It’s Time To Shape Programmatic For Mid-market Publishers

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Guest Post By: Automatad

It’s been so long and we’re far from depending on the duopoly to monetize the content. At least for most of the premium publishers, being independent and talking about in-house programmatic strategies is not at all odd. With the help of global ad exchanges and demand sources, premium publishers have never imagined being on the sideline waiting to get a nod from Google.

But the story is completely different for mid-market publishers. And, we believe it’s all of our responsibility to adapt to cater the mid-market with the open internet technologies we use to monetize.

#Problem 1 Can’t get access to demand partners

While traffic and niche are the determining factors to partner with an Ad Exchange/SSP, it doesn’t mean there is no room for adjustments. The true journalism and growing niches can’t focus on accumulating the unwanted traffic hits and back-forth communication with the ad exchanges or SSPs. They are here to uncover interesting stories, creativity, and groundbreaking news.

On the other hand, Ad Exchanges and SSPs are chasing the Tier-One publishers with the hopes of claiming their inventories. The infrastructure costs force them to look for a big deal.

“Tier one SSPs are too busy chasing tier one publishers. Frequently this means small and midsized publishers are left out in the cold”

–  The Drum

#Problem 2 Ads Vs User Experience

Let’s face it. You’re a growing publisher and of all, user experience should be no less than perfect. But what about the monetization?

If I try the programmatic, will the page load time get affected? How to optimize it? The technical weight scares the mid-sized publishers from implementing the programmatic solutions by themselves. And, developing an in-house technology to deliver ads while keeping the UX intact is the last thing they want to do.

#Problem 3 The infamous Ad tech tax

Ad tech tax is a real problem and no one seems to slash it down. The tech vendors in the supply chain are busy optimizing the revenues of the publishers they work with and eyeing for the big fishes along the way. They all waiting for the industry consortiums to do something about it.

“It doesn’t sound like the players are keen to sort out the mess the supply chain is in.”

  • From Digiday Confession.

To make things worse, the middlemen are proliferating every year. From analytics to post-delivery, there’s a tech for everything. Of course, it is better to measure and act. But for mid-market publishers, this essentially means a bad sign. At the end of the day, quality buyers wish to target Publishers with data and analytics.

Even if a Mid-market Publisher manages to partner with an SSP, the gains will be more or less same as the ad networks in DFP. Because half of the revenue is taken away by the middlemen.

Now, we don’t want to cut you out with the problems. At Automatad, we’ve redesigned the way we operate and customized technologies to solve all these problems.

#Solution 1 Header Bidding

We’re pretty sure this isn’t the first time you hear about header bidding. And, indeed it can bring in more demand partners to the publishers. But how can a mid-market publisher implement header bidding without any support from SSPs?

Unlike other SSPs, we’ve developed a header bidding platform which allows us to get you started in a few clicks. This means we can set up a customized header bidding for your site under 24 hours. With the help of our wrapper, you’ll get bids from most of the active global Ad Exchanges including AppNexus, Index, and OpenX.

In addition, our expert team can manage and optimize the campaigns to get you the highest possible yield. Without a doubt, you’ll be given a dashboard to see all the crucial metrics including impressions, overall revenue, bid price, and bid frequency.

#Solution 2 Active Exposure Time

Increasing the number of ad units to improve your ad revenue is not the right idea. In fact, we’ve seen things go worse and that’s why we always try to keep balance the user experience and ads.

However, refreshing ads will allow you to claim higher RPM without changing the UI. So, is that what we are offering?

No. Normal ad refreshes (as offered by Google) isn’t enough to attract quality buyers and higher CPMs. They refresh ads without considering whether the user is active or not. We offer a proprietary solution dubbed as ‘Active Exposure Time (AXT)’  where the ads are only refreshed when the user is actively engaging with the content and viewing the ad for a certain period of time.

#Solution 3 Monetization As a Service

The most important way, we’re going to reconsider is how the publishers are being charged. For a mid-market publisher, 20 to 30 percent of revenue could make all the difference. Besides, they are better off with the ad networks. Why would they implement header bidding to gain a little lift?

The question seems right. The ad tech intermediaries can further minimize the revenue reaching the publishers. So, we’ve decided to offer header bidding, AXT, and third-party video distribution and monetization as a Service.

A mid-market publisher doesn’t need to worry about the demand sources, user experience, back and forth communication, etc. We take care of the entire process and deliver the services for a flat monthly fee.

Do what you love without worrying about the monetization!