NewsBeat

August 2016 NewsBeat 9 media ad sales, "digital display" doesn't include two fast-growing areas, video advertising and native/branded content sales. comScore's study found the greatest difference-makers for advertisers in what's known as "mid-funnel." In the data-centric game of digital marketing that now consumes the ad business, "mid-funnel" speaks to such characteristics as "favorability, consideration, [and] intent to recommend." Yes, all those squishy (but highly meaningful) human reactions that brands want to measure. Big brand advertisers from Procter & Gamble to Ford to Microsoft all seek such a consumer reaction from their billions in ad spend. In the mid-funnel, premium publishers outperformed others by a big number: more than three-to-one. At the top of the funnel — measuring "awareness, recall, [and] message association" — publishers showed a 32 percent lift, above the average website impression. At the lower funnel — measuring "purchase intent [and] share of consumer choice" — comScore points to a 9 percent lift. Put the numbers together, and comScore gets that overall 67 percent lift rate. "I wasn't surprised by the results," Lipsman says. "But the magnitude of the impact jumped out at me," he says. The study also buttresses premium publishers' arguments that their ads offer greater "viewability" than the run- of-the-mill online ad. Viewability has become a big issue in the trade, as poorly presented ads, "invalid traffic," bots and outright fraud have drained some of the real value out of digital ad buying. comScore gave premium publisher a 50 percent rating in viewability, five points better than non-DCN publishers. So, will this one study make a difference? For established media companies, it's more ammo. While they often offer their own "lift" studies, the credibility of an external one carries more weight. It's ammunition media sellers badly need. It's estimated that Google and Facebook are now, between the two of them, taking 85 to 90 percent of every new dollar in digital spending. Their duopoly, which I first noted ("The Newsonomics of Google's Ad Singularity") in formation four years ago, is fast becoming a reality. Consequently, U.S. publishers see their market share actually decreasing, as 75 percent of all digital advertising goes to just 10 players, all of them (largely) non-content- originating platforms. So established media need those higher ad rates they charge just to try to stay even with the market. On average, the Interactive Advertising Bureau says advertising paid $12.09 per thousand readers last year. These DCN members charge significantly more than that for access to their audiences — up to five or six times that average. In practice, media companies now sell both by targeting and by emphasizing the environment surrounding the ad. Say an advertiser wants to target 45- to 54-year-olds in households earning more than $100,000 a year who plan to travel overseas. The advertiser can use a variety of programmatic techniques, buying that slice through a variety of lesser-known media. Or they can seek some of those on newspaper, magazine and TV sites in which the brand connotes that "quality" paying- attention audience. Want them in the northeast, for instance? Use The Boston Globe, Bloomberg, or Condé Nast. It's clear how top media companies will use the report, which counts as unexpected good news. Jason Kint, a former CBS Interactive exec who now serves as CEO of Digital Content Next, lays that out: The industry has, over the better part of five years, spent billions of dollars on ad technology to try to target audience across the web. This report says that no matter how you are targeting and how effective you are at reaching audience, you need to pay attention to where your ads are running. It will have a considerable impact on your brand. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Higher pricing, of course, demands higher proof. A Good Housekeeping seal of approval, as today's comScore report provides, doesn't hurt. It provides a halo of sorts on what has become a hellacious digital advertising battlefield. — Reprinted from Nieman Journalism Lab

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