If you were to bring together a group of publishers who work in ad ops and rev ops and asked them to name eight topics that are most relevant to their work right now, and then you asked them to disperse into subgroups according to their topical interests, what would you expect to ensue?
Lively debate and discussion? A community sharing issues and ideas? A discovery of tactics and strategies to implement right away? How about all of the above? At least that’s what happens on the last day of an AdMonsters Publisher Forum when publishers go into their workshop groups to explore the issues affecting them in their day-to-day—and things were no different at PubForum Scottsdale.
Following, are some top-level takeaways from the PubForum Scottsdale Workshops:
ALL ABOUT DATA TRACK: Optimizing Your DMP
After each publisher shared how they’re using their DMP for sales, they got into specifics about what kinds of benefits they reaped from their ad tech partners. There was a lot of conversation about switching from using unreliable third-party data to using first-party data, with the caveat that as a publisher you need to have reach to do it. Also, some talked about in-housing audience extension.
Supply Path Optimization
In this conversation, the group all weighed in on defining exactly what SPO is before talking about whether they were already doing it or planning to. Overall, they felt it was a wait and see strategy and that they should focus on PG (Programmatic Guaranteed) & PMP (Private Market Places) revenue as they watch and wait on SPO.
Outsourcing
The topic of outsourcing comes up again-and-again at nearly every Publisher Forum. This time there was a strong focus on understanding your goals with outsourcing before developing your best practices. Determining your goals will lead you to the best tools for evaluating an outsourcing partner by asking the right questions. Next, thinking about best practices will prep you for setting up your onboarding documents. One key takeaway: treat them as part of your team and empower them to weigh in on your business.
Programmatic Reporting
In this group, everyone agreed that data and mapping can be complicated, but they were all optimistic that in the next couple of years it will get better. Programmatic reporting requires a full-time person to monitor and manage data connections, the group recommended.
ALL ABOUT DATA TRACK: Selling the Data
The selling the data workgroup focused on leveraging branded content to create unique data signals and producing an enhanced first-party data solution to eliminate the black box of third-party data. And here’s a great tip: Publishers can possibly weaponize their data collectively through producing a second-party marketplace.
Google Confirmed Click
This workgroup explained a mobile ad feature that Google instituted to account for people accidentally tapping on advertising (and being lead to a site they hadn’t intended on visiting). The feature places on overlay on AMP ads that says “visit site,” asking users to confirm whether they clicked on the ad. This protects the user, but also the advertiser who is paying CPC. But for the publisher, once the flag is on, the DBM stops receiving bid requests. The group suggested a few layout enhancements to try and turn it off, like placing a gray box behind ads or adding padding, but realized they need more insight from Google to fix the issue from occurring for them.
Privacy Regulations
There was no surprise here that everyone in this group felt there was a lack of clarity on exactly what CCPA means or how to comply with it. But they see the impending regulation as an opportunity to evaluate all tags and prevent data leakage. Some recommendations included setting up a compliance taskforce, leaning on other teams and educating consumers.
Balancing Subscription and Advertising Revenues
One of the main themes to emerge from this conversation was the need for coexistence among the advertising and subscription strategies. Some questions that followed: Should there be one persona managing ads and subscriptions? Do users want the ability to eliminate ads for a cost? There was no right answer here, as every business is a unique case. But the fact remains, just by talking it out with others in the same situation, you’re bound to come away with ideas.
You can just think of AdMonsters Publisher Forum Workshops as a sort of support group that merges with a brainstorm. To learn about upcoming AdMonsters Publisher Forums, visit our events page.