AdMonsters YOY traffic has grown immensely. To mark this milestone, we’re sharing a list of some of the most-read AdMonsters articles from 2023.
We’d also like to thank you, our community, for your support. From clicking on and reading our content to providing us with story ideas — you were there to help us grow. Many thanks to our Advisory Board as well for being a sounding board and inspiring us.
And, we definitely couldn’t have done it without our full-time content staff, News Editor, Andrew Byrd, and Content Manager, Yakira Young, as well as our freelancers — Susie Stulz, Emily Dalamangas, and Kacey Perinelli — and, of course, our many industry contributors who have written columns for us or shared their POV for an article or Playbook or two. Thank you!!!
Now on to the list…
Best of AdMonsters: Your Favorite Stories of 2023
What’s Hot in Publishing and Ad Tech: An AdMonster’s Q&A with Scott Messer
We interviewed Scott Messer, an executive media operator with a passion for creating, operating, and monetizing digital businesses. He first started in the digital media business back in 2006 and has held numerous leadership positions within the industry. Today, he is the Principal and Founder of Messer Media.
We spoke with him about the challenges of Seller Defined Audiences, Deal Curation as a Service, and the recent EU Study on the impact of recent developments in digital Advertising on privacy, publishers, and advertisers. (Read more)
Data Monetization in the Era of ID Deprecation: Best Practices to Pivot and Evolve Your Data Strategy
With ID deprecation well underway and consumer privacy legislation on the rise, publishers face more complex obstacles than ever before. Yet the consumer expectation for personalization remains, as does the extreme competition for engaged eyes and ears.
When it comes to evolving data monetization, publishers are positioned at various levels of sophistication and preparedness. Notably, each publisher possesses a unique composition of data signals. While some are blessed with substantial strong quality 1P signals, others rely more heavily on cookie-based identity, with limited access to alternative identifiers. Given these diverse circumstances, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Nonetheless, there are best practices and levers of control you can employ to shift your strategy and mitigate risk.
The pivotal question emerges: What is the optimal place to start, and what are the best practices for privacy forward data monetization? (Read more)
A Path to Net-zero for the Digital Advertising Sector
The digital advertising sector has a dirty little secret: its carbon footprint is huge. How big? About the size of the airline industry.
Collectively, digital ad tech accounts for 3.5% of the global greenhouse gas (GHG) emitted each year. A single campaign that fills one million impressions has the same carbon footprint as a roundtrip flight from Boston to London. (Read more)
Forget the Hype: How Publishers Can Safely Enhance Their Products with AI
The National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) rolled out — then quickly took offline — a chatbot called Tessa. Tessa was supposed to offer callers guidance, but she urged callers to restrict their diets, assuring them they could safely lose one to two pounds per week. It’s a reminder that generative AI products must be rolled out with care.
But what does that “care” mean? What’s involved? Initiatives like BuzzFeed’s Botatouille are a great way for publishers to enhance their products to gain more subscribers and offer more value to their existing subscriber base.
To understand how publishers can deploy AI bots safely, we spoke with Kyle Alan Hale, a Solutions Architect at Rightpoint. Kyle holds an advanced degree in philosophy of mind and neuroscience and is currently working on a degree in computational linguistics, focusing particularly on language models. (Read more)
The State of Programmatic Advertising in 2023
According to a webinar hosted by Comscore, 2023 State of Programmatic, programmatic spend has experienced exponential growth, doubling over the past four years. Data shows that over 91% of $148 billion in digital display dollars are transacted programmatically. Where does this leave the state of programmatic?
The short answer is that the automated supply chain is flourishing, but signs indicate an ad spend slowdown. The further context suggests that since programmatic accounts for nine out of ten digital ad dollars, the market is reaching a state of saturation rather than stagnation. (Read more)
Legit Black-owned Publishers Are Being Labeled MFA Sites, but Maybe There’s a Solution
In the wake of the media reckoning sparked by the tragic murder of George Floyd in 2020, advertisers funneled more ad spend toward Black-owned publishers. Ad agencies, driven by commitments to allocate a portion of their media budgets to these publishers, sought to address the longstanding disparities in media representation.
However, Black-owned publishers now face unique challenges, primarily related to declining referral traffic from sources like Facebook ever since the social network’s algorithms started deprioritizing news.
This decline has made it increasingly tricky to meet ad impression requirements stipulated in deals with advertisers. Consequently, some Black publishers felt compelled to buy traffic or partner with other publishers to extend their reach.
But here lies the conundrum: as Black-owned publishers seek to bolster their audiences and meet advertiser demands, they face the risk of being labeled MFA sites.(Read more)