this issue than the Comscore 1000. According to data from sovrn’s network, Facebook currently drives a smaller percentage of total traffic to smaller publishers versus larger publishers. Until Facebook turns its focus, it seems readers tend to find the small- and mid-sized professional publishers on their own and access content directly from those sites. My advice to smaller publishers: use this time wisely to figure out what your Facebook strategy is going to be, particularly if you’re looking to grow your readership but want to protect your brand loyalty.

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