• by Sara Guaglione , June 24, 2020

The Wall Street Journal | Barron’s Group launched a new suite of ad products called The Exchange, at its virtual IAB NewFront presentation Wednesday afternoon. 

The Exchange combines adtech, first-party targeting and native publishing tools “in a brand safe and contextual environment,” according to the company.

The Exchange is made up of the existing Thematic and three new ad products: SafeSuite, Insite and Trust Direct.

“There’s so much attention and passion focused on the news, but brand-safety concerns and the nuance of B2B topics and coverage creates challenges for marketers," Josh Stinchcomb, Global Chief Revenue Officer, told Publishers Daily. "We’re mitigating those to unlock more opportunity across the spectrum of business news that we cover."

Thematic is a patented taxonomy tool that gauges users’ intent and serves a brand’s messaging against over 65 distinct themes.

SafeSuite is an intelligence solution that uses context and sentiment analysis to align a company’s message with brand suitable environments.

Project InSite provides data about the Dow Jones' key audience segments and their usage of its products. It uses WSJ Barron’s Group’s first-party data.

Trust Direct is for clients who have already produced high-quality content and need “a simple and fast way to publish content directly through our CMS on an ongoing basis.”

“Together, the four components of The Exchange provide accurate audience targeting, thematic alignment and enhanced brand suitability. The goal is to maximize the performance of B2B advertising," Stinchcomb said.

The Wall Street Journal | Barron’s Group also touted The Trust, its brand studio and consultancy, during the NewFront presentation.

"Our readership, and more importantly our paying membership, is at an all-time high, and that creates a lot of new opportunities for advertisers."

Suzi Watford, executive vice president and CMO of The Wall Street Journal, noted that audiences, reach and membership has grown recently. The Wall Street Journal | Barron’s Group has a total of 3 million paid subscribers. 

Watford said COVID-19 lockdowns have sparked changes in reader habits, such as more weekend and weeknight reading, more watch lists being created and more newsletter sign-ups.

Mae Cheng, Barron's Group associate publisher, and publisher-editor in chief of Mansion Global and Penta, added that traffic behind the paywall increased by 20%.

Unique visitors to MarketWatch jumped by 75% during lockdowns to 52 million, a five-times increase from three years ago, she said.

Next week, The Wall Street Journal will launch WSJ Noted, a digital magazine written by and for a young audience of 18- to 34-year-olds.