All you have to do to make money these days is put an older man in a white jacket and stethoscope, and have him say “Hi, I’m a board-certified oncologist. But my practice had a
lot of churn, and I wanted to know why. Then I discovered something…”
It's not as ridiculous as it sounds. Ads promising miracle cures for diseases,
gadgets that can prevent your house from collapsing and remedies for everything from hair loss to failing libido regularly pop up online. They resemble the disreputable mail-order ads that once filled
the backs of magazines.
And they get there from one source: programmatic advertising.
That’s the thesis of an article in the Columbia Journalism Review
(CJR). It reports that American Prospect has “done away with programmatic advertising” on its site because of the incongruity between these types of ads and its
own values.
advertisement
advertisement
Programmatic ads are “a type of advertisement built on surveillance that follows a reader from place to
place,” CJR observers.
“The reader’s attention, behavior, and personal data become a commodity, packaged and resold through a supply chain
riddled with fraud, opaque middlemen, and unscrupulous actors,” writes Mitch Grummon, publisher of American Prospect, CJR adds. “And we,
as a publisher, must admit to being an accomplice in that transaction.”
Grummon points to a click-bait ad that ran in American Prospect: “Take this test to determine
if you are gay, straight or bisexual.” (The first question: “Do you think you are gay?”)
This was “scammy stuff that is antithetical to the brand because of clumsy
keyword targeting,” Grummon comments.
Dumping programmatic is a courageous thing to do at a time when publishers are in desperate need of revenue. And
here’s the real question: does programmatic really pay out?
A 2019 study found that the return “isn’t that
great,” CJR continues. “When a user’s cookie is available publisher’s revenue increases by only about 4%,” the study determined.
What happened
when American Prospect dumped programmatic?
“So far, the change seems to be working out: in the month since moving away from programmatic ads, the amount of time people
spend on the Prospect site has nearly doubled,” CJR says.
We don’t recommend killing programmatic unless you are absolutely sure you
can live without it.
Meanwhile, the American Prospect team has to review direct-sold ads that come in for their content. The “Am I
Gay?” folks will have to advertise elsewhere.