This year’s AdWeek Europe saw a lively debate on ad blocking overseen by Richard Eyre, Chairman of IAB UK, during which he revealed that 22% of online adults now use ad blockers, up from 18% in October 2015. Nearly a quarter of us are at it, and adoption rates are rising rapidly.
From the trade press narrative, it seems the digital advertising industry has admitted the onus is on us to improve the user experience in a way that will dissuade consumers from resorting to such software. The problem remains that content is not, and cannot, be free. A solution must be found that allows brands to reach their audience, publishers to monetise their content, and the industry to earn users’ trust.
We asked Stephanie Himoff, MD UK & Ireland at Outbrain, why she thinks content recommendation might be the answer.
How can the industry improve the user experience?
Publishers and advertisers must first acknowledge that everything on a page contributes to the user experience and affects engagement levels. With every decision made, we must keep this in mind. Featured brands, ad creatives and ad formats must marry with the media brand and editorial environment in a frictionless way. This will one day see native ads become the norm for marketers, as a way to nourish online reader relationships.
Content recommendations sit at the bottom of pages and echo the editorial environment around them. They are considerably less likely to drive someone to block ads, being native, non-invasive and architected to be relevant. We incorporate algorithms to refine and personalise our content recommendation on a per-user basis, depending on what they have clicked through on in the last 60 days - taking into account when, where, and on which device this took place. We calculate user preference, based on CTR, into every link we serve. This fosters further trust between the brand and the user.
We have taken it upon ourselves to personalise the web, in a native way.
In what ways does Outbrain help publishers monetise their content?
We began by researching the yield of a publisher’s page. We found that on a single page of video over the course of one day, revenue value can fluctuate by 60%. For the whole page, this can reach 262%. Perhaps what’s more important is that we saw no correlation between page views and revenue value. Not all page views are created equal, meaning user traffic is difficult to predict, and even harder to take advantage of.
That is why we saw a need for tools like our Automatic Yield, an industry-first which we developed for publishers through our acquisition of technology company Revee. It allows publishers to track the total revenue value of every page in real time and use this insight to showcase the content with the greatest yield on other sites. It maximises ad revenue for the publisher and brands benefit too, as greater exposure results in a CTR from 10 to 20 times higher than display ads.
How else can brands benefit from content recommendation?
Brands must become producers of quality content, whether editorial or video. Leading consumer and B2B brands - Red Bull, ASOS, Reiss and IBM, to name but a few - have brand editors who ensure what they produce is educational, engaging and on-message. And the rewards are worth it. Premium content is advertising with added value, meaning you can communicate meaningfully with customers while still conveying your key messaging and influencing consumer behaviour. Content marketing offers what traditional advertising does – format flexibility, the opportunity to retarget – but it goes further than that.
At Outbrain, we are spearheading more sophisticated and innovative ways of connecting brands with audiences via content, and constantly developing new tools to improve our offering to marketers. For example, we make sure all content marketing is monetisable by only acquiring audiences that don’t block ads. We offer the chance to re-engage and drive valuable actions from users who are lower in the sales funnel and have already visited a brand’s website or signed up to their newsletter. Equally, brands can gear their strategy towards acquiring new unique users, by excluding those who have already engaged with the brand in some way.
We’re not an ad network - even though we drive traffic. We acquire engaged audiences on their cross-device journey resulting in social shares, video views, time spent and high value actions.
Stephanie is MD UK & Ireland at Outbrain, the leading content discovery platform, helping publishers, brands and agencies reach a highly engaged audience through distribution on leading media sites such as the Guardian and the Telegraph. She leads on partnerships, business intelligence and sales and marketing strategy. You can follow the company @Outbrain.
This advertisement feature is brought to you by Outbrain, sponsors of the Guardian Media & Tech Network’s Publishing and Platforms hub
