Signal dynamic pricing floors proven to increase CPMs and programmatic revenue across multiple SSPs

BOULDER, CO – March 13, 2024 – Sovrn, a publisher technology platform that helps content creators earn and keep more revenue, today announced that Sovrn’s Signal product has proven to deliver a 10% revenue uplift. Over a 90-day period starting in December 2023 across 8 billion auctions, with publishers representing 190 domains, testing proved that Signal delivered an unmatched ability to create higher yields, increased CPMs, and greater programmatic revenue across multiple SSPs.

Results included:

• 10% revenue increase across all programmatic channels throughout the testing period.
• Increased yield across all ad units versus the control group.
• Steady revenue uplift even amid traffic spikes, dips, and cyclical demand trends.
• Yield increase across all programmatic channels, including in Google AdX.

Signal measures the attributes of a bid request and sets the optimal price, then broadcasts and routes it via multiple SSPs to buyers most likely to bid at the estimated market price. Available through a free, 21-day trial, Signal is a simple software solution, priced at a one-cent CPM impression fee. In addition, publishers have the option to bundle the Sovrn Ad Exchange to receive a zero percent take rate on impressions sent through the Sovrn Exchange. Signal is currently available for Prebid activation, with future versions offering dynamic pricing within Google Ad Manager (GAM) and Amazon Transparent Ad Marketplace (TAM).

Two publishers involved in the testing, Mumsnet and Daily Voice, each saw significant overall revenue increase. Mumsnet, the go-to online community for UK parents with eight million unique users, realized a 21% yield uplift when a floor was present. Similarly, Daily Voice, a digital news platform reaching over two million unique monthly users, also saw a 20% yield uplift. 

“A better understanding of our first-party data assets and their value has been the key to unlocking yield success” said Nino Stylianou, head of programmatic yield at Mumsnet. “So many factors play into the challenges of dynamic pricing, which is why we partnered with Sovrn to help us with the heavy lifting. We’re thrilled to continue to strengthen our collaboration with Sovrn, allowing us to elevate our pricing strategies and face the future head-on.”

At its core, Signal is a data decisioning engine that enriches a publisher’s first party data in a privacy-compliant manner with intelligence and insights from the Sovrn Data Collective, the largest source of privacy compliant, open-web behavior data in the world, to understand and generate maximum value from every advertising transaction. Signal is a plug-and-play solution, allowing publishers to capture and activate page-level data without changing their Prebid settings or making any ad server modifications. 

“At Sovrn, we are always looking for opportunities to help publishers capture higher revenue from their quality content, which is why we created Signal in the first place,” said Babac Vafaey, vice president of data products at Sovrn. “By embedding robust data intelligence into dynamic pricing, we help publishers maximize their earnings across every programmatic channel and with all their SSP partners in the ad stack.”

Learn more about Signal dynamic pricing and how to get started with a free trial.

About Sovrn

Sovrn provides products and services to thousands of online publishers to help them understand, operate and grow their business. Sovrn is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, with offices in New York, San Diego, and London.

With thousands of customers deploying advertising, affiliate commerce, and data products across more than 50,000 websites, Sovrn reaches 500 million active consumers across more than 40 billion page views every day. Sovrn has been a leader in online publisher technology since its founding, and has been recognized by IAB, JICWEBS and TAG for its role in combating fraud and promoting pro-transparency initiatives. Sovrn is dedicated to helping content creators do more of what they love, and less of what they don’t. www.sovrn.com 

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Industry veteran and Criteo alum to helm the company’s Exchange product strategy, driving innovations for publishers and demand partners that result in greater efficiency, decisioning and value

BOULDER, CO – January 3, 2024 – Sovrn, a publisher technology platform that helps content creators earn and keep more of their revenue, today announced that Isaac Schechtman has joined as its Vice President of Product, Ad Exchange. Based out of the company’s New York City office, Schechtman is responsible for evolving the Ad Exchange’s product strategy and leading go-to-market efforts that result in adoption and revenue growth. He adds extensive in-market knowledge of the coming effects from cookie deprecation and an identity-less future, plus a robust industry network, to the team.

“Isaac knows this space as well as anyone, and, with his experience working on the supply and demand sides of the market as well as participating in industry standardization groups, he will play a critical role in evolving our Ad Exchange,” said Sovrn Chief Product Officer Brian Bouquet.

With over 15 years of advertising and marketing technology experience, Schechtman has a holistic view of the digital advertising ecosystem, having worked across the industry landscape in both technical and business capacities. His deep understanding of identity and addressability, gleaned from engagement with industry working groups, and as an instrumental member of Google’s Privacy Sandbox and its Protected Audience API efforts, ensures that Sovrn continues to help publishers drive maximum value from their data and editorial content even as third-party cookies are removed.

“We are going into a year that is likely to be one of the most tumultuous times in ad tech over the last decade,” said Schechtman. “With its data assets and strategic acquisitions made over the last several years, Sovrn is extremely well-positioned to help publishers and DSP partners to navigate the challenges that lie ahead. I am excited to bring my expertise to bear on these challenges and to have a hand in providing solutions that deliver positive impact in the real world, beyond the privacy sandbox.”

Schechtman comes to Sovrn from Criteo, where he served as senior director of technical solutions. At Criteo, Schechtman was responsible for managing all go-to-market product activities, including industry alignment and compliance accountability, and for driving identity strategies for the BidSwitch platform and its various products. He joined Criteo following the acquisition of IPONWEB, an AI, data and engineering company specializing in programmatic advertising technology, where he held the position of VP, head of product and solution engineering, and was actively involved in facilitating its acquisition by Criteo. During Schechtman’s tenure at IPONWEB, he managed the launch of TruePrice, a bid shading technology for better performance in first-price auctions. In addition, he developed and brought to market two unique products: Deals Center, a holistic platform for deal discovery, forecasting, set-up, activation, troubleshooting and enrichment; and LiteSwitch, a standalone smart traffic shaping tool.

Schechtman has worked at some of the industry’s best-known companies, including BidSwitch, OpenX and Acxiom. He has spoken at several major conferences, such as AdMonsters and IAB Tech Lab, on topics including the cookieless future, transparency and the overall programmatic supply chain. Schechtman is also a member of Prebid.org, an independent organization that promotes fair and transparent header bidding across the industry, and W3C, the international standards organization for the World Wide Web.

Schechtman’s hire comes on the heels of a monumental year for Sovrn and the product and Ad Exchange teams. Last fall, the company announced that all private-marketplace deals transacted through the Sovrn Ad Exchange are 100% made-for-advertising (MFA) free, ensuring that the highest quality content creators are financially incentivized and assuring media buyers their ad spend attains a better return on investment. Sovrn also announced a zero take rate for its bundled Ad Management and Exchange offering, which has achieved significant increase in yield for publishers and improved efficiency for buyers in its first six months on the market.

For more information on Sovrn and its product offerings, please visit www.sovrn.com. 

About Sovrn

Sovrn provides products and services to thousands of online publishers to help them understand, operate and grow their business. Sovrn is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, with offices in New York, San Diego, and London.

With thousands of customers deploying advertising, affiliate commerce, and data products across more than 50,000 websites, Sovrn reaches 500 million active consumers across more than 40 billion page views every day. Sovrn has been a leader in online publisher technology since its founding, and has been recognized by IAB, JICWEBS and TAG for its role in combating fraud and promoting pro-transparency initiatives. Sovrn is dedicated to helping content creators do more of what they love, and less of what they don’t. www.sovrn.com 

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Respected executive and entrepreneur with years of experience in commerce and identity will lead Commerce growth for publisher, merchant and affiliate network clients

BOULDER, CO – November 28, 2023 – Sovrn, a publisher technology platform that helps content creators earn and keep more of their revenue, today announced that it has hired Carla Holtze Cell as its first-ever Managing Director of Commerce. In this new role, Cell will be responsible for setting the strategy and executing the go-to-market plan for Sovrn’s suite of commerce products. She will report directly to Chris George, President of Sovrn. 

“Commerce is an important growth area for publishers who are focused on diversifying their advertising businesses. At Sovrn, we uniquely bring together commerce, advertising, and data solutions, creating powerful opportunities to help our customers grow,” said George. “Bringing Carla on board positions Sovrn to accelerate its innovation in the commerce space in ways that will benefit our partners. With her strong background in data and commerce, Carla brings the ability to develop holistic solutions for publishers that truly leverage each aspect of their business and we couldn’t be more excited to have her on our team.” 

Much of the commerce space has proven to be overly complex and inefficient for publishers, making it difficult to form strong relationships with merchants and deliver dynamic, relevant and engaging shoppable content that drives revenue for both publishers and retailers. Sovrn Commerce is a reimagined solution that provides the freedom and control content creators need to efficiently manage their affiliate business through a simple, scalable all-in-one solution that allows them to understand, influence, and monetize the purchase behavior of their audiences. 

Cell will lead the commercial team to not only drive revenue, but to also work closely with the product team to launch new software products and reporting tools into the market, which will ultimately help each publisher’s bottom line. She will work with a number of customers across the publisher, merchant and affiliate networks, including publishers such as DotDash Meredith, Bauer Media and Zola, and merchants and affiliate networks such as Walmart, Nike, Wayfair, Macy’s, Rakuten, and more. 

“Sovrn has long been a company I have known and respected. I am aligned with its mission to be an ecosystem that supports the breadth of digital publishers — from premium publishers and platforms to independent influencers and content creators,” said Cell. “Specifically in affiliate commerce, I strongly believe that if you inspire content as a publisher, you deserve to be rewarded, and that’s exactly what I am setting out to do at Sovrn. There is much room for innovation, creativity and data for publishers to further capitalize on their content, and I am beyond excited to be a part of solving that problem for our customers.”

Cell comes to Sovrn after co-founding Parrable in 2014, a digital identification SaaS company, where she served as CEO for nearly a decade. In this position, she led all aspects of the business, including the creation and launch of a patented identification technology to replace third-party cookies, enabling transparency, accuracy, targeting and attribution. An entrepreneur at heart, Cell also co-founded and served as CEO for Have to Have, a social commerce platform designed to drive monetization for publishers, ROAS for merchants and to gather rich customer intent data for enhanced retargeting. She also worked at the BBC, The Economist Intelligence Unit and began her career at Lehman Brothers in both New York and Hong Kong.

To learn more about Sovrn Commerce, please visit sovrn.com/commerce. 

About Sovrn

Sovrn provides products and services to thousands of online publishers to help them understand, operate and grow their business. Sovrn is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, with offices in New York, San Diego, and London.

With thousands of customers deploying advertising, affiliate commerce, and data products across more than 50,000 websites, Sovrn reaches 500 million active consumers across more than 40 billion page views every day. Sovrn has been a leader in online publisher technology since its founding, and has been recognized by IAB, JICWEBS and TAG for its role in combating fraud and promoting pro-transparency initiatives. Sovrn is dedicated to helping content creators do more of what they love, and less of what they don’t. www.sovrn.com  

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Zero take-rate coupled with a direct supply path drives 16% higher share of ad spend to publishers 

BOULDER, CO – November 6, 2023 – Sovrn, a publisher technology platform that helps content creators earn and keep more of their revenue, today announced that testing with more than 100 publishers proved that its bundled offer of Ad Management and Exchange products together, which offer a zero take-rate and direct-to-demand path, boosted revenue for publishers while increasing efficiency for buyers. Test results showed an average increase of 16% in the publisher’s share of advertising spend, driven by an average 35% increase in publisher’ revenue earned through the Sovrn Exchange — the direct supply path.

First announced in March, the bundled solution delivers higher net revenue to publishers, while also unlocking greater demand from buyers.

“Today’s programmatic marketplace is unnecessarily complex,” said Walter Knapp, CEO, Sovrn. “By eliminating the take rate through Sovrn’s Ad Management + Exchange bundle, publishers make and keep more money. It’s more efficient for buyers, incentivizing them to spend more through the Sovrn channel. The result is a simple, uncomplicated way to make sure publishers get more of what they deserve.”

The latest analysis covers 105 Ad Management publishers, including ClassicCars.com, JamieOliver.com, Ask Media Group, and others, and proved there is demonstrated value in coupling a zero take-rate with direct demand by improving efficiency for buyers and increasing yield for publishers. The testing confirmed that doing so creates a more competitive auction environment, leading to a higher allocation of advertising spend and higher bids transacted through the Sovrn Exchange. This resulted in Sovrn ranking as the second-highest performing exchange for publishers, behind only Google’s AdX, when measured across the entire network of publishers. 

“Moving to a SaaS model for programmatic transactions not only removes revenue share fees from the auction but delivers much-needed transparency to both the sell side and buy side,” said Sam Youn, VP of Programmatic at Chegg and member of Sovrn’s Ad Management Steering Committee. “Variable rev shares may benefit a particular supply-side platform in an individual auction, but ultimately obfuscates the true value of inventory for buyers and publishers. In a SaaS model, buyers know 100% of their budget goes to working media, and publishers understand the true market value of their inventory.” 

With proof that bundling Sovrn Ad Management and Exchange together delivers clear revenue benefits for publishers, while improving efficiency for buyers, Sovrn is now making this bundling option widely available. To learn more, please read the case study.

About Sovrn

Sovrn provides products and services to thousands of online publishers to help them understand, operate and grow their business. Sovrn is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, with offices in New York, San Diego, and London.

With thousands of customers deploying advertising, affiliate commerce, and data products across more than 50,000 websites, Sovrn reaches 500 million active consumers across more than 40 billion page views every day. Sovrn has been a leader in online publisher technology since its founding, and has been recognized by IAB, JICWEBS and TAG for its role in combating fraud and promoting pro-transparency initiatives. Sovrn is dedicated to helping content creators do more of what they love, and less of what they don’t. www.sovrn.com

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Publisher-first approach aims to deliver safe inventory while providing a path to quality

September 19, 2023 – Boulder, CO – Sovrn, a publisher technology platform that helps content creators remain independent and thrive on the open web, today announced its “publisher first” approach to tackling made-for-advertising (MFA) sites in its inventory, effectively ensuring that all private-marketplace deals transacted through the Sovrn Ad Exchange are 100% MFA free.

Working with Chris Kane, Founder of Jounce Media, Sovrn has created a framework to audit and assess its publisher inventory on an ongoing basis to dynamically pinpoint and remove sites that meet Jounce’s MFA classification criteria. These changes assure media buyers that their ad spend through Sovrn’s private deals deliver a better return on investment against key business outcomes and confirms its commitment to solving for sustainability and quality while eliminating waste and inefficiency. Futhermore, Sovrn’s attention-based deals allow advertisers to target highly engaged inventory, resulting in a three times higher response rate.

“Sovrn’s decision to block MFA inventory by default from all private marketplaces does not just serve buyer interests. It also rebalances revenue toward the most premium publishers,” said Chris Kane, Founder of Jounce Media. “The long-term durability of the open internet requires ad tech platforms to create incentives that financially reward the highest quality content creators, and this is exactly what Sovrn is doing.”

In addition, Sovrn has built into its framework a way to identify former MFA publishers who are making investments to rebuild their businesses around organic traffic. Rather than enacting a ban on sites identified as MFA, Sovrn is committed to providing programmatic tools and data insights — including ad performance and CPM data, benchmarking analytics, and audience engagement — that deliver an objective view of the opportunities and incentives for publishers to reconsider their business practices.

The release of ANA’s supply chain transparency study has shone a spotlight on how suspect inventory can hijack and divert targeted media spend by taking advantage of the complexity of the open web programmatic marketplace. Not only does an unnecessarily complex system that relies on trading and reselling ad space, rather than on transparency and directness, drain revenue from publisher pockets, it decreases advertisers’ return on spend — and most of all — makes the consumer experience miserable. However, since establishing direct relationships with every ad buyer isn’t feasible for all but the largest open web publishers, Sovrn is focused on creating a more transparent system that delivers the right checks and balances for buyers while ensuring independent publishers drive value from their most important asset: their content.

“Our goal at Sovrn is to add value to the advertising supply chain for both sellers and buyers,” said Walter Knapp, CEO of Sovrn. “Sovrn takes a long-term approach to building and developing relationships and making sure that independent publishers thrive by providing tools, support, and data to help them fully monetize their quality supply.”

About Sovrn

Sovrn provides products and services to thousands of online publishers to help them understand, operate and grow their business. Sovrn is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, with offices in New York, San Diego, and London.

With thousands of customers deploying advertising, affiliate marketing, and data products across more than 50,000 websites, Sovrn reaches 500 million active consumers across more than 40 billion pageviews every day. Sovrn has been a leader in online publisher technology since its founding, and has been recognized by IAB, JICWEBS and TAG for its role in combating fraud and promoting pro-transparency initiatives. Sovrn is dedicated to helping content creators do more of what they love, and less of what they don’t. www.sovrn.com  

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Collaborative effort aims to optimize ad ops yield at scale

June 6, 2023 – Boulder, CO – Sovrn, a publisher technology platform that helps content creators remain independent and thrive on the open web, today announced the launch of a new steering committee to collaboratively tackle the challenges publishers face in efficiently optimizing programmatic ad operations and yield at scale.

Composed of leading publishers such as Ziff Davis, LoveToKnow Media, and Publishers Clearing House, among others, the committee’s mission is to provide a roadmap and guidance to prioritize development of new tools, processes and technologies that deliver the products they need from their ad tech partners to maximize ad operations efficiency. 

“I am excited to be part of Sovrn’s steering committee,” said Mark Obermoller, Senior Director of Programmatic Strategy for Ziff Davis. “Not only can Ziff Davis help influence the development of key products that better align with our strategic objectives, but we can also help positively impact the broader industry.”

The digital media advertising industry is at a significant crossroads. With rapid technology advancements, shifts in consumer behavior and tighter data privacy regulations, the landscape publishers and advertisers must navigate is transforming at an unprecedented pace. To remain nimble and ensure profitability for the long haul, publishers need simple yet robust tools that drive the greatest value from their content and audience engagement. 

Over the next 12 months, the steering committee will focus on unlocking seemingly intractable issues such as addressability, first-party data deployment, marketplace development, yield management and robust data insights. The group will work with the Sovrn Ad Management team to explore and extract the functionality delivered with the Ad Management platform, including its efficient management of programmatic ad operations and yield across hundreds of websites, in order to innovate new solutions for publishers who require control over their owned and operated media properties.

“At Sovrn, we believe that the challenges confronting publishers can be better addressed through collaboration and shared insights,” said Peter Cunha, Managing Director of Sovrn Ad Management. “Our intention with this steering committee is to create a platform for shaping the future of our ad operations software, and more importantly, to engage our customers and partners in ways that foster an environment of collaboration that benefits the industry as a whole.”

About Sovrn

Sovrn provides products and services to thousands of online publishers to help them understand, operate and grow their business. Sovrn is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, with offices in New York, San Diego, and London.

With thousands of customers deploying advertising, affiliate marketing, and data products across more than 80,000 websites, Sovrn reaches 500 million active consumers across more than 40 billion pageviews every day. Sovrn has been a leader in online publisher technology since its founding, and has been recognized by IAB, JICWEBS and TAG for its role in combating fraud and promoting pro-transparency initiatives. Sovrn is dedicated to helping content creators do more of what they love, and less of what they don’t. www.sovrn.com  

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Digital publishing industry veteran to lead company’s next stage of strategic growth

April 24, 2023 – Boulder, CO – Sovrn, a publisher technology platform that helps content creators remain independent and thrive on the open web, today announced that Chris George has joined the company’s leadership team as its President. George, most recently the Chief Operating Officer at Vox Media, has more than two decades of leadership experience in the digital publishing industry managing strategy and revenue generation across marketing, sales, product and business operations. 

George brings a wealth of experience to his remit of leading Sovrn’s commercial team, having helped shape pioneering brands, such as The Verge, The Dodo, New York Magazine, and PopSugar, into category leaders. His proficiency in multiple sources of publisher revenue — including advertising, commerce affiliate, subscription and licensing — spans digital media, social media platforms, advertising products and analytics, and media buying for both startups and established companies. 

In his new role, George will partner with CEO Walter Knapp and the executive leadership team to set direction for the commercial organization to amplify and drive greater uptake of its robust yet simple publisher platform, and to build and bring to market solutions that surpass competing alternatives.

“I am thrilled that Chris is joining the Sovrn team,” said Knapp. “His deep understanding of the pain points publishers face today will bring a sharp focus onto our goal of continuing to deliver solutions that help our customers grow and thrive in a very challenging environment.”

Prior to his tenure at Vox Media, George was the Chief Operating Officer at Group Nine Media (acquired by Vox Media in February 2022), where he led  business operations, product development, and audience growth for Group Nine’s portfolio of brands. George also served as the executive sponsor of the employee resource group dedicated to supporting Black employees at Vox Media and Group Nine Media. Previously, George was EVP of product marketing and sales strategy for PopSugar, where he brought to market several notable product launches, including The Bakery, its full service creative shop; TrendRank, a predictive marketing tool; and Sparkle, a mobile commerce product. He has also held management positions at SpinMedia, Fox Interactive Media and Foote Cone Belding where he led accounts such as Hewlett-Packard, SEGA, and LucasArts into the emerging world of digital marketing. George holds an advertising degree from Michigan State University. 

“I’m passionate about Sovrn’s mission to help publishers thrive on the open web,” said George. “Sovrn has the unique ability to take on the heavy lifting required for a publisher to operate a diversified business, so they can focus on high quality storytelling. I’m excited to bring my experience to help the company continue to deliver must-have products that solve many of the challenges publishers face today across advertising, commerce and data.”

About Sovrn

Sovrn provides products and services to thousands of online publishers to help them understand, operate and grow their business. Sovrn is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, with offices in New York, San Diego, and London.

With thousands of customers deploying advertising, affiliate marketing, and data products across more than 80,000 websites, Sovrn reaches 500 million active consumers across more than 40 billion pageviews every day. Sovrn has been a leader in online publisher technology since its founding, and has been recognized by IAB, JICWEBS and TAG for its role in combating fraud and promoting pro-transparency initiatives. Sovrn is dedicated to helping content creators do more of what they love, and less of what they don’t. www.sovrn.com  

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Results show a greater than 60% increase in bid win rate when Ad Management and Ad Exchange used together 

March 27, 2022 – Boulder, CO – Sovrn, a publisher technology platform that helps content creators remain independent and thrive on the open web, today announced that all customers using its Ad Management and Exchange products bundled together will have the advantage of the industry’s first zero take rate. Beginning on April 3, publishers using Ad Management and Exchange products bundled together will simply pay a usage-based fee.

According to a recent study by ISBA, only 65 percent of advertiser dollars make it back to the end publisher. Sovrn has created a direct path between a publisher and the more than 55 demand-side partners on the Sovrn Exchange. This immediately increases the revenue for its Ad Management customers. A direct zero take-rate path between publisher and demand ensures a more competitive auction by requiring other bidders, including Google’s AdX, to increase their prices in order to remain competitive.

“Most SSPs charge a 10 to 20 percent revenue share for connecting publishers like Salon to DSPs,” said Justin Wohl, Salon’s Chief Revenue Officer. “In bundling its Ad Management service with its Exchange, Sovrn is directly increasing revenue for publishers, improving profitability that can be pumped back into operating and growing our digital media businesses.”

Starting in December 2022, Sovrn tested the savings and revenue impact of a bundled Ad Management and Ad Exchange solution with 20 publishers. The test revealed that marketers allocated more spend to the publisher via the more efficient direct-to-publisher Sovrn Exchange path. 

Sovrn’s Ad Management product includes complete ad operations software plus a highly skilled, dedicated team of programmatic advertising specialists to help publishers do more with less. The software runs a unified page-level auction, offering individual auctions for each ad placement on the page. This improves advertising yield by utilizing bid responses more efficiently, thus requiring fewer bid responses and a more direct path. 

Sovrn’s Ad Exchange delivers advertising revenue to publishers using private marketplaces and enhanced CPMs through the open market. Connections to the biggest and best advertising demand gives publishers access to a wide variety of buyers, from The Trade Desk to niche ad agencies.

“We are working to eliminate the ‘adtech tax’ so that more of the marketer’s dollar finds its way into the publisher’s pocket.”  said Walter Knapp, Sovrn CEO. 

About Sovrn

Sovrn provides products and services to thousands of online publishers to help them understand, operate and grow their business. Sovrn is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, with offices in New York, San Diego, London and Lugano, Italy.

With thousands of customers deploying advertising, affiliate marketing, and data products across more than 80,000 websites, Sovrn reaches 500 million active consumers across more than 40 billion page views every day. Sovrn has been a leader in online publisher technology since its founding and has been recognized by IAB, JICWEBS, and TAG for its role in combating fraud and promoting pro-transparency initiatives. Sovrn is dedicated to helping content creators do more of what they love, and less of what they don’t. www.sovrn.com  

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September 13, 2022 – Boulder, CO – Sovrn, a publisher technology platform that empowers content creators to remain independent and thrive on the Open Web, announced today new results from Sovrn Signal that demonstrated a doubling of deal revenue for participating publishers. In addition, advertising inventory enhanced by Signal was up to two times more likely to accurately predict how long a user would engage with a given ad.

In partnership with more than 175 independent publishers, Signal generated billions of targeted, actionable audience and inventory segments across viewability, attention, interest and intent. These segments were delivered to the ad auction via the Sovrn Ad Exchange’s private marketplace in real time across a core of 1,500 domains, offering participating buyers’ multiple options to better optimize their ad spend.

“The challenge for publishers today — and especially tomorrow — is how to better expand and communicate the value of our audience data at scale to advertisers,” said Marc Boswell, Chief Revenue Officer of LoveToKnow Media. “Having the right tools and partners opens up a hugely powerful opportunity for publishers, especially smaller ones, to capture more revenue and have any form of impact in the future.”

Today, publishers using Prebid can request free access to Signal to unlock, in a cookieless-environment, greater on-page attention and engagement to effectively segment and scale inventory and audience segments. They can then broadcast enhanced impression information and price recommendations to buyers through Sovrn’s Ad Exchange private marketplace to increase CPM value. The paid version of Signal extends this functionality to other supply-side providers (SSP) and demand channels.

In addition, publishers using Signal can tap real-time insights to benchmark how their ad inventory CPM compares to the market, adjust their pricing strategy accordingly and drive greater revenue per user visit. Sovrn’s recent “Advertising Performance Benchmark Report” showcases this technology, offering current, accurate and reliable benchmark data for the first half of 2022 and analysis into how much buyers will pay for ads and how rates are affected by industry trends and economic factors.

Further, Sovrn is rapidly adding capabilities so publishers can unlock greater insights into reader engagement and to curate, package and expand their addressable audiences. This will allow publishers to identify, target and price their most valuable inventory, increasing their eligibility for deals across all their supply-side partners and ability to assign audience segments to cohorts in their ad server.

Powering the Signal functionality is the Sovrn Data Collective, comprising more than 6,000 independent publishers reaching 500 million daily consumers who generate over 30 billion daily page views across more than 80,000 websites. The Data Collective delivers access to safe, privacy-compliant data, helping ensure that publishers can tap enhanced consumer understanding, enriched audience profiles and insights into revenue performance to better compete for advertiser spend.

“The uncertainty around the loss of third-party cookies and looming privacy pressures are forcing publishers to grapple with choosing the right path forward to mitigate potential revenue declines,” said Walter Knapp, Sovrn CEO. “We aim to take that headache away with Signal, a plug-and-play solution that unlocks greater earnings for publishers by ensuring they can better understand and communicate the value of their audience engagement to buyers.”

To learn how Signal can be used to measure, compare and monetize reader attention and capitalize on audience engagement, download, “Capturing the Signals: How Reader Attention Can Drive More Revenue.” For more information about Signal, visit www.sovrn.com/signal-inventory.

About Sovrn

Sovrn provides products and services to thousands of online publishers to help them understand, operate and grow their business. Sovrn is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, with offices in New York, London and San Diego. 

With thousands of customers deploying advertising, affiliate marketing, and data products across more than 80,000 websites, Sovrn reaches nearly 500 million active consumers across more than 30 billion page views every day. Sovrn has been a leader in online publisher technology since its founding and has been recognized by IAB, JICWEBS, and TAG for its role in combating fraud and promoting pro-transparency initiatives. Sovrn is dedicated to helping content creators do more of what they love, and less of what they don’t. www.sovrn.com

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July 26, 2022 – Boulder, CO – Sovrn, a publisher technology platform that empowers content creators to remain independent and thrive on the open web, today announced it raised $36 million in a new round of equity financing. The investment is a reflection of Sovrn’s consistent growth and profitability, including year-over-year revenue growth for the past seven consecutive quarters and 13 out of the last 14 quarters, and the value Sovrn has continued to deliver to customers across its multi-solution publisher platform. 

The funding allows Sovrn to pursue additional acquisitions and support the company’s mission of delivering innovative products and services that further expand the capabilities of the Sovrn platform.

Since its previous raise of $26 million in December 2018, the company has acquired three companies and significantly expanded its product portfolio, increased its employee count by more than 50% across the US, UK and EU, and added thousands of diverse, active customers that generate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue by using its products. 

Investors include Foundry, Archer Venture Capital, Lexington Partners, Progress Ventures and Structural Capital, among others.

“This financing represents a milestone achievement for Sovrn, given the contraction in financial markets and current conservative approach to investing,” said Walter Knapp, Sovrn CEO. “It speaks volumes to the value we continue to deliver to customers, our positive track record of acquiring and integrating complementary product companies onto the Sovrn platform, and our consistent, profitable revenue growth.”

Sovrn simplifies the complexities of the open web with tools and insights for content creators so they can better understand their business, make smarter decisions, operate more efficiently and grow revenue. The platform is powered by the Sovrn Data Collective, which delivers access to safe, privacy-compliant data, helping ensure that publishers can tap enhanced consumer understanding, enriched audience profiles, and insights into revenue performance in order to better compete against monopolistic walled gardens. The company sits at the intersection of multiple, multi-billion dollar markets across advertising technology, affiliate marketing and ecommerce, consumer data and publisher tools.

“Sovrn’s simple yet powerful product platform is unmatched in the industry,” said Seth Levine, managing director at Foundry. “We’ve been impressed by the company’s continued innovation, rapid scaling, and high levels of customer satisfaction. We see tremendous opportunity for Sovrn to further penetrate the market and are excited to continue partnering with Walter and his team.”

Sovrn Fast Facts

• Six acquisitions since inception in 2014, creating a multi-solution platform that delivers:
  • Advertising technology, management and reporting to maximize inventory value
  • Robust affiliate monetization tools offering link creation, commerce comparisons, shopping galleries and access to thousands of merchants
  • Market-leading tools to measure, compare and monetize reader engagement
  • Privacy-compliant, data enhancement and enrichment technologies
• Largest publisher Data Collective, comprising more than 6,000 independent publishers reaching 400 million daily consumers who generate over 25 billion daily page views across 60,000 websites
• Customer base includes enterprise and mid-tier publishers in both the US and the UK, such as Ziff Davis, Vox Media, Daily Beast, Tribune Media, Blavity, Encyclopedia Britannica and Salon
• Industry-leading net retention rates and a Net Promoter Score over 70

About Sovrn

Sovrn provides products and services to thousands of online publishers to help them understand, operate and grow their business. Sovrn is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, with offices in New York, London, San Diego and Lugano, Switzerland. With thousands of customers deploying advertising, affiliate marketing, and data products across more than 60,000 websites, Sovrn reaches over 400 million daily active consumers generating 25 billion page views every day. Sovrn has been a leader in online publisher technology since its founding and has been recognized by IAB, JICWEBS, and TAG for its role in combating fraud and promoting pro-transparency initiatives. Sovrn is dedicated to helping creators do more of what they love, and less of what they don’t. www.sovrn.com

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Company recognized as an expert partner providing publishers with innovative solutions and services

June 9, 2022 – Boulder, CO – Sovrn, a publisher technology platform that empowers content creators to remain independent and thrive on the Open Web, today announced the company’s recognition as a Google Certified Publishing Partner. The designation solidifies its Ad Management offering as a leading authority in supporting digital publishers with Google’s suite of advertising tools.

The Certified Publishing Partner recognition designates the Ad Management team as trained specialists with proven expertise in Google’s suite of products (Ad Manager, Ad Exchange, Open Bidding) and full site monetization, optimization and implementation services including ad operations, programmatic yield management, technical and strategic support, and more. 

As part of the Certified Publishing Partner program qualification process, Sovrn was carefully vetted against rigorous standards to demonstrate that its dedicated advertising team provides consistently superior interactions and expert consulting services.

Sovrn Ad Management experts are focused on helping web publishers generate advertising revenue in the most efficient and cost-effective way. The company’s proprietary header bidding technology reduces latency while delivering greater ad yield. Sovrn provides extensive access to 40-plus demand partners, ensuring publishers can be confident that the value of their inventory is maximized. And, while most other providers operate on a revenue sharing model, the low, fee-based model Sovrn utilizes is based on CPM rather than earnings, ensuring publishers keep more of their advertising revenue. 

“At Sovrn, we are focused on delivering innovative technology, tools and services to help publishers understand, operate and grow,” said Walter Knapp, Sovrn CEO. “This recognition from Google is a testament of how our advertising experts act as an extension of a publisher’s team to help them meet their publishing and revenue goals.”

About Sovrn

Sovrn provides products and services to thousands of online publishers to help them understand, operate and grow their business. Sovrn is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, with offices in New York, London and San Diego.  With thousands of customers deploying advertising, affiliate marketing, and data products across more than 60,000 websites, Sovrn reaches over 400 million active consumers generating 25 billion page views every day. Sovrn has been a leader in online publisher technology since its founding and has been recognized by IAB, JICWEBS, and TAG for its role in combating fraud and promoting pro-transparency initiatives. Sovrn is dedicated to helping content creators do more of what they love, and less of what they don’t. www.sovrn.com

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BOULDER, Colo., May 4, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Sovrn, a publisher technology platform that empowers content creators to remain independent and thrive on the Open Web, announced today that Demetrius Comes has joined the company’s leadership team as chief technology officer to oversee all of its technology efforts, innovations and platforms. With an extensive technical background and experience leading interdisciplinary teams that develop systems working at internet scale, his hire brings to Sovrn a fresh perspective and vision to amplify and evolve its easy-to-use, multi-product publisher platform.

Comes, a product-minded executive leader, brings more than three decades of experience in distributed architectures; software development, engineering and operations; and cyber security, both on premises and in the cloud. In his role with Sovrn, Comes will partner with CEO Walter Knapp and the executive leadership team to create and drive company strategy, goals and execution to align diverse technology and teams to a single, cohesive platform.

“I am thrilled to have Demetrius at the helm of technological and solution innovation at Sovrn,” said Knapp. “His deep expertise in digital transformation, cloud-based scale and leading diverse teams will help us achieve our vision.”

Most recently, Comes was the chief information and security officer and vice president of engineering at GoDaddy where he spearheaded all cyber security related matters and led its application services team, responsible for all core technologies at the company, including its Amazon Web Services cloud excellence team. Previous roles at GoDaddy during his seven years with the company included a role as the vice president of engineering hosting where he led the architecture of all hosting products, responsible for over $500 million in revenue. Prior to his tenure at GoDaddy, Comes held senior-level positions at several technology companies, primarily in the gaming industry, including at ELine Media, Warner Bros. Games and Petroglyph Games. Comes holds a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry from the University of Akron in Ohio.

“I’m excited to join Sovrn at such a transformational stage in the company’s journey,” said Comes. “I look forward to collaborating with the executive, engineering, product and go-to-market teams to scale and drive product innovation and exceptional customer experience.”

About Sovrn

Sovrn provides products and services to thousands of online publishers to help them understand, operate and grow their business. Sovrn is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, with offices in New York, London and San Diego. 

With thousands of customers deploying advertising, affiliate marketing, and data products across more than 60,000 websites, Sovrn reaches over 400 million active consumers across more than 20 billion page views every day. Sovrn has been a leader in online publisher technology since its founding and has been recognized by IAB, JICWEBS, and TAG for its role in combating fraud and promoting pro-transparency initiatives. Sovrn is dedicated to helping content creators do more of what they love, and less of what they don’t. www.sovrn.com 

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Sovrn, a publisher technology platform that empowers content creators to remain independent and thrive on the Open Web, today announced the release of the Shopping Galleries tool to its growing Commerce product suite, empowering commerce content creators to easily curate unique shopping experiences. 

With Commerce Shopping Galleries, editors can build a personalized carousel of products by theme or product type or showcase a range of products from one or more merchants, with full control of the products featured. Editors can deliver a better shopping experience to readers and enhance their site in minutes, not hours, with the ability to quickly select from products and merchants in one place, pick the ones with the lowest prices, and easily add them to their site. In addition, the customizable “Sponsored” header gives editors the freedom to highlight a featured merchant or editor’s pick while offering an opportunity to earn more from merchants desiring premium placement. Editorial recommendations like “Best Buys,” “Deals of the Day,” and “We Recommend” can be created with just a few clicks.

“Having ecommerce content on our site has been a growing revenue source for us,” said Philip Brown, Head of Affiliates at Reach plc. “Being able to curate unique, engaging content quickly for our readers will drive more engagement and boost our affiliate revenue. We’re excited to add Shopping Galleries to our commerce content strategy.”

To demonstrate how Sovrn Commerce Shopping Galleries provides a flexible solution for editors and content creators to create rich, customizable content, the company is hosting a webinar on Wednesday, April 13, “Secrets to Quickly Creating Commerce Content That Drives More Revenue,” at noon Eastern Time.

Shopping Galleries is just one of several Sovrn Commerce solutions designed to help publishers grow their affiliate revenue, whether from a commission or a click:

• Content: Publishers can partner with Sovrn and jumpstart, supplement, or diversify their monetized editorial lifestyle content.
• Affiliate link monetization: One interface that displays all of the publisher’s affiliate revenue efforts — from link creation to editorial tools — and provides access to over 30,000 merchants.
• Comparisons: Automatically identify an existing product URL or product keywords and display alternative retailers selling the same product, driving up to a 200% increase in click-through rates. 

“Ecommerce represents a huge opportunity for publishers to drive additional revenue and get closer to their readers,” said Nicola Ghezzi, Sovrn managing director of Commerce solutions. “Shopping Galleries delivers the editorial control for our customers to quickly, easily, and flexibly create quality ecommerce content and deliver a rich customer experience.

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Boulder, CO – Today, Sovrn announced the appointment of two new members to its Board of Directors, Judi A. Hand and Aaron Samuels. Hand joined the Board on February 9, 2022 and Samuels joined on November 11, 2021. Following their appointment, the Board is now composed of eight directors, four of whom are independent.

“Aaron and Judi joining the Sovrn Board adds diversity of skills and perspectives to an already powerhouse Board of Directors,” said Walter Knapp, Sovrn CEO. “Judi’s deep leadership experience at some of the largest public companies in the world combined with Aaron’s creative approach to entrepreneurship will be invaluable to Sovrn as we grow our business and pursue our mission of continuing to help publishers thrive on the open web.”

Hand is currently the executive vice president and chief revenue officer of TTEC Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTEC), one of the largest global customer experience technology and services innovators serving many of the world’s most iconic and disruptive brands. She brings more than 25 years of sales and marketing experience from senior positions at telecom industry leaders including AT&T, Northwestern Bell, US West and Qwest. Beginning June 2020, Hand has served as a member of the board of directors of Ooma, Inc., a communications platform for businesses and consumers, and previously served as a member of the board of directors of Manitoba Telecom Services, Inc., a Canada telecommunication company. Hand holds an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Science in communications from the University of Nebraska.

“I am thrilled to join the Sovrn Board and I look forward to lending my experience in sales and marketing leadership to help steer the company’s strategy and future growth,” said Hand.

Samuels is an entrepreneur and the co-founder of Blavity Inc., the largest global media company focusing on Black Millennials and Gen Z, reaching over 100 million people per month. Blavity Inc. also operates the AfroTech conference, the largest Black technology conference in the world. He brings a broad swath of experience across strategic consulting, product management, ad operations, and investing, serving as a scout investor with Canaan Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners and as an investment partner at The Community Fund, focusing on diverse and under-networked founders. Samuels received his undergraduate business degree from Washington University in St. Louis and his MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. 

“I believe independent publishers should have the same ability to monetize their audiences as the large media conglomerates,” Samuels said. “I believe Sovrn is democratizing the toolkit to unlock this possibility and I am excited to bring my experience and insights to accelerate their efforts.”

About Sovrn

Sovrn provides products and services to thousands of online publishers to help them understand, operate and grow their business. Sovrn is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, with offices in New York, San Diego and London.  

With thousands of customers deploying advertising, affiliate marketing, and data products across 40,000 websites, Sovrn reaches over 300 million active consumers across more than 11 billion pageviews every day. Sovrn has been a leader in online publisher technology since its founding and has been recognized by IAB, JICWEBS, and TAG for its role in combating fraud and promoting pro-transparency initiatives. Sovrn is dedicated to helping content creators do more of what they love, and less of what they don’t. www.sovrn.com 

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December 2, 2021 – Boulder, CO – Today, Sovrn announced it has hired three new senior executives to the company’s leadership team, Cammie Blais as Chief People Officer, Howard Kaushansky as head of Business and Corporate Development, and Carolyn Cox as General Counsel, adding further depth and operational expertise to equip the company for success as it continues to scale up in both the US and internationally.

“As Sovrn pursues its next stage of growth we are focused on assembling a strong senior leadership team to navigate market readiness with purpose,” said Walter Knapp, CEO of Sovrn. “The addition of Cammie, Carolyn, and Howard will ensure we continue to mature our operational sophistication, capitalize on strategic mergers and acquisitions, support long-term product growth, and bring top talent to the company.”

Based in the company’s Boulder headquarters, Blais brings with her more than three decades of experience building high-performance human resource teams to enable successful company growth, including experience at DispatchHealth Denver and Connect for Health Colorado. She has a successful track record in strategic planning, organizational development, and transformational change combined with operational experience and financial systems, policies and processes. In her role with Sovrn, Blais is tasked with building an agile People operations infrastructure and strategy that keeps pace with the changes within the broader market and leading strategies and design approaches for diagnosing and enhancing organizational effectiveness and employee engagement. Blais has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

“I am thrilled to join the Sovrn team,” said Blais. “Throughout my career I’ve had the honor to help organizations build high-performing teams and enable successful growth, and I am looking forward to bringing that experience to Sovrn.”

Kaushansky, a serial entrepreneur with a proven track record of successful startup exits across big data analytics technology, including Umbria, Athene Software and Coral Systems, brings to the senior leadership team experience with new market creation, strategic partnership development and corporate strategy. At Sovrn, Kaushansky will drive the overall corporate development deal pipeline, identifying and closing acquisition opportunities and maximizing non-traditional revenue sources to support the company’s vision for growth. Based in Sovrn’s Boulder office, Kaushansky has a bachelor’s degree from the University of California Los Angeles and his juris doctorate from the University of Southern California.

Cox, also based in Boulder, was most recently the executive vice president and general counsel for Alera Group where she directed the insurance firm’s legal function, with a significant emphasis on M&A and strategic transactions. Her broad corporate experience includes executing sophisticated commercial transactions, overseeing corporate governance, creating critical compliance policies and procedures, and managing SEC and risk management matters. At Sovrn, Cox will lead strategic and tactical legal initiatives and will be responsible for managing Sovrn’s corporate legal affairs, outside counsel and financing transactions, along with its commercial contracts and ensuring Sovrn’s compliance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other applicable data privacy and security regulation. Cox has a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University in Bloomington, IN and received her juris doctorate from Loyola University of Chicago School of Law.

“This is an exciting time to be joining a technology company like Sovrn,” said Cox. “I am delighted to bring my skills to the team to help Sovrn successfully achieve its business goals.”

About Sovrn

Sovrn provides products and services to thousands of online publishers to help them understand, operate and grow their business. Sovrn is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, with offices in New York, San Diego and London.  

With thousands of customers deploying advertising, affiliate marketing, and data products across 40,000 websites, Sovrn reaches over 300 million active consumers across more than 11 billion pageviews every day. Sovrn has been a leader in online publisher technology since its founding and has been recognized by IAB, JICWEBS, and TAG for its role in combating fraud and promoting pro-transparency initiatives. Sovrn is dedicated to helping content creators do more of what they love, and less of what they don’t.

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