• by Raj Amin , September 21, 2011

In a world with ad networks and exchanges, where companies are looking to aggregate content and audiences in scale, is the "destination" model still a valid business strategy? The largest destinations will continue to get significant share of media spend -- but for new content players, especially in the video category, syndication can be a critical element in getting scale -- arguably much more than SEO.  In fact, comScore's latest VideoMetrix rankings, released this week, show that online syndicators are creating scale and gaining traction in many categories.

Syndication is not a new concept.  It's historically been applied to the TV marketplace, where great content is syndicated to broadcasters and there is a share of revenue at the local and national levels. Personalities like Oprah, Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz all found their place in this market.  But the audience sizes here have to be huge to justify the infrastructure cost.  In the online world, the added benefit is the ability to syndicate in vertical audiences that aggregate more targeted audiences.   So if you can find enough skateboarding properties, and you have great skateboarding videos, you can syndicate to these sites and aggregate that audience for all the product marketers in that vertical.

Ultimately, if you specialize in great content for a specific audience and cut deals with those who own audience, syndication is a win-win: audiences will want it and advertisers see great value in getting scale with their most enthusiastic and engaged consumers.

Syndication is not about fixed reach, it's about expandable reach.  Agency buyers need to understand the potential available and get experience with running campaigns here to understand the capacity of a content syndicator for their audience.  In a fixed destination, the metrics are more well understand around reach, but the metrics are now solved, with companies like comScore now measuring syndication companies and counting their full audience. 

Another issue has been confusion with ad networks. Content syndicators do sell across more than one site, but are very different from ad networks. Content syndication brings content and creates audience engagement and value rather than ad networks who rely on partners to bring both content and audience. Content syndicators can provide clear context with a guarantee of quality.  Instead of buying a square of real estate on a page, you're buying your ad against great content, served to an audience. With content syndication, advertisers have a guarantee of running with content they approve of and this is why it makes it more difficult.

So how do you as a media buyer effectively evaluate video content syndication companies?

1.    Quality of content: Content syndicators can be original producers, licensers, allow/not allow UGC.  Original producers have the most control over quality, but you need to decide if that's a priority for you. The quality of engagement metrics is key to deciding if that partner meets standards you want to reach for your brand. Companies that allow for high-volume content creation on a crowdsourced basis may not have quality control in place to pull content that may be offensive or have consistent quality levels across the board.

2.    Distribution quality: You can get views with all kinds of mechanisms, but what is the quality of the view? Are they selling content with sexy thumbnails but losing the audience after 10 seconds?  Auto-play vs. user-initiated streams?  Do they support AdSafe or DoubleVerify to ensure content is placed on the right kind of properties?

3.    Advertising features-enabled: What are the assets your brand wants to deliver: two minute video? A pre-roll with companion banner for call to action? Brand integration into the content experience itself? All of these are elements of an ad environment that can be molded to meet a brand's objectives. Content syndicators who know their vertical will be able to support key ad units that achieve high value in their category.