Data-Labor-Technology

Starting in September, companies like Mopub won’t be able to collect Apple’s Identifier for Advertising, or IDFA, and use it to identify people unless they opt-in. That’s bad news for Mopub and the publishers that sell ads on its marketplace. One item in the positive column: Apple will give ad tech firms like Mopub an alternative way to measure and attribute campaigns, but that’s likely not much comfort for Twitter and it’s in-app advertising aspirations.

Without the IDFA, Mopub will have no choice but to use the SKAdNetwork — Apple’s replacement for ad measurement and attribution. It’s Apple’s privacy-friendly way to reveal whether an ad has led to an install or other limited “postback” events after the app was installed, but without revealing any user-level specific data. It also ensures that all that conversion data is kept within its own proprietary environment.  

“From our standpoint we know we need to provide support for the SKAdNetwork, which is Apple’s provided solution for tracking and measurement,” said John Egan, head of demand at Mobub. “It’s a significant change.”

So much so that he and his team had already had 54 conversations with other publishers, advertisers and measurement companies just three weeks after the announcement last month. “There’s a lot of work needed to build support for a new measurement platform,” said Egan. “But clearly that’s what’s needed and that’s what we’re going to do.”

It’s no surprise Mopub is trying to get ahead of any potential disruptions caused by Apple’s incoming changes given its plans for 2020. A big part of Mopub’s plan so far this year has been to show advertisers that campaigns bought from its marketplace can be measured and attributed in similar ways to desktop devices, which they haven’t traditionally been able to do. Mopub spent the last 18 months working with publishers and measurement companies to surface the data needed to give advertisers this level of data. The IDFA was the backbone of this plan, allowing Mopub to track how ads performed across apps. 

“We need to not only respect the terms of Apple’s new rules but also the spirit of why they were written too,” said Egan. 

Therefore, Mopub won’t attempt to create short-term workarounds to identifying, targeting and attributing ads to Apple devices. 

“We don’t want to do things that are going to become dodgy workarounds that still allow for app tracking,” said Egan. “We’re working with different parties to understand what is, and isn’t going to be, allowed, particularly around fingerprinting,” said Egan. 

Device fingerprinting— where ad tech companies combine certain aspects of a device, from its IP address to the version of the web browser being used, to identify it as a unique device—has been flagged by some industry experts as an alternative to using the IDFA to steer targeting. It is, however, unlikely fingerprinting will work as a workaround as Apple has been cracking down on device fingerprinting since 2018. 

There are, however, other replacements for the IDFA Mopub could pursue — namely, contextual ad targeting.

“There’s an opportunity for Mopub to build capabilities around contextual based targeting whereby advertisers can target ads to apps based on the type of content that’s being consumed,” said Collin Colburn, a senior analyst at Forrester. “Any opportunity that Mopub can use to not do ID-based targeting will be a potential growth area in the absence of Apple’s identifier.”

For all the panic over Apple’s latest privacy protection, Egan believes the market will settle over time in much the same way as it did following the arrival of the General Data Protection Regulation in 2018. 

“There’s a fair amount of what’s happening with Apple’s identifier that’s analogous to what we saw with the GDPR where you’re going to need to split traffic into whether consent has been given or not,” said Egan. “A lot of our buyers have found ways to use those different types of traffic [after the GDPR]. I expect the same to happen over time with Apple’s move.”

Despite imminent upheaval to how it monetizes apps on Apple devices, Mopub is pushing forward with plans to pull more advertising dollars into apps. Usually, in-app advertising tends to be the most attractive to advertisers with an app they want people to install, such as game developers. As key as those performance dollars are to Mopub — Twitter recently acquired a mobile ad tech vendor CrossInstall that specializes in buying ads for gaming advertisers — there’s an opportunity to win larger brand campaigns, particularly when more advertisers are reallocating money and more people are using apps. 

“There’s a belief that in-app advertising isn’t a good vehicle for brand advertising and only works for performance advertisers like app installs,” said Egan. “A big focus for us this year is trying to shift that narrative because it fundamentally isn’t true anymore.”

Like other programmatic marketplaces, Mopub’s efforts are focused on being able to better curate the inventory it sells. It is working with analytics firm App Annie to give advertisers the ability to target their ads based on parameters like the review score. The business has also been growing the number of ad tech vendors participating in its version of header bidding. Mopub’s unified auction effectively lets multiple ad tech vendors bid for in-app inventory a the same time. It’s unlikely to be scaled offer, however, as some ad tech vendors won’t adopt this way of selling in-app ads.

“What will keep the unified auction from having universal adoption is that there are a handful of ad networks who have no reason to benefit from this way of selling impressions,” said Egan.

Like with all coronavirus-driven trends, this has been an acceleration rather than a change maker, said Richard Barker, managing director at M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment.

“Sponsorship famously falls down if you come in and out of it, but the pace of innovation has been unbelievable,” he said. “Sports is still a hard-to-reach audience, but the audience is still there. The lack of an in-stadium audience impacts the value and quality of the product, but sports like football have an enormous ecosystem of blogs and players. Most brands are still committed to the passion of it and a sponsorship strategy.”

While coronavirus canceled live sports for months, most broadcasters and sports channels dabbled in user-generated or archive footage to fill linear and digital feeds and keep audiences entertained.

That’s the route taken by digital content studio and broadcaster Little Dot Studios, which manages upwards of 30 sports social media channels including U.K. football competition the Emirates FA Cup, Italian football league Serie A and rugby competition Premiership Rugby. Typically content during football’s summer off-season includes archive footage on its social channels, looking back at last season’s highlights and what’s coming up next.

“We focussed on the nostalgia element we thought people would be turning to, reliving past stories and great moments,” said Robbie Spargo, head of sport at Little Dot Studios.

To recreate the event feeling it streamed old FA Cup games from the 1990s and 2000s once a week, supplemented with several recaps and story-focused highlights of specific players or teams. On Facebook, the audience has grown to over 2.1 million, particularly in older age groups who had watched the matches first-time around. The interaction rate on Facebook posts has jumped from 0.09% in December to 0.84% in July, according to CrowdTangle.

The momentum was also spurred by clubs, fans and federations joining in. During a replay of the 2014 Arsenal versus Hull City game, the video had 400,000 YouTube views, three-quarters of which were live views, thanks to the Arsenal football club amplifying the stream. Spargo said the watch time was 30 minutes, higher than general YouTube watch times of three minutes or so for longer-form videos, he said. 

The increase in viewership and the commercial potential for platforms like YouTube has meant that ad revenue for Little Dot has held relatively well and better than expected, but Spargo wouldn’t share specifics. Little Dot sells some of its YouTube inventory direct, meaning it can negotiate higher rates. The studio’s own sales team has broadened the scope of digital services that it offers brands. 

“Digital has become more of a focus within the sports industry,” said Spargo. “Federations have a roster of commercial partners that from March to recently have not received exposure through TV from player appearances, there has been a renewed focus on where they can get their value,” he said, adding “commercial partners are getting closer to digital assets, it’s the coming of age for branded content digital sponsorship. Previously digital had not been seen to pull its weight compared with other assets.”

With less traditional inventory available, lockdown has increased the value of branded content partnerships for both teams and clubs who are missing out on match-day revenue and the advertisers who are missing out on agreed deliverables, agreed Aaron Duckmanton, global head of marketing of social video monetization platform Grabyo.

To counter that, for example, Southampton Football Club grew the amount of digital-only match-day content, including live builds-ups, team announcements, in-match stats and real-time highlights. It’s also working with a number of branded content partners like eToro, Domino’s Pizza and Utlilta. 

“The rise of video viewing across social and digital platforms has driven advertisers to become more involved in authentic, fan-centric content,” he added. “Live social video drives engagement, longer watch times and ultimately more exposure.”

Fewer people in stadiums and an onus on social media has pushed clubs to build new content formats that are almost guaranteed to get views from sports-starved fans, at least in the short term. During Manchester City’s new ‘We’re Not Really Here’ matchday shows, fans tune in to live social broadcasts to connect with their community and access more context around the club. 

But the benefits of digital targeting and broader partnerships won’t fully make up for the losses in linear live sports. If seasons continue to face delays, there will be inevitable clashes in scheduling, not being able to get broadcast time and relevant commercial exposure will result in financial losses felt across sport over the next few years. 

The worry isn’t so much that live sports in the U.K. would get shut down again, unlike increasing fears in the U.S., but how to cut through the glut of sports fixtures over the next 12 months.    

“How do you maintain audience retention and attention when there are bigger and more powerful brands that shout louder?” said Spargo. “A lot of that is about content planning and strategy, working out your voice and what to say, content that expresses that and amplification strategies around it.”

Over the course of about a month, Meron said that the first-party cookies collect and build up an understanding of users who are interested in specific categories on the site and learn more about those users beyond the top line interest.

“It almost doesn’t matter if they are logged in,” said Meron.

The data that Insider’s Sága can collect includes what stories readers are clicking on, their behaviors once on a page, how they are engaging with and sharing content, frequency of returning to a page or site, where they are coming from (whether it is social or search), who their favorite authors are and if they are buying things from the site.

Insiders’ Sága tool is a commercial product at the moment, but Meron said it also has the capability to also be an internal insights tool, adding that the goal is for it to be used throughout the company in order to not only inform campaigns but to inform new verticals, pricing and content packaging. 

In the latest edition of our Digiday+ Talks, Meron discusses how first-party data not only helps give Insider’s sales team a better understanding of how a campaign might perform, but also how it can extend well beyond the confines of Insiders’ websites.

Understand the whole persona

Rather than going the cohort route and relying on demographic targeting, first-party data and using it to track the behaviors of visitors while on a site can help the publisher learn new and unique things about individuals even if they aren’t logged in.

“It’s less about the demographic and more about behaviors and actions,” said Meron.

• Meron said that the data should focus on understanding the entire persona of each site’s visitor. The campaigns will then resonate with them, dig in deeper and tap into specific interests. 
• “Someone isn’t just an IT decision maker,” Meron said. They’re also a parent, a pet owner and they’re interested in health and fitness. “Once you understand the whole persona, you’re able to create campaigns that will really resonate with them,” she said.  
• “Every RFP comes with a demographic but we’re able to look at that demographic and — in places where a cookie can’t fire — we have to be reliant on user behaviors,” said Meron.

Selling clients on Sága and first-party data

While first-party data cannot deliver the one-to-one reach that marketers had with audiences the way that third-party cookies do, Meron said that the first-party data that publishers have access to is still better data than what other platforms, like TV, newspapers and radio are able to deliver.

Not only that, but first-party data has the opportunity to scale beyond the campaigns that the information about a specific audience was collected for.

• Better results. Campaigns using first-party data are yielding better results than those using third-party data. Meron said that one of Insider’s clients that used the publisher’s first party data in its campaign saw a performance lift of 11% over the preexisting campaign benchmarks. 
• Turning publishers’ first-party data into second-party data. Second party data for a publisher can come in the form of allowing advertisers to use their data on its site in a way that is meaningful, but it can also be looked at in the reverse. “How can I enable our biggest and best advertisers to use my data elsewhere? That way it becomes a scalable solution to our advertisers,” said Meron. 
• Informing other areas of clients’ businesses. Some of Insiders clients have begun sharing this information with the creatives at their companies so that they too can integrate the data into future messaging. The learnings don’t remain solely with Insider.

First-party data and the open exchange 

Meron said there is a case for publishers to share their taxonomy with buyers on the open marketplace, but it depends on the publishers’ internal business structure and strategy. 

• While Meron said she would not place the entire taxonomy on the open exchange, sharing its most popular terms could become a lead tool.
• There is also the option to put the least popular taxonomy out there to see which advertisers are interested. A new type of client that wouldn’t normally advertise with Insider could come into the mix.
• Finally, if a publisher doesn’t have a sales team, or a programmatic sales team in particular, placing its taxonomy on the open exchange will increase yield for that publisher new in the space. 

All these moves were meant to protect the networks’ legacy linear businesses — where they draw the majority of their viewership and revenue — as they established their streaming beachheads. However, networks seem to be nearing the point at which they will shift their weight from the traditional TV mountain in order to scale streaming’s summit.

This inflection point has been most apparent in the streaming services that TV networks have introduced or acquired and that are untethered from their legacy linear businesses. ViacomCBS has CBS All Access and Pluto TV. Disney has Disney+ and full control of Hulu. Fox now owns Tubi. WarnerMedia and NBCUniversal have debuted HBO Max and Peacock, respectively. 

More recently, though, there are signs of networks beginning to prioritize streaming over TV. NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell is moving resources from NBCU’s TV networks to its Peacock streaming service and plans to adopt a hub-and-spoke model for NBCU’s TV programming that would later determine which property or platform distributes a show, according to The Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar has told employees that going to direct to consumer through streaming is the future of the TV business and that he wants to move away from selling shows to other TV networks and instead make them for HBO Max, according to The Information.

Prioritizing streaming at the potential expense of networks’ linear businesses is risky to say the least. Despite ongoing linear viewership declines, more people watch traditional TV than tune into streaming; which accounted for 19% of the time people spent watching TV in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to Nielsen. As a result, while streaming is expected by agency executives to account for a larger share of advertisers’ upfront commitments, the majority of that money will go to networks’ linear inventory. Additionally, networks enjoy a dual-revenue stream in traditional TV, thanks to the affiliate revenue they receive for each pay-TV subscriber that receives their linear channels whether those people watch their channels or not. Nice as it would be for all of those pay-TV subscribers to sign up for the networks’ subscription-based streamers, the networks are unlikely to convert that entire cohort. 

But while the traditional TV business isn’t going away anytime soon — its audience and revenue remains larger than streaming’s — it isn’t growing. AT&T and Verizon reported another round of pay-TV subscriber losses last week and agency executives expect that advertisers will spend less money in this year’s upfront compared to last year and that a larger share of that money will go to streaming.

Nonetheless, linear’s current importance can compromise networks’ willingness to make moves in streaming that may jeopardize their linear businesses. So they are taking care with these steps. 

Some networks are creating 24/7 streaming channels for services like Pluto TV that operate separately from their traditional linear channels. These streaming channels are unlikely to rival the networks’ linear channels’ revenue anytime soon. But as streaming viewership increases, linear viewership erodes and ad dollars migrate from linear to streaming, they have the potential to eventually become competitive. For now, though, the networks need to ensure these streaming channels don’t upset the pay-TV providers.

“I’m not going to pretend that [the audience on] cable is not getting older. By putting shows on a place like Pluto — and only past seasons so it doesn’t conflict with our linear deals — [is] a great way to introduce franchises to audiences of younger people,” said one TV network executive.

At some point, the networks will need to make the tough calls to prioritize their streaming businesses over their linear businesses. Some already are, as evidenced by the leaders at NBCUniversal and WarnerMedia as well as Discovery’s preparations to enter the streaming wars.

Discovery executives have disagreed over how much original programming its impending standalone streaming service should carry exclusively, according to The Information. Having exclusive original shows could make the streamer more attractive to potential subscribers, but it could upset the pay-TV providers that pay to distribute Discovery’s linear networks, per the report. Yet, in another sign of the rubicon that networks are nearing, Discovery has reportedly renegotiated some of its TV deals so its streamer could have more exclusive programming.

Confessional

“Pluto is far and away number one. A distant second is Samsung [TV Plus]. Then there’s everyone else.”

— Entertainment executive on viewership for the 24/7 streaming channels it distributes across multiple free, ad-supported streaming TV services

Stay tuned: Corona-proof programming with a twist

After the coronavirus crisis shut down physical production in March, TV networks and streaming services scrambled to line up pitches for so-called corona-proof programming, or shows that could be produced remotely. That interest eventually abated as buyers stockpiled enough programming to fill their pipelines for a time. Now the concept has returned but in a new way.

“As cases have climbed back up, they want normal shows, but for us to pitch with covid plans,” said one producer of recent development talks with TV networks and streaming services.

In other words, networks and streamers are looking for programs that resemble traditional fare and can be produced using the traditional means — in studio, on location, etc. — but that can adapt to be produced remotely in the event of another lockdown. The adjustments are what you would expect: how a program can be produced while adhering to social distancing guidelines and taking precautions like limiting crew sizes and requiring everyone to wear a mask (except for on-screen talent when cameras start recording. Shooting outside is another adaptation that producers appear to be borrowing from restaurants that have adopted outdoor dining.

“For any new project, you need to be able to say, ‘Here’s the covid-proof production plan,” said the producer.

Numbers don’t lie

$200 million: How much money TikTok will pay to creators through a new self-generated fund

4.1 million: Number of people who subscribed to HBO Max in the month after its May 27 launch

-11%: Forecasted decline in television ad dollars, according to media agency Zenith’s latest forecast

4 million: Number of people who watched the first MLB game of the season

Trend watch: 24/7 streaming “pop-up” channels

NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service only debuted two weeks ago but has already joined a trend among ad-supported streaming services. Beyond simply carrying 24/7 channels, Peacock has added a temporary, Olympics-related channel “Road to Tokyo.”

Peacock isn’t the first streamer to debut a pop-up channel to its linear channel lineup. ViacomCBS’s Pluto TV seems to be the most active on this front, having added temporary channels for ViacomCBS shows like “Degrassi.” An entertainment executive said that others, including Comcast-owned Xumo and Sinclair’s STIRR, are in the market for pop-up channels. “It’s just like a six-month programming stunt,” this person said.

These streamers seem to be gravitating to popup channels as a way to differentiate themselves. The number of streamers featuring 24/7 channels has ballooned over the past couple years, with companies including Amazon, Roku, Samsung, Vizio and now NBCUniversal introducing their own properties running always-on streams. However, even though the number of streamers have grown, their channel lineups are largely the same, which can make it hard for audiences and advertisers to decide why to spend their time, or money, with one over another.

While these pop-up channels are being positioned as temporary, that designation isn’t set in stone. “They say, ‘We’ll do a linear channel for several months, and if it performs well, we’ll keep it up longer,’” said the entertainment executive.

What we’ve covered

TV networks, agencies discuss share deals to kick-start this year’s upfront market:

• Agency holding companies would commit to spending a specific percentage of clients’ aggregate upfront budgets with a TV network group, rather than agreeing to spend a fixed amount of money.
• Share deals are a way for networks and agencies to deal with the uncertainty around how much money individual clients will be willing to commit in this year’s upfront.

Read more about TV upfront deals here.

What happens to ad dollars if sports go away again:

• Unlike when sports went on hiatus in March, another pause in play may not put ad dollars on hold.
• But the TV and streaming market may not have enough supply to hang on to the billions of ad dollars at stake.

Read more about TV sports advertising here.

YouTube’s lowered mid-roll ad requirement may lead to shorter videos:

• YouTube is reducing by two minutes the length requirement for videos to carry mid-roll ads.
• The change may be an attempt by YouTube to remove the incentive for publishers and creators to pad their videos with extra content.

Read more about YouTube here.

What we’re reading

Disney+ eyes older audience:
Disney+’s core audience are kids and families (and Disney, Marvel and Star Wars fanatics). But for Disney’s streaming service to grow its subscriber base, it will need to appeal to the kinds of people who aren’t so into PG-rated fare, according to The Information. Per the report, Disney+’s subscriber acquisition rate initially surged after debuting in new regions, but then leveled off, a sign that it is able to attract Disney diehards but has harder time winning over other demos. Now Disney is in the market for its own version of Netflix’s “Stranger Things” in a bid to expand its potential audience and ensure its subscriber base continues to grow.

Apple TV+ looks to load up on movies:
Less than a month after Apple TV+ premiered “Greyhound” starring Tom Hanks, the iPhone maker wants to increase its streaming service’s film slate next year to a dozen releases, according to Fast Company. As the report notes, movies seemed to be something of an afterthought for Apple when Apple TV+ launched. But apparently the premiere of “Greyhound” attracted an undisclosed number of new subscribers that has Apple thinking that premiering more movies will give it a promotional boost to garner more subs. It should also help to retain subscribers, considering that Apple TV+ lacks a sizable programming library. Basically, Apple, like Disney, has moved deeper into the pages of the Netflix playbook.

Digital Spy describes itself as the biggest TV and movies website in the U.K. The site reached 19 million unique visitors across all platforms in April this year, of which around 40% were located in the U.S., according to Comscore data.

“Apple News+ presented an interesting opportunity for us not just to leverage our audience into a magazine but to maybe hit Apple News+ subscribers who have never heard of Digital Spy or never read it before,” said Matt Hill, editor-in-chief of Digital Spy and Hearst U.K. digital strategy director. “It really gives another leg to the brand,” to showcase its longer-form content, such as a list of the top 100 greatest TV shows of the 21st century and a feature looking at Game of Thrones, one year on — both of which appear in the first issue.

For a monthly subscription price of $9.99 in the U.S., $12.99 in Canada and £9.99 ($12.29) in the U.K., subscribers have access to hundreds of newspapers and magazines including The Wall Street Journal and Rolling Stone. Apple distributes 50% of subscriber revenue to publishers based on how much time those subscribers spend with publishers’ content in a 30-day period, Digiday has previously reported.

Apple News+ launched in March last year, though, as Digiday reported in December,  publishers said it had gotten off to a fairly slow start in terms of generating meaningful revenue for them. Apple has not publicly shared any information about subscriber growth for Apple News+ since it announced that it had added 200,000 subscribers 48 hours into its launch. Apple reports third-quarter earnings on July 30.

Hearst UK’s Cosmopolitan, Elle and Esquire were among the launch titles for the U.K. Apple News+ launch last September. Hearst UK titles Women’s Health and Men’s Health also feature on the service. Hill declined to comment on how Apple News+ had been performing for Hearst UK to date. Digital Spy is read by more than 1 million users each month on the free version of Apple News, a Hearst UK spokesperson said.

The publisher has planned out three further issues and will monitor how many downloads and reads it drives, Hill said, without elaborating on specific targets. He added that an important sign of the  magazine’s success will also be how many other benefits it can bring to the publication, such as access to talent it can feature as cover stars and the ability to create different types of editorial and commercial content as part of the broader Digital Spy package. The Digital Spy team hasn’t grown to incorporate the launch — beyond a “small commissioning budget,” Hill said.

Talks between Digital Spy and Apple about launching the Apple News+ title kicked off at the end of February. “The pandemic hits and it becomes an even better idea,” said Hill, noting how traffic to the Digital Spy website had surged during the coronavirus crisis, reaching a record 28.8 million unique monthly users in May, according to the publisher’s internal data. Readers were particularly drawn to deep-dives, explainers and guides around streaming platforms’ catalogs of older shows, Hill said. 

“When we originally started talking about doing it, it was a completely different flatplan [determines a magazine’s pagination] because when we first started planning it, we obviously thought there were going to be movie releases,” Hill added.

As far back as Texture, the digital magazine service Apple bought for a reported $485 million in 2018, publishers have struggled to profit from flipbook-style digital magazines, said Rob Ristagno, CEO of publisher consultancy and analytics company Sterling Woods Group. “Only 2-3% of the population likes to consume content that way,” added Ristagno. 

Publishers’ hope with newsstand services like Apple News+ is to build licensing revenue from engagement with their content on that platform, create brand awareness and ultimately woo users with an offer that will draw them to publishers’ own databases. But, Ristagno said, “I don’t have any publishers that come to mind who have had success with that model.”

“Well-established brands are standing by the boycott and pushing for Facebook to monitor hate speech in a more active way,” said a media buyer who requested anonymity. “We’re seeing brands that took a pause in July are still reluctant to go back.” 

Those bigger brands aren’t happy with Facebook’s response to the boycott so far, according to media buyers, who say Facebook hasn’t done much other than commit to adding a new data point on the prevalence of hate speech to its annual Community Standards Enforcement Report. Advertisers want a commitment from the platform to give them more control over what their content appears next to and to be able to opt out of appearing near hateful content, i.e. to solve the adjacency problem that has been an issue with advertising on myriad platforms for years now. 

Control over adjacency is commonplace with TV buys, print, radio, etc., per media buyers who say that adding that lack of control is a major feature gap for Facebook. That said, fixing whether or not an ad appears next to hateful content isn’t an easy problem to solve and one that has engineering complexities as well as user privacy concerns. 

Still, Facebook is starting to talk about technical solutions to the problem with buyers who say that the platform’s execs wouldn’t do so unless there was intention to act on a solution. Creating whatever that solution is will likely take months, though, per buyers. 

Buyers expect that bigger brands will return to the platform following the release of the Community Standards Enforcement report in November with the new data point on the prevalence of hate speech on the platform. Releasing that number has been amoung the boycott’s demands and Facebook doing so could give advertisers an easy win to point to in returning.

For the smaller brands that are planning to go back many are doing so out of necessity rather than satisfaction with Facebook’s response to the boycott. “They’re hooked on the Facebook drug,” said the buyer who requested anonymity. “They need it. It’s a proven way of generating great results.” 

Davis Jones, managing director of media services at The Many echoed that sentiment: “They’ve made an advertising product that works and it’s integral to lots of businesses. We have clients where their whole business is Facebook and taking a month off would decimate them.” 

At the start of the boycott, advertisers worried about consumer backlash if they didn’t participate. But now, as some prepare to return to advertising on the platform, there isn’t the same concern about going back on without much of a commitment to change from Facebook, said Jones. 

One reason could be that the brands that continued to advertise on Facebook didn’t hear much in the way of consumer backlash about doing so. One executive said that the majority of the brands he works with continued to advertise on the platform and did so with little negative consumer attention. 

For the smaller brands that did move money away from Facebook for July, media buyers say they tested other platforms like Snapchat, Pinterest and TikTok. While those brands will likely return to Facebook come August, they may move less money back as those other platforms have shown positive results, said buyers. 

“[The boycott] could lead to a better diversification of platforms,” said the buyer who requested anonymity. 

“We’re seeing major growth,” Popsugar cofounder Lisa Sugar said.

It may not be as important as Black Friday or Amazon Prime Day, but back to school is one of the most important shopping moments of the year for publishers with commerce operations.

And the coronavirus’s continued spread, which may keep some of the country’s largest school districts from opening, is expected to lead to record-breaking spending this season. Research conducted by the National Retail Federation found that back to school spending by households with elementary school-aged children is expected to increase 29% this year, to $33.9 billion, an average of $789 per household. Spending by households with college-aged children is expected to rise 24%, to $67.7 billion, an average of $1,059 per household.

Much of that increase has been driven by parents looking to better equip their kids for remote learning. While apparel is normally the top product category for Popsugar’s back to school season, school supplies have outpaced clothes so far, Sugar said.

Popsugar’s back to school bet hinges on more than affiliate. This past week, it launched a line of tween-focused apparel in partnership with Old Navy. Though the line’s launch was timed for a back to school push, it has been in the works for a year, Sugar said, who added that the line’s emphasis on comfortable fit and fabrics should help with sales, even if more school districts plan for a remote year.

And as parents and school administrators continue to watch for signs that the coronavirus’s spread is abating, many school districts are holding off on committing to full or partial reopening of schools; a few colleges, such as Notre Dame, are going the other way, beginning their semesters two weeks earlier to minimize the likelihood of infections during major travel periods.

Both developments will mean that the back to school shopping season lasts longer than usual, said Maura Smith, the CMO of affiliate network Pepperjam.

The uncertainty surrounding the coming school year scrambled some publishers’ plans. To ensure strong performance in organic search results, most publishers publish their back to school commerce content in the spring. But this year, as it became clear that the fall school year would be far from typical for most Americans, many raced to spin up new content. For example, Meredith’s commerce team, around two dozen people, created an entirely separate body of commerce content focused on topics such as remote learning and home schooling, Wilson said.

And while the peak of the back to school shopping season hasn’t yet started — that typically comes in the middle of August — many advertising and direct affiliate deals are still being negotiated, as advertisers continue to take things week by week.

“Advertisers are making decisions on budget more last-minute,” said Spira. “Where we would have sold Q3 in Q2, we’re selling Q3 now.”

While things look promising from a revenue standpoint, this year’s school shopping season stands out in another grim way. For much of July, one of Popsugar’s top sources of traffic and commerce revenue was a post about masks for children.

“People just can’t get enough masks for their kids,” Sugar said.