Commentary

Programmatic's Race To The Bottom Resisted By The Times' Quality, Bespoke Audience Data

If you want to avoid the race to the bottom that appears to come hand in hand with automating media buying, it figures that publishers need to fight back with data. Rather than watch their CPMs being dragged down through ad exchanges and potentially, programmatic technology, publishers are going to have to be clearer on why they stand out. The first part of this is to show they have an audience that is worth targeting, and the second part is showing how this audience cannot be reached elsewhere as effectively.

That's what makes News UK's Project Footprint research in to the Times' subscriber base so interesting. Using comScore technology, it monitored the desktop, tablet and mobile behaviours of seventy subscribers. The fact that Times subscribers are an attractive bunch is probably a point that most advertisers would already accept -- but the clever thing with this research is it shows that an inquisitive readership that is "lean forward" is distinct from the average Internet user. For me, then, the killer stat is not so much that Times readers use Google more than three times as much as the average person to discover content online. It's an interesting point but the killer stats is they use Facebook half as much as the average person.

Put simply, News UK has shown that the very simple tactic of pumping money into paid social may work on many occasions, but it is less likely to work if you are seeking to reach a Times subscriber. There are a few figures in there about how much more likely Times subscribers are to join in an online conversation about a brand and how brands see a corresponding uplift in engagement. Again, they will be of interest to advertisers but, for me, the big factor is The Times pointing out that its subscribers are not as heavily into social as the average Web user. 

It's an interesting point because it underlines the different strategy of a free digital newspaper compared to a subscriber-based model. The free alternative will naturally have higher figures for readers and social shares, likes and comments. It stands to reason that if something is free to read and share, people will share and read it freely. The figures look good, but then what about the opposite approach? What about putting your content behind a pay wall and taking a decline in social media interaction on the chin. Readership figures go down, and the number of shares and likes will likely reduce too, and so to the average digital marketer, alarm bells might start to ring.

However, if you consider that the only thing being dropped is a free ride, and that behind the paywall there is still a strong, highly-engaged readership, then you can easily build a different model based around an audience of fewer readers that you know an awful lot more about and who are choosing to come to your site and even pay for its content. This audience is not simply checking out, for free, what their pals have enjoyed and posted on their walls. The crucial point is to be able to show that they cannot be reached elsewhere for cheaper CPMs and, although, it still might be the case on occasions, this Times research does at least show it's not a given. Those brand advertisers who assume they can reach everyone on social may not be proven totally wrong but they are certainly being shown they are only partially correct some of the time.

So, this research is an important step in publishers fighting back against the race to the bottom that automated inventory buying and selling appears to be ushering in. By showing that News UK has a distinct audience which can't simply be reached elsewhere as effectively as on its own desktop and mobile services, it has made a very good argument for its spots to be bought across the multiple platforms with some care and forethought, rather than lumped into a general automated campaign. 

Could this be a start of the fight back against the race to the bottom? If so, I applaud it.

1 comment about "Programmatic's Race To The Bottom Resisted By The Times' Quality, Bespoke Audience Data".
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  1. Will Clayton from Wiland, Inc., June 8, 2015 at 11 a.m.

    Good piece, and very insightful.  Nothing in here that isn't true -- in a world where media buyers must choose between buying around content or buying flexible, measurable programmatic.  There is no reason why those options have to be mutually exclusive, though.

    Media buyers focus on CPA, and they shift from direct buys to programmatic because they see better metrics (real or perceived).  Maybe it's because publishers are "giving away the farm" to the exchanges.  But maybe it's because cherry-picking audiences is more effective for buyers.  And maybe programmatic audiences can be more measurable.

    Regardless, publishers have what can be the key to success for everyone, and they control it.  At the same time that ad exchanges power the rise of secure, private audience targeting, the cookies required to make it happen are getting less and less reliable.  Publishers have the answer to that problem, and they don't have to give it to any outside vendor.  Paywalled or simply logged-in, premium publisher inventory can go to the exchanges securely linked to consumer identity.

    The notion that buyers will shift back from the freedom of programmatic buying is unrealistic.  The idea that marquee publishers can leverage their subscriber/visitor data to provide markedly superior -- with the lion's share of revenues to the publishers -- inventory through programmatic channels is totally possible.

    There's a fine line between a "race to the bottom" and a "channel shift", and your flexibility determines which one you experience...

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