Commentary

The Two Sides Of Publishers' Yield: Money, UX

Programmatic trading technologies are leading publishers to focus more on their yield, but not necessarily in bottom line dollar terms. Some big consumer publishers reminded attendees at the Publishing Insider Summit in Key Largo this morning that their life blood also requires providing a yield to their readers vis a vis the so-called “user experience.” Without them, they said, there wouldn’t be anything to monetize.

“One thing I think we overlook a little bit when we talk about yield is the entire experience,” explained Brian Kroski, Chief Digital Officer of American Media Inc., adding, “We tend to focus on yield on the impression.”

He said yielding value to his readers is just as important in terms of “a whole cadre of monetization opportunities.”

“I think it’s a balancing act,” concurred Ken Leeder, senior vice president-programmatic advertising at IAC, adding, “I think user experience -- the lifetime value of a user’s experience -- plays a role.”

“I would argue that [monetary] yield as a concept is important, but without users, without engagement, without quality coming to your site, there is no yield,” asserted Esco Strong, director of programmatic advertising at Microsoft. “You obviously have to put that experience first, because without users coming to your sites, there’s no yield. Period.”

That said, different users experiencing different forms of content may be more or less tolerant to higher levels of advertising yield -- ie. exposure that leads to monetization.

American Media’s Kroski noted that fans of its publications’ coverage of the Kardashians, for example, may be willing to put up with more advertising exposure than readers of some of its other lifestyle or interest publications.

With Kardashian content fans, he said, “the bounce rate doesn’t change,” because “it’s extremely desirable content” to them.

He said there are some limits to how much ad exposure they can force even on those readers, noting “too much of it will burn out out regular readers,” but added, “Certainly the more salacious the content, the more aggressive we can be.”
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