Today’s ad buyers are in a difficult position. With the coming loss of third-party cookies, the IAB projects that advertisers stand to lose billions of dollars in annual revenue. Going beyond the monetary aspect, this fundamental shift means advertisers will have to rethink how they target, optimize, and measure ad performance. 

Think about it this way: without the robust third-party data they’ve relied upon for years, buyers are less confident about where to direct their ad spend. They’ve lost the ability to target audiences that deliver results. And they’re struggling to understand whether readers are seeing their ads. 

The good news is, there are steps you as a publisher can take to help buyers address these challenges — and help your own bottom line in the process. It all starts with one critical concept: audience attention.

Viewability doesn’t go far enough

For years, the digital ad industry has used viewability as a proxy for attention. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has defined viewability as “at least 50% of an ad is in view for a minimum of one second.” Yet this covers the absolute minimum — one second isn’t enough time to convey a message — when it comes to actual human engagement. It also doesn’t measure ad performance. By using viewability as their main metric, many advertisers still struggle to deliver the right ad, at the right time, to the right audience.

So what exactly is “attention”?

As a metric, attention is intended to convey whether an ad captures the reader’s interest at a given point in time, making it a valuable signal of their likelihood to take action. Judging from all the buzz around the so-called “Attention Economy” — in the media, at Cannes LIONS, in webinars and ebooks — it’s clear that advertisers are interested in the idea of tapping into audience attention. 

There’s just one problem: at the moment, there’s no single, unified definition of what “attention” actually is. And with no clear definition of attention (or way of measuring it), there’s no clear path to optimization for either buyers or publishers.  IAB UK’s Elizabeth Lane explains it like this:

“Advertisers are excited about using attention to measure effectiveness, but they’re confused by all the different definitions being used in the market. The risk is that this confusion will lead to them not using attention as a metric and not taking advantage of the insights it can offer.”

Clearly, the most valuable audience segments are those paying the most attention. And publishers who can deliver clear attention signals to buyers can command higher rates for high-value inventory. To help capture the information publishers and buyers need to identify and target engaged audience segments, Sovrn has devised a new measure of attention called “engaged time.” 

Capturing attention for better optimization

Every time a user visits your site, they emit “signals of intent” – including clicks, swipes, scrolls, mouse movements, and more. And every interaction tells you something about where the reader’s attention is focused — and their level of engagement. 

This idea is the basis for Sovrn’s engaged time metric, which combines viewability with more than 50 distinct on-page reader interactions. As a result, engaged time measures not only when an ad is in view, but also when a person is actively engaged with the content. This ability to analyze ad performance and turn attention into increased revenue is the foundation of our data product, Sovrn Signal. 

Signal gives publishers the ability to:

• Understand the metrics buyers use to value ad inventory
• Benchmark your own performance against the market and other sites like yours
• Generate incremental impressions from your most engaged users
• Identify, target, and price your most valuable ad inventory

Across the entire programmatic ad stack, Signal leverages attention metrics to pinpoint the most engaged — and most valuable — ad inventory. Publishers can then use this data to appropriately price and package their inventory. That same data informs advertisers which ad units are most valuable and what factors contribute to higher ad engagement. 

Today, Sovrn is working with publishers using Signal to predict the “attention score” for each impression and pass this information to advertisers in real time. And we’ve found that buyers are rewarding publishers with high-scoring inventory with up to two times higher CPMs.

As our own Peter Cunha said at the AdMonsters Ops conference earlier this year:

“There’s a huge value for publishers in plugging the gap made by the departure of third-party data in determining the value of an ad. The more publishers can provide reliable data and context at scale around an ad opportunity, the better off the entire ecosystem will be.”

Get started today

The world of online advertising has reached a pivotal moment, with a unique opportunity for advertisers and publishers to join forces and unlock new solutions that will benefit everyone involved. Sovrn Signal gives publishers a simple, scalable way to measure user attention, access deep audience insights, deliver the data buyers need to target high-value audience segments, and maximize inventory value. 

It’s easy to get started with Signal, and a single fee gives you access to all its features and dashboards. To learn more, visit the Signal page on our website or send an email to sales@sovrn.com. Our team would be happy to provide a demo, so you can see the power of Signal for yourself.

The post Leveraging Attention to Help Ad Buyers — and Your Bottom Line appeared first on Sovrn, Inc..

In the online advertising space, publishers and advertisers alike rely on their ability to measure potential value when pricing and bidding on ad inventory. For years, viewability has been the industry standard for predicting ad performance – but our research shows there may be a better way.

Viewability is intended to measure the likelihood that an ad will be seen by users, based on whether it is visible on the page. As defined by the IAB, a viewable impression is one where at least 50% of the ad’s area is displayed onscreen for at least one second. While this is useful for measuring ad inventory quality, it doesn’t go far enough to demonstrate performance because it fails to consider whether the ad is actually seen or noticed by the reader.

Engaged Time – the Better Measure of Reader Attention

We’ve devised a metric to better measure reader attention, Engaged Time. Engaged Time combines viewability with 45 distinct on-page user interactions – including page scrolls, mouse clicks, keyboard activity, and more – to measure both 1) when an ad has the chance to be seen and 2) when a person is actively engaged with the content. The result is a truer measure of a reader’s attention – and a metric that delivers more than double the attention (2.6 times) and direct response (2.1 times) of viewability alone.

Let’s dig into the research

We recently harnessed the power of Signal to test how Engaged Time impacts ad performance in two recent studies:

Study 1: Engaged Time and attention

In August and September 2021, Sovrn partnered with demand side platform Avocet and attention technology company Lumen to study* the correlation between Engaged Time and attention. Using Lumen’s eye tracking data and predictive modeling, as well as Sovrn’s Signal technology, the study analyzed more than 3 million global impressions and 100 ad units to identify signs that a reader actually looked at an ad while it was in view. We then compared the difference in attention between Engaged Time and viewable time (Chart 1). The study revealed that Engaged Time captures 2.6 times more attention than viewable time. Chart 2 shows this uplift over time.

Study 2: Engaged Time and direct response

In a separate study** conducted in October 2021, Sovrn compared Engaged Time and viewable time using click-through rate as the performance metric. Using our Signal technology, we tracked more than 3 billion impressions across 2,000+ publishers on the Sovrn platform, measuring the amount of time that each tracked impression was in view versus the amount of time the same impression was in view with an engaged reader. We then compared the difference in click-through rate between Engaged Time and viewable time (Chart 3). Across a variety of devices, we found that Engaged Time captured an average of 2.1 times higher direct response than viewable time.

Embracing Engaged Time Benefits the Advertising Marketplace

Today’s advertising ecosystem has few clear standards and best practices for measuring attention. As a result, many advertisers have created their own custom scoring systems. Not only is this inefficient for advertisers, but it also puts publishers at a disadvantage because they don’t know what measurements ad buyers are applying to their bids. 

Embracing Engaged Time as a standard measure of ad performance eliminates this issue, and provides clear benefits for both publishers and advertisers: 

For publishers, it provides a way to: 

• understand how users engage with content so they can improve page layouts and user experience 
• identify and price their most valuable ad inventory 
• drive more revenue from engaged visitors

For advertisers, it offers:

• a consistent, meaningful basis for bidding on ad inventory 
• allows advertisers to optimize ad spend
• drives brand awareness and direct response among a more engaged audience

Benefit from Engaged Time with Signal

Sovrn’s Signal technology equips publishers with tools to measure, compare, and monetize both viewability and Engaged Time. This intelligence is currently available for advertisers across Sovrn’s website and publishers who work with Sovrn. To learn more about our Signal technology, visit sovrn.com/signal.

Study Methodology

*Awareness: Commissioned research by Avocet and Lumen used eye tracking data and predictive modeling, as well as Sovrn’s Signal technology, to analyze more than 3 million global impressions and 100 ad units across a broad range of categories. This research was conducted over four weeks during August and September 2021.

**Direct response: Proprietary research by Sovrn used the Signal technology to track more than 3 billion impressions across 2,000+ publishers on the Sovrn platform. This research was conducted over seven days during October 2021. 

The post The Problem with Ad Viewability: Where’s the Performance? appeared first on Sovrn, Inc..

In order to get back some of that lost revenue, demand partners have been focused on more valuable impressions: engaged readers with long times on page, and ads that they know will be in view and seen by readers.

Highly-viewable ad units

One simple change publishers can make is to focus on adding highly-viewable ad units to their page layouts. These ad units will have the knock-on effect of improving site-wide ad viewability, making your inventory more attractive to demand partners over time.

Sticky ads

Ad “sticky” or “persistent” ads either on the side rail of the page or in the footer (footer ads are more valuable on mobile sites). The ads remain in-view for the entire time that a reader is interacting with your content, making them more valuable to advertisers

Above the Fold

These are ads that are located near the top of the page, above or beside your content. Similar to the sticky ads above, these are much more likely to remain in view as a user interacts with the page, especially if the reader is skimming and clicking through to multiple pages on the site, rather than scrolling all the way to the bottom of the page.

Size and verticality

Large or vertical ads (such as 300×600, 160×600, 970×250 sizes) remain in-frame longer as a reader scrolls, increasing viewability.

Quality over quantity

This seems counterintuitive, but consider reducing the number of ads per page. If demand sources see multiple of the same sized ads from the same page over and over, they will bid less per impression. Not only will having fewer ads on the page make the ones that are there more valuable, but it’s also a better experience that will keep your readers coming back for more. We recommend no more than 4-5 ads per page.

Remember, we’re here to help. If you’re struggling with ad operations or site monetization, consider reaching out to our Sovrn Services team. We can help you boost your revenue with holistic, long-term business strategies and industry-leading technology.

The post Holiday ad viewability: 4 revenue-boosting tips appeared first on Sovrn, Inc..

Ads that aren’t viewable are less valuable to demand partners. This makes sense: advertisers don’t want to pay for impressions that aren’t seen by a person, and they track supply-side viewability scores for that reason. Poor viewability scores can lead to reduced CPMs, while high viewability scores improve CPMs. This makes sense as well: more valuable inventory—inventory that’s seen by real humans—commands higher prices.

Additionally, high ad viewability matters because it gives you the opportunity to participate in better campaigns and direct deals, and makes you more attractive to selective demand partners who only buy highly-viewable inventory. Plus, many advertisers judge the success of their campaigns by using Click-Through-Rates (CTRs), and a non-viewable ad can’t be clicked. If your site consistently produces low CTRs, demand partners will reduce or eliminate their bids on your inventory. 

In short, higher viewability can lead to higher revenue for a number of reasons.

What affects ad viewability?

Ad placement, ad density, and reader behavior can all affect ad viewability. For example, leaderboard ad units are traditionally very valuable because they’re the first unit loaded on a page, meaning they have a better chance of seeing an impression. However, they often see less engagement, because they’re also the first unit to disappear when a user scrolls. That’s the same reason our Signal overlay ad units tend to have both the highest value and viewability scores: they don’t disappear as a user moves through your content.

That’s why good site design is so critical to ad performance—with the caveat that there’s no such thing as a universally good site design. When you review your ad setup, it’s important to understand which of your ad units has the highest viewability score, and incorporate that information into the development of an effective ad strategy. 

The long view 

In sum, viewability affects your site—and your revenue—in three major ways. First, highly-viewable ad units create short-term value. Then, as your domain-level viewability scores increase over time, the value of your inventory increases as well. Finally, DSPs have premium buckets of spend for domains with viewability scores of 80%+. The only way to improve your viewability scores is to serve more in-view impressions. For example, Signal users typically see 10% higher viewability scores as part of their overall 15-25% monthly revenue increase.

If you’re ready to start improving your viewability scores and your monthly revenue, schedule a Signal demo with one of our Growth experts.

The post Why ad viewability matters appeared first on Sovrn, Inc..

The internet changed everything about the way we create and consume information. It changed the world. It didn’t change the number of hours in a day. Attention, as you can gather, is scarce. And that makes it valuable. The stories and content that capture attention are by definition the most valuable; be it to advertisers, merchants, or of course content creators. 

More and more publishers have turned to ad reloading as a way to capitalize on that attention—but not all of the available solutions are created equal. Most auto-refreshing ad products are still poorly-designed blunt instruments: they operate on a time-based refresh that doesn’t consider ad viewability or user engagement. They focus purely on short-term benefits without considering long-term health, and are built around boosting impression volume alone. In many cases, this leads to reduced CPMs. Not only that, these blind or background refresh tools hurt ad viewability, which can make existing inventory less attractive to buyers.

Signal is a different way to approach ad reloading. It measures that attention—and furthermore, it measures the viewability of that attention. It delivers remarkable value to advertisers by making sure they only place their ads in the most viewable and most engaged environments, and it delivers remarkable value to publishers by helping them get paid fairly for the value they’ve created. The results speak for themselves: on average, publishers earn 20% more revenue when they start using Signal.

That’s a number everyone can feel good about: advertisers know that they’re reaching attentive, engaged audiences. Publishers know that they’re getting compensated for the value they create. And readers continue to enjoy free access to the greatest trove of information the world has ever seen.

The post Attention is scarce. That makes it valuable. appeared first on Sovrn, Inc..

We’ve talked to a lot of publishers over the last year, and it’s clear that although engagement and increasing engagement are often at the top of the priority list, publishers struggle to define engagement. Variously, we’ve seen engagement defined as site visits, clicks, pageviews, and dwell time, which means a) few publishers are on the same page when they talk about engagement, and b) there’s no industry standard for monetizing off of engagement. And, as a consequence, they struggle to take advantage of the engagement they do have. 

We have a horse in this race, obviously. We’ve spent a lot of time talking about Signal, and how it helps publishers make more money by rewarding engagement. But we haven’t talked about how we define and measure Signal engagement. We’re here to set the record straight.

Signal Engagement Markers

Internally, we start our measurement of user engagement by looking at engagement markers, which are tracked via Signal. Engagement markers are singular metrics such as:

• Site visits
• Page views
• Page and site dwell time
• User actions (such as clicks, scrolls, etc.)

In sum, we track 45 engagement markers via Signal, including device-specific markers such as taps and scrolls. We’re confident that these markers cover every user interaction that occurs on a page. Individually, they give us (and our publishers) a metric that we can track over time, but this is still an incomplete view of any given user or audience segment. That’s because they don’t tell us anything about contextual or historical behavior. However, when these markers are combined and tracked, we can start to build an in-depth image of a user, an audience, or even a piece of content. 

Engaged Time

If engagement markers are the brush strokes, engagement is the completed portrait. Engagement is when a reader (or visitor, or viewer) is engaged, that means they’re occupied with your content. They’re involved, they’re interested, they’re interacting.

When we say “engagement,” we’re referring specifically to engaged time, rather than to any individual engagement marker (such as a click) or metric (such as a click-through rate). And we define engaged time as the amount of time that a reader is occupied with your content, based on tracking user actions—engagement markers—over time. 

A definition of engagement necessitates a definition of disengagement—and that’s also dependent on engaged time. User engagement markers keep our engaged time counter running, and we start a simultaneous disengagement counter after each input. After 5 seconds without an engagement marker, the user is no longer engaged. We’ve shown this chart before, but it bears sharing again:

Let’s use a cooking website as an example. A reader navigates to a recipe, reading more of it (and scrolling or moving the mouse) as they progress. Over the course of their total dwell time (the total amount of time spent on a page before bouncing), a certain percentage of that time is “engaged time.” Every mouse or keyboard action is a marker that tells us the reader is engaged, and adds to the engaged time counter. If a reader opens a recipe, but then wanders away for an hour without interacting with the recipe any further, they’re not engaged with the content—even if it remains open on the screen.

So What?

We’re strict about our measurements because we know that clarity and specificity matter to our publishers, and to our demand partners as well. Using Signal data, publishers can create a more detailed image and analysis of any given user or audience segment—and by tracking the types of content that make for greater engagement, they can adjust strategy accordingly. Of course, they can also use that engagement data to reload or inject ads and show them to engaged readers.

Ultimately, publishers will always be responsible for identifying which Signal engagement markers matter most to them, whether it’s clicks, dwell time, or any other metric. However, we believe it’s important to give context to these markers, and to give publishers the data they need to create a more informed, more intelligent business strategy, and ultimately help them—and the demand partners that rely on their content—capitalize on the engagement they generate.  

The post WTF is Signal engagement? appeared first on Sovrn, Inc..

Content is King

Keep content fresh, interesting, and relevant to your audience and content or topic area. You can use Google Analytics or other page insight tools to give you data on what content your audience spent time on and interacted with the most. Leverage that data when planning content, as well as campaigns.

Responsive Web Design

Nearly 4 billion people access the internet on a regular basis. They spend, on average, nearly 6 hours a day online. Desktop time has remained steady at just over 2 hours per day, while mobile browsing time has steadily increased to more than 3 hours per day. It’s important to ensure that your strategies work across all browser and device types so that your site, including your ads, will be viewable no matter how your audience browses.

Avoid Ads that Get in the Way

Ad formats that take over an entire screen, obscure content, or auto-play jarring sound can provide a poor user experience. These can contribute to lower viewability by increasing bounce rates and reducing session times. In other words, intrusive or content-obstructing ads can drive your audience away and decrease the time spent engaging with your content. That’s bad for viewability, it’s bad for revenue, and it’s bad for your business. A better strategy is to maximize the value of your available inventory in order to avoid ad clutter and make more money with fewer ads, and one way to do that is with Signal.

Above the Fold

In general, the ad inventory on your pages with the highest viewability will be the ad slots or zones that appear “above the fold”, which is the visible area, typically in the upper section of your website that doesn’t require scrolling to view content. Using non-intrusive formats and ad sizes in the above the fold section is a critical component to maintaining your site’s overall viewability.

Bigger Can be Better

In general, larger ads perform better viewability-wise than smaller ads. In particular, 300×600 and 970×250 ads see higher viewability. But that doesn’t mean that you should neglect other placements, or that you shouldn’t test your ad setup (you should).

Don’t Forget your Sidebars

Along with above the fold placements, sidebar ad inventory—especially 160×600 and 300×600 skyscraper ads—have been shown to consistently generate high viewability ratings due to the length of that vertical ad type.

As a user is reading an article, a 160×600 or 300×600 ad will stay in view longer than a more horizontal ad format. These ads are particularly valuable when combined with our Signal technology, which reloads viewable ad inventory to maximize revenue.

Know the Benefits of Long vs. Short Form Content

While common wisdom would suggest that long-form content would
automatically invite more user engagement with your content, short form content that either fits in a page that doesn’t require too much scrolling, or is presented with a lazy-load or infinite scroll process, can be just as effective—if not more  if not more so—at ensuring that your users are engaging with your content and that your ad inventory is viewable.

When you optimize your site for ad viewability, you’re taking steps not only to secure revenue in the short term, but to boost business growth over the long term. Without quality, viewable inventory, advertising interest drops off, and revenue suffers. Prioritizing viewability also gives you access to products that take advantage of that viewability and further boost your viewability scores. That’s a powerful (and revenue-boosting) positive feedback loop.

Finally, remember that optimization is an ongoing process. If you’re ever in need of help or training, our Services team of on-demand ad ops experts can get you on track, no matter your goals.

The post 7 Ways to Optimize Ad Viewability appeared first on Sovrn, Inc..

It’s hard to be a storyteller. It’s harder than ever to capture and hold on to people’s attention, to get them to engage. That’s why we build products that reward you for the work you’ve done in building your dedicated audience, and make it easier for you to run your business so that you can focus on creating more great content.

We debuted VET (Viewable Engaged Time), our industry-leading viewability solution, in 2016. We followed that with OneTag in 2018, our single-tag delivery system that gives you access to a package of industry-leading ad products in a single line of code. Since then, we’ve grown these products, their capabilities, and our plans for them. These original names—VET and OneTag—no longer fit what we’d created. Our products had become too big, too important, and the existing names didn’t reflect that growth.

So we changed them.

We’re proud to introduce Signal, replacing VET, and Connect

• They’re simpler and more human, because we believe in the importance of connecting with our very human customers.
• They’re forward-looking, because we’re looking forward to adding more and more functionality to the products we offer already.
• They’re more accurate, because they better describe what each product does.
  • Signal (formerly VET) tracks engagement signals and uses them to maximize the value of every one of your unique visitors.
  • Connect (formerly OneTag) brings you together with the pulse of the industry, simplifies a complex world, and delivers the Sovrn products that help you thrive.

As of today, you’ll see these new names everywhere: on our website, in our product documentation, across The Sovrn Platform, and in discussions with our team members. Similarly, the old names have been retired.

Don’t worry: these changes won’t alter any of your existing product implementations. Signal and Connect still have all of the same functionality they’ve always had. Think of these new names as a demonstration of our commitment to improving our products and services.

In the coming weeks and months we’ll tell you more about what these products can do for you. For now, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out.
We’re excited about what the future holds. You should be, too.

The post Introducing Sovrn Signal and Sovrn Connect appeared first on Sovrn, Inc..

In the immediate wake of the announcement, there was a lot of soul-searching across the industry. Casey Newton, Silicon Valley editor at The Verge, summed this up on Twitter, saying: “So many publishers think they have audiences, when what they really have is traffic. I think we’re about to find out who has an audience.”

Elsewhere, Peter Houston in The Drum opined: “Newspaper and magazine operations that still have actual bona fide readers—people who value their publishing brands and return to their content regularly—will find them regardless of platform. Those who have profited from drive-by traffic are toast unless they shift their business models.”

What Facebook’s move has done is spark wider debate into the value of “traffic”. It has forced publishers to look deeper at their numbers, and refocus on creating engaged audiences that keep returning rather than simply trying to pass-off “drive-by” traffic as their audience. While traffic acquisition remains hugely important, the focus is now on deeper engagement with a smaller audience of super-users rather than a large number of single-visit users. This benefits everyone, from advertisers to readers, and the publishers themselves.

Think of it this way: engagement time is directly related to ad viewability. Viewable ads must have 50% of ad pixels on the screen for at least one second. There is a profound difference in value to advertisers purchasing inventory on a website with an ad viewable for one second compared with a site with an ad that’s in view for two minutes. The more engagement you can provide to advertisers, the more valuable your ads will be, resulting in better performance for both you and the advertiser.

So How do Publishers Increase Audience Engagement? Here are 3 things you should know:

1. Build Trust
Readers don’t become loyal simply because you write catchy headlines and have a good user experience. First-time readers turn into a loyal audience when they trust you to provide them with unique value. As a publisher, your role is to create content that meets the need and expectation of readers. When you do that well, they come back because they trust you; and you’ve created a personal relationship with them.

2. Get to Know Your Audience
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to building a loyal audience. You can only create unique and valuable content that maps to your evolving audience by really understanding who you are talking to. While this may seem obvious, a lot of content creators simply skip this part.

Try starting with your email list! There is a strong possibility that this list represents a sample of your whole audience, so reach out to them with a questionnaire. If you have clearly identified your readers, you can understand exactly what it is people want to read and make the content they want easily accessible to them. These two key things go a long way to helping deepen engagement.

Of course, audiences evolve and so it’s important to poll your readers on a regular basis to ensure you continue to connect with them.

3. Know Your Data
As a digital publisher, measuring, testing and optimizing provides you with an almost real-time view of how your content and campaigns are performing. Invest deeply in understanding your data as it will enable you to ensure that your content is working effectively.  Set aside time to do this on a regular basis.

To ensure that you’re attracting a valuable audience, you may already pay close attention to dwell time (the amount of time that passes between a user arriving and leaving the site). However, you should be mindful that while a useful indicator, dwell time may not always be a good representation of reader engagement time (the amount of time that your content is actually seen while the user is active in that viewport). For example, readers may open your content in a new tab and leave that tab open for some time while actually viewing something else in a different tab. This may be counted as dwell time, so not all dwell time is what it seems.

Additionally, keeping track of navigational bounce rates and return rates will help you build a more solid picture of how engaged your audience is—this can be done using free tools like Google Analytics.
 
To help publishers monetize highly engaging content, Sovrn created Viewable Engagement Time Reload (Signal Reload). Signal Reload proactively understands when an ad is in view and then counts the amount of engagement time the ad receives. After 25-30 seconds, publishers have the ability to reload their ad unit, thereby legitimately increasing the amount of highly valuable, viewable and engaged inventory available to advertisers.

In summary, Signal Reload enables publishers to sell inventory on their website based on user engagement rather than impressions alone and has resulted in around a 20% uplift in new premium inventory for many Sovrn publishers.
 
To find out more about Signal, check out this blog or our Community article on Viewability and Engagement for better Optimization 

The post Three Ways to Build and Maintain an Engaged Audience appeared first on Sovrn, Inc..

Amongst others, Sovrn also recently won The Drum Award for “Best Overall Technology for Programmatic Trading”, by enabling publishers to enjoy significant revenue uplift by using the product.
Sovrn was honoured to be nominated alongside a prestigious crowd:

• Sourcepoint and Dennis Publishing – Winner
• 33Across – 33Across Pubtech Platform
• Joe Media – “Football Friday Live”

Although we didn’t win this time, we’ll keep working harder to improve this and our other products to keep helping publishers do more of what they love.

To find out more about working with Sovrn, contact us.

The post Best Use of Tech Finalist at Digiday Publishing Awards Europe appeared first on Sovrn, Inc..

Amongst others, Sovrn also recently won The Drum Award for “Best Overall Technology for Programmatic Trading”, by enabling publishers to enjoy significant revenue uplift by using the product.
Sovrn was honoured to be nominated alongside a prestigious crowd:

• Manning Gottlieb OMD (for Virgin Media)
• BBH (for Boots), Zone (for BOXT)
• OMD UK (for Channel 4)
• Mention Me (for Radley)
• Havas Media / Innocean Worldwide UK (for Hyundai)

Although we didn’t win this time, we’ll keep working to improve this and our other products to keep helping publisher do more of what they love.
To find out more about working with Sovrn, contact us.

The post Best Use of Tech Finalist at Marketing New Thinking Awards appeared first on Sovrn, Inc..

Sovrn has built a strong reputation founded on brand safety, transparency and trust for serving publishers and buyers, and led the way in weeding out sub-standard inventory.  As well as receiving this JICWEBS seal, Sovrn was also recently awarded the seal for Brand Safety by JICWEBS, Sovrn also has a collection of seals from TAG (Trustworthy Accountability Group), is a member of the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau in the UK and the USA) and AOP (Association of Online Publishers UK), and is a part of the Coalition for Better Ads.

The aim of the Good Practice Principles is to inject greater transparency into the UK digital display advertising market, ultimately giving brands greater confidence that their advertising will reach the right audience and will not be associated with content that could jeopardize brand reputation. The organisations that are listed as JICWEBS Anti Ad-Fraud signatories have been awarded this seal for reducing the risk of exposure to ad fraud.

Andy Evans, CMO at Sovrn comments: “Sovrn are incredibly proud to be recognised yet again as an industry leader in anti ad-fraud. We are constantly striving to ensure a safe environment for all of our partners, and this certification is proof that our rigorous 25+ step process offers outstanding assurances to our publishers and buyers.”

The full list of Anti Ad-Fraud signatories can be found on the JICWEBS website here.

The post Sovrn UK Verified by JICWEBS for Anti-Fraud Work appeared first on Sovrn, Inc..

A recent AdExchanger article offered a detailed view covering the publisher’s quest for partners that drive both yield and engagement, as well as the trend for slimming down ad technology stacks.

“The pendulum is swinging away from complicated setups,” the article states. “Publishers are finding they can remove ad tech partners with little effect on their bottom line.”

So, how should publishers evaluate the value of their partners?

We reached out to some of our top publishers for their opinions. We also polled our ad ops team for their best tips and advice on how publishers can better manage ad inventory and evaluate tech.

1) Take the reins on analysis

The first step towards gaining control over inventory monetization — and ad quality — is obtaining a complete view of partner performance. And this makes robust reporting vital.

While implementing such reporting can be time-consuming, the insight provided by platforms such as DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP), or other analytical tools, is worth the investment. Using DFP, for example, publishers can blend multiple variables, including ad unit and date dimensions, campaign line items, revenue metrics, effective cost per mille (eCPM), and the downloaded impression itself. This offers a granular understanding of how each partner performs, giving publishers the information needed to truly assess their value.

Moreover, such tools save publishers the resource-intensive task of ingesting, storing and analyzing all bid data internally. Instead, they can concentrate their efforts on A/B testing of different ad formats, page layouts, and content to find the optimal fit for their audience.

2) Reconsider measurement methods

So far, most tech partner evaluations have centered on one thing: CPMs. But judging tech partners solely on the cost of ad units can be a bad move. Just because advertisers pay high CPMs doesn’t necessarily mean placements will be good for publishers or their audiences. For example, prioritizing revenue could mean ads that load slowly or otherwise disrupt a consumer’s experience can slip through the quality net, diminishing the experience and, in turn, the publisher’s reputation.

Consequently, it’s important for publishers to consider a range of criteria — fill rates, page load times, any bad ad complaints or reviews of excellent customer service — as well as CPMs. In fact, an increasingly favored method is to expand revenue focus by adopting revenue per page (RPP). This metric covers the revenue of a page in relation to goals like page views, impressions or queries. This means that publishers can pinpoint the value ads deliver individually, and in the context of the content surrounding them.

With such knowledge at hand, publishers can then determine what their tech partners bring to the table, and how experiences can be improved. For instance, they may find quality drives more positive responses than quantity and, as a result, opt for fewer ads.

RPP is already available to use as a metric with Google Analytics. It can also be deployed in combination with page level insight, which enables publishers to correlate ad performance with user behavior and traffic patterns, too. Indeed, when assessed over time – such as comparing audience activity and revenue at different stages of a month – it allows publishers to highlight patterns and ascertain when its partners deliver value, not just how they deliver.

And depending on the level of insight they desire, publishers can run many more comparisons, such as pitting RPM and CPMs against each other by a partner, and testing out different flooring or hybrid configuration strategies, such as variations in header bidding providers.

3) Remember audience needs

Last, but by no means least, is the need to ensure that the content ad tech partners serve aligns with audience needs. User engagement and revenue must be on equal footing, and so tracking engagement metrics — such as how long individuals spend with ads and subsequent interactions — is essential.

This is especially true as the market continues to mature toward cost per second (CPS) and cost per hour (CPH) advertising, to complement the traditional CPM approach. If reporting reveals that an ad tech partner only fuels a slight increase in yield, but a significant decrease in audience satisfaction, it’s a near-unmistakable sign that the partnership should be under serious scrutiny.

Analyzing ad tech partners isn’t simple, but it is imperative, both for business longevity and audiences. By embracing in-depth reporting and setting their sights further than CPMs, publishers can hone in on their most valuable partners, identify where the stack could be trimmed, and make sure their balance sheets level with the user experience.

And if you’re a publisher, our product Sovrn Viewable Engagement Time (Signal) can offer you longer engagement times and higher revenue. If you’d like to discuss optimizing your ad stack or adding Signal, contact your account manager at Sovrn, or contact us to be put in touch with our team.

The post How Should Publishers Assess the Value of Demand Partners? appeared first on Sovrn, Inc..

One judge from the panel fed-back: “Your entry was fantastic and I was not the only person who thought that. Congrats again and I am sure you will be mopping up more awards in the future.”

With the huge growth in programmatic advertising spend, the spotlight on viewability has never been brighter. In fact, programmatic display ad spending is forecasted to account for 72% of all display ad spending by 2017, up from just 49% in 2014 (Source: eMarketer, April 2016).

Created by the viewability obsessed team at Sovrn, Viewable Engagement Time is a user engagement metric that enables publishers to sell inventory on their website based on user engagement rather than impressions alone. Sovrn Signal units only create new ad serving opportunities after 30 seconds of viewable engaged time from users. If a reader leaves the browser window or scrolls the unit out of view, it stops counting viewable engagement time and no new ads are served in that zone until the ad is viewable and the reader is engaged.

Signal has major revenue impacts for publishers using the technology. Sovrn publishers utilising Viewable Engagement Time technology have seen an average lift of 56% in programmatic revenue and 51% average lift in inventory.

Viewable inventory is sold at a premium rate because advertisers are willing to pay top-dollar for ads that are guaranteed to garner real-time views. Simply put: they don’t want to pay for ads that are never seen! Because highly viewable inventory is so valued by buyers, publishers with high viewability rates are delighted by a higher yield. Publishers are happy with their increased revenue, advertisers get a better return on their campaigns, and readers benefit from less ad clutter. Win, Win, Win!

Sovrn is focused on evolving the way the industry values and trades advertising by increasing the overall quality and effectiveness of online ads through viewability.

Viewable Engagement Time (Signal) is an alternative currency for monetising banner advertising online, compared to the existing ‘served impression’ CPM model. The premise is that the way that banner ads are currently monetized (Served Impression CPM model) assumes that every impression sold has the same attributes and as such has the same value. The reality is far different.

Not every ad that is served is seen, and even if it is seen the extent of time which that ad is seen, or the engagement level of the user can vary tremendously. At Sovrn, we believe that publishers who create engaging content should be able to monetize based on their user’s onsite engagement, rather than have a static one size fits all approach to monetization.

As things stand, a site that has low user engagement and low page dwell time is rewarded in the same way as a site that nurtures engagement and dwell time. Signal is a solution that enables publishers to readdress this and monetize the full extent of the engaged users that they have nurtured on their sites.

Viewable Engagement Time is powered by more than 10 activity events collected on the page through Signal-enabled ad tags. This spans clicks, scrolls, tab changes and other user actions are aggregated to determine, at any given moment, if, where and how a user is engaged on the page. If the user closes the page, clicks on another tab or is inactive for 5 seconds or more then the Signal timer will stop counting.

Put simply, the benefit to publishers is that they can flip from monetising a static number of ads per page impression to an infinite number of impressions based on the engagement levels of their users. The more engaging your content is, the more rewards you reap. This shift helps publishers create substantial net-new inventory, which we monetize for them at a premium.

In addition to winning Gold at the Drum Digital Trading Awards, Sovrn’s Viewable Engagement Time also won silver in the ‘Technology Provider of the Year’ category at The British Media Awards and is currently a finalist in the ‘Digital Innovation of the Year’ category of the PPA Awards (winners announced on 29th June).
To test Signal on your site get in touch, we are here to help.

The post 56% Revenue Lift 100% Wins Drum Award appeared first on Sovrn, Inc..

It’s important, however, to not just charge forward. I would contend that some of our industry’s woes stem from taking a step without looking approach. Example? The open exchange model sacrificed brand safety for liquidity – the market allowed some bad practices to become common practices, all in the name of growing the market. Now, we’re spending an enormous amount of effort to weed out the bad guys in our midst.

But this exercise is about looking forward and while I still search for the goal line let’s talk about some of the discussions I’ve had this past month:

Header bidding for president: I put the question out first, on the Sovrn Community forum, and pretty much got the response that I was expecting. No doubt that header bidding has for most publishers been a win, and will continue to do so. I still want to dive into the impact header bidding specifically has had on department structure. I think there is more nuance there that we can all learn from if more people share their thoughts on that topic. Who isn’t implementing header bidding and why? How much time are you spending implementing and maintaining your header bidding set up? What’s working well?

Viewability is like a vegetable your mom makes you eat. Nope, no love for viewability, especially in the Community. But, like those vegetables, I think viewability is good for you. In my opinion, viewability is a swing too far in one direction to overcorrect for some pretty bad habits. Realize it wasn’t long ago that some premium publishers had 20 ads on a page and didn’t care if anyone could see them. Sovrn clearly saw this and were smart to buy Viewability company Signal to help publishers proactively deliver more viewable ads.

That said, “Viewability is now a hammer” as described by the people I spoke to, however, I think this may only be temporary. Eventually, viewability will course correct and we’ll be talking about engagement. Is engagement a win for publishers? I think so. Have you found any great ways to deal with Viewability?

Talking about this stuff is hard. Try anyway. I knew going into this project that I’d be asking operations people to look up from their screens and think about things in a larger context, and just like the AdMonsters conferences, I find some people willing to think ahead and engage and others would rather compare bid density patterns. But this is important stuff. Operations must be both strategic and tactical and, in my experience, it doesn’t matter how “low” you are in the organization, you are in a unique position to provide a perspective that can help your company win.

In fact, I’d suggest diving into this conversation as a career development exercise. My career in ad operations took off once I stopped just doing my job and started to think about how to do my job better. That gave me the ability to be more strategic and be involved in more high-level conversations about whereas a publisher the company was going. That turned my job into a career.

In other words, a win for you is a win for your company. So let’s talk about winning and let’s talk about forward progress. Let’s share ways around the biggest obstacles as well as the new opportunities. So I ask you, what does winning look like to you?
 
Rob Beeler
Chairman of AdMonsters
Founder of Beeler.Tech

The post Update from the Road: What Does Winning Look Like? [Part 2] appeared first on Sovrn, Inc..