• by Ray Schultz , November 9, 2023

Wunderkind has debuted an ad tool that it says helps publishers increase the value of their visitors with a unified user experience. 

The new offering, the Publisher Growth Suite, has been tested in private beta with such publishers as CNN and AP News. 

Wunderkind claims that the full-stack technology bridges the gap between martech and adtech. Publishers can identify their audience and drive value in the form of email submissions, subscriptions, programmatic addressability and high-yielding ad placements.

“Publishers are the lifeblood of the digital ecosystem, and with the future of monetization being hinged upon user opt-in, we wanted to build a tech stack that can power stability and future growth for the industry,” said Jesse Brewer, VP of Sales and Operations at Wunderkind.  

The new tool “takes into account all stages of the reader journey, from low intent to high intent, with a complex decisioning engine to ensure a win-win-win for publishers, advertisers, and consumers,” Brewer adds. 

According to Wunderkind, the Publishers Growth Suite provides the following:

• Wunderkind Identity Framework, an  Large-scale, deterministic identity solution. 
• Personalized Decisioning Engine—Identity and intent-driven message decisioning. to meet monetization and audience development goals.
• Audience Development—A way for publishers to grow their  known on-site audience, move them down the funnel, and engage them further via email and text channels
• Ads Monetization--High-yield ad placements and increased programmatic addressability for solutions such as Unified ID 2.0. 

One early beta customer was Trusted Media Brands (TMB), owner of Reader’s Digest, Taste of Home and Family Handyman.

TMB saw a 6% increase in magazine subscriptions a 46% rise in newsletter signups and an 84% hike in ad impressions YoY. 

“Wunderkind has been instrumental in helping us hit our audience development goals,” says Emily Christner, chief product officer at Trusted Media Brands. “The best part? This new model allows us to scale that growth and drive additional ad revenue at no cost to us! It’s a win-win.” 

The Trade Desk has also studied the offering. 

“With the deprecation of the cookie on the horizon, and the future of addressability and monetization dependent upon user opt-in, we see offerings like Wunderkind’s Publisher Growth Suite, which allows publishers to easily deploy cookie-proof technologies, such as UID2, as a necessary tool for forward-thinking publishers,” says Samantha Jacobson, chief strategy officer at The Trade Desk.