Data-Labor-Technology

In the scramble to serve Facebook, publishers have pivoted to video, with some disastrous results. Not Slate. It is betting big on text and podcasting this year, supported by new hires, ad strategy and site design.

“The big story is, we’re pivoting to words,” said Julia Turner, editor of Slate. “We’re going to be experimenting with all media, but we spent lot of 2017 looking at the fundamentals of the business of the written word and podcasting and found a strong case in investing in both.”

Slate has been doing podcasts for a dozen years and now has 24 under its belt, which it said account for 25 percent of its business. This year, Slate is doubling its dedicated podcasting staff from five to 10 with plans to launch a few more shows, including a second season of “Slow Burn,” its hit show about the history of Watergate; and a new one with star author Michael Lewis called “Against the Rules.” In 2015, it used its podcasting know-how to create Panoply, a podcast network for media brands, authors and personalities. This year, it will separate its Slate-branded podcasts from the rest of Panoply so it can fully control ad sales of its premium shows. Video, in contrast, makes up less than 10 percent of Slate’s content.

Slate is also increasing its text-based staff by 20 percent, contrary to a lot of publishers that laid off writers to staff up for video. These priorities will be evident in a new site design launching Jan. 16, which will feature new ways to promote podcasts (and eventually a player so visitors can sample shows without leaving the site) and stronger navigation to make it easier for visitors to see all the journalism Slate offers.

All these moves seem prescient now, given how the distribution landscape has changed. Legacy text publishers now realize that producing video people want to watch and monetizing it is harder and more expensive than it looks. Publishers’ video strategies have largely been driven by Facebook, but a solid monetization model from the platform has yet to materialize. Facebook just announced it would de-emphasize news in the news feed, which will be a blow to publishers that depended on the platform to help their content find an audience.

“There was a bubble,” Turner said. “Publishers saw distribution was free; they could get huge really quickly. You saw people scale up and suffer when Facebook decided to change the rules. In the wake of the Facebook announcement, [the redesign is] kind of perfect timing because we’ve been moving from the last few years to understand the depth of engagement with our readers. Everything we’re doing is around maximizing engagement.”

Slate has been moving in this direction for the past couple of years since it realized it was too dependent on Facebook traffic and started taking steps to optimize for reader loyalty. It made moves like producing more news-driven cover stories, revamping its newsletter to drive people to the site and doing more podcasts like “Trumpcast,” which help drive membership of its premium program, Slate Plus, because some bonus-segment podcast content is available only to Plus members.

In that time period, Facebook has gone from contributing around 30 percent of Slate’s monthly traffic to less than 10 percent, while Slate is offsetting that with increases in traffic from Google and Apple News. Direct traffic to the site, a proxy for loyalty, represents nearly 30 percent of visitors. It now uses engaged time as its internal yardstick for success and counted 2 billion minutes spent reading and listening in 2017, an 18 percent increase over the year before. Membership to Slate Plus, for which die-hard fans pay $49 a year to get perks like fewer ads and bonus content, grew 45 percent in 2017 to about 40,000 members.

Apart from benefiting reader engagement, Slate also sees a revenue case for text and podcasting. Audio and programmatic are its fastest-growing ad revenue segments, driven by the audience demographics and programmatic tweaks like adding demand partners and improving site speed.(The separation of Slate podcasts from Panoply means that direct-response advertisers that Panoply was calling on for all the shows will now be called on by Slate sales staff, too. Charlie Kammerer, Slate’s CRO, said the purpose of the new structure was so Slate and Panoply can each focus on what they do best, which for Panoply is selling audience across its network and which for Slate is creating and selling premium content for a premium audience.)

“Both text and audio attract a super-premium audience,” Kammerer said. “We know we can monetize the written word if we do it really, really efficiently just with programmatic.”

The post ‘We’re pivoting to words’: Slate says podcasts are now 25 percent of revenue appeared first on Digiday.

Data leakage is becoming a huge problem for publishers as ad dollars shift toward programmatic. For the latest installment of our anonymous Confessions series, in which we exchange anonymity for honesty, we talked to a programmatic buyer at an independent ad agency about publishers’ data ineptitude. The source said publishers have lost control over their audiences because advertisers can pluck information about users from ad exchanges without ever paying publishers for the data.

Here are excerpts from the conversation, edited for clarity.

What do publishers get wrong about their user data?
It’s an asset that they generate that they should get compensated for. But they’re not. We’re able to cherry-pick their audiences by going around them.

How?
Publishers fork over a lot of demographic and behavioral information about their users to programmatic exchanges. We can buy a few impressions, and layer over some third-party data we purchase from Acxiom or Oracle to build our own audience segments that we would pay publishers a big premium for if they had better control over their data and sold this information to advertisers directly.

What’s an example?
Large consumer-facing publishers have business-to-business readers that they don’t take advantage of. There are executives that read publications like Sports Illustrated and GQ, but publishers don’t typically split the data up that way. Our B2B clients will pay $30 CPMs or more to reach their audience targets. But instead of paying the publisher $30, I build my own lookalike model with the data I glean from exchanges, and then I go buy the inventory for under $10 CPM.

Aren’t you worried that the third-party data is full of errors?
It certainly isn’t foolproof. That’s why we’d pay the publisher more for this data if they sold it directly to us. But the third-party data helps us get such a discount on the audience segments that it pays off in the long run. We test buying across all of our segments before we launch them across big budgeted campaigns. If an audience segment we built isn’t providing return on investment, we will tweak it or scrap it. But enough of them do provide a good ROI that we get a good bang for our buck from the data companies.

Maybe publishers aren’t selling advertisers this data directly because they don’t want to violate users’ privacy.
They might say that because it sounds nice, but that’s a fantasy. Publishers are already selling their readers’ data left and right. But they do it through third parties. If you look into the code on publishers’ webpages, you’ll find that most are littered with 20 or 30 different ad tech companies that are dropping pixels on the site to track users or retarget ads. I think they are exchanging dollars for dimes with this approach.

Why does data leakage remain such a problem for publishers?
The popularization of header bidding has kept it in the spotlight since buyers can now access user data by simply bidding. You’ve got buyers that bid without the intention of winning the auction because they just want to sift through the publisher’s data. Publishers see that their CPMs go up when they adopt header bidding, but the benefit goes to the buyers because we’re able to get publishers’ audience data at virtually no cost.

How can publishers fix this problem?
They should talk to data consultants about how to best present their data on exchanges without giving too much away. They should build their own data management platforms to make sure they’re the ones in charge of their own information. They should invest in hiring data scientists that can help them figure out which audience segments they can get the most money for.

Why don’t they do those things?
Part of the problem is that it is expensive to invest in tech and many publishers are strapped for resources, so they just depend on vendors to fix their problems because that’s easier. The talent that publishers need to get their data in order is in short supply, and programmatic is very complicated so these fixes aren’t as simple as retraining traditional salespeople to memorize ad tech acronyms.

But I think the bigger issue is that many publishers are stuck in the past and infatuated with maintaining their old sales models. If publishers put as much effort into getting their data in order that they do in taking 25-year-old media buyers to lunch, they would figure this stuff out.

The post ‘We get audience data at virtually no cost’: Confessions of a programmatic ad buyer appeared first on Digiday.

Bitcoin may be everywhere suddenly, but there’s little reason for everyday people or even merchants to start adopting it as an alternative currency or payment method.

The digital currency, whose price has exploded past $10,000 (and then back down some) in the last two months is expensive to get, complicated to use and by next spring they’ll need to figure out how to pay taxes on their bitcoin transactions and holdings. Using cash or cards is just faster and cheaper. And for retailers — like KFC, who added bitcoin support throughout its Canadian locations last week — entertaining the price fluctuation is just a marketing scheme.

“I don’t think using bitcoin [to pay] solves a problem that needs to be solved today,” said David Sica, a partner at Nyca Partners. “For retailers, it’s a way to get noticed, making an announcement that you’ll accept bitcoin will give you some press, but payment volumes won’t be high.”

Read it the full story on tearsheet.co

The post Why bitcoin is not taking off as a payment method appeared first on Digiday.

Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher

When Rent the Runway launched the company’s Unlimited program, a monthly subscription that lets customers pay $159 per month to rent out four items of clothing at a time, the in-store experience didn’t play a big role in the business model.

“Our stores started as showrooms for nice dresses. Almost two years ago, we launched Unlimited. Then that was enabled in stores to let people exchange what they wanted for the next order, and that put a lot of pressure on our stores,” said Hampton Catlin, senior director of engineering at Rent the Runway. “We weren’t prepared for how many people would want to use it in stores. We’ve been investing in tech that lets you rapidly check out, self-service, so people can get in and out.”

In partnership with technology company Aila, Rent the Runway is transforming its stores from showrooms for rental items to logistical hubs for Unlimited subscribers to drop off items and check out new ones, all through self-service tablets.

Catlin joined us for an episode of the Glossy Podcast, recorded live at the National Retail Federation’s Big Show conference in New York, to discuss what role the store plays in the sharing economy, why convincing customers to rent instead of buy isn’t bad for brands and why customers are happy to hand over information.

Edited highlights, below.

On in-store inventory:
Part of making its stores as convenient as possible for Unlimited subscribers includes ensuring that the inventory that’s stocked in stores is relevant to the customers who visit. This means using customer data, combined with stylist insight, to choose inventory. But figuring out how personalized a store’s merchandise can be is part of the challenge. What’s in store at a Rent the Runway location on the Upper East Side should be different than what’s in the Flatiron store, but nailing down the difference is still a work in progress.”

“This is an area where we’re still figuring it out,” said Catlin. “We have the data and machine-learning algorithms, but what we haven’t exactly figured out yet is the scale of that personalization. If we want to fill a store with things that people in a certain neighborhood like, how micro can we get? Wherever we decide where to hold inventory, that’s costing us money.”

On customer data:
Customer data is central to Rent the Runway’s store strategy, whether it’s determining what’s stocked in a certain store location or what the mobile app looks like when an Unlimited member walks in. And a lot of that data is sourced directly from customers themselves.

“Our customers give us a lot of information about themselves — they’re happy to,” said Catlin. “They review, rate, post pictures. It becomes a community feeling, especially with the subscription business.”

On brand relationships:
While Rent the Runway shares customer data back with the brands it works with, the company is training customers that, rather than buy, they can rent. That has to be bad for brands, right? Catlin argues that’s not the case, due to the type of inventory Rent the Runway buys from brands. In most cases, it’s the louder, bolder pieces that subscribers gravitate toward, since they’re not investing in the items long-term. And according to Catlin, Rent the Runway’s physical stores further promote risk-taking.

“Most high-end brands make their money off extra licensing, stuff like that — not from the clothing itself,” said Catlin. “Fast fashion companies that rip off what designers do, very quickly — those are the companies that are actually hurting the designers. We buy stuff from designers in volumes they are not used to selling. And we’ve noticed people will take much bigger risks in real life than they will when shopping online.”

The post Live from NRF: How Rent the Runway’s Unlimited subscription model changed its in-store strategy appeared first on Digiday.

Last week, Facebook unveiled its biggest news feed algorithm change to date, favoring content from friends and family over posts from companies. But while publishers are panicked by the loss of Facebook’s referral traffic, media buyers think brands will be relatively unscathed by the algorithm change.

For starters, brands have treated Facebook like a pay-to-play platform for a long time, and Facebook said the new algorithm won’t affect paid posts on the platform, although CPM rates for Facebook ads may eventually increase, according to agency executives. However, they think the new Facebook algorithm will filter out clickbait-style promotions (“Like our product if you think this dog is cute”), which will pressure brands to create more meaningful content over the long term.

Brands already know that they get little visibility from unpaid content on Facebook, said Brittany Richter, head of social media for iProspect. Most brand content on Facebook is in the form of posts that don’t necessarily show up on a company page and are distributed through ad filters, and ad ranking won’t change under the new algorithm.

Organic content doesn’t work as well as paid posts on Facebook, but Mike Dossett, vp of digital strategy for RPA, thinks many brands still use it to communicate with their fans. “Losses here could impact if and how brands continue to invest in organic, non-boosted content within their overall content strategy,” he said.

Steve Buors, CEO and co-founder for digital marketing agency Reshift Media, believes Facebook’s new algorithm will push brands to think less about what the company’s point of view and focus more on what their audience cares about, which will create opportunities for advertisers.

“Facebook is forcing people to create quality and relevant content,” said Buors. “Social was a means to one-on-one communications, but over time, people were becoming lazy. Those changes won’t impact brands that purchase quality content, but will hit those who chase viral, meme-like posts.”

Buors thinks brands can also surprise and delight offline — a pizzeria can give each consumer a free soda, for instance — to encourage people to share their experience online. Or in a Facebook post, a brand can ask questions like, “What feature do you think we need to add to our product?” to generate interaction and debate, he said.

It’s unclear if Facebook’s new algorithm will deprioritize Facebook Live. If it doesn’t, brands could use it to get into the news feed, Buors and Richter said. (Facebook was not available to comment at press time.)

Agency executives say it’s too early to determine the effect Facebook’s algorithm change will have on paid media. But James Douglas, svp and executive director of social media for Society, said CPM and cost-per-click rates for Facebook ads will likely increase because inventory on the platform will probably decline if publishers take a hit. Facebook CPMs vary based on ad formats and targeting parameters, but they can range from $1 to $15, according to Douglas.

“We will keep an eye on Instagram if we need to move clients’ [Facebook] ad budget around,” said Douglas. “We will also look at other alternatives like Snapchat.”

The post Advertisers see merits of the Facebook algorithm change appeared first on Digiday.

If you thought Sophia the Robot was creepy, check out Saturday Night Live’s My Drunk Boyfriend–a life-size doll whose artificial intelligence has mastered the art of having no intelligence at all. The parody infomercial from this weekend’s SNL pitched My Drunk Boyfriend as the perfect facsimile of your real boyfriend–which is great for when he’s…

The move was being pushed by Shari Redstone, vice chair of Viacom and CBS, and president of the privately held National Amusements, which controls both companies.

The campaign features a number of films including some labeled for each day of the week. Each of these stories will be featured on their respective day in both offline and online channels.

Consumers are embracing over-the-top video services, but are overwhelmed by the number of options in the marketplace, according to Ooyala’s 2018 State of the Broadcast Industry report.

The company restored Bitcoin payments for its online store, but with the introduction of blockchain technology to support several types of industries the question becomes will Microsoft begin
accepting bitcoin, or other types of cryptocurrency, payments for media buys on Bing Ads.