For both premium publishers and MFA, monetization boils down to an endless quest for scale and shallow insights into their audiences that can be turned into ad revenue.
How retailers and ad tech interact will determine whether retail media can avoid the same predatory practices that have led to traditional media becoming commoditized.
Rather than allowing an ecosystem in which all media is interchangeable to remain the default, media owners must differentiate themselves to maximize their value to readers and advertisers.
Yahoo pulling the plug on its SSP demonstrates how difficult it’s become for supply-side platforms to prove their value in a commoditized marketplace.
Success in the first-party web is based first and foremost on relationships, quality and trust, neither of which are improved by most content currently provided by recommendation engines, writes audience and data strategy consultant Alessandro De Zanche.
Apple is disrupting old business models that refuse to evolve or die. And the entities affected are fighting back with what is left: weak narratives and conspiracy theories, writes audience and data strategy consultant Alessandro De Zanche.
One of the most overlooked caveats around the shift to first-party assets is that no successful monetization strategy can be built in isolation. A future-facing media monetization strategy must work in two concentrical contexts: within the media owner’s environment itself and within the advertising environment, writes Alessandro De Zanche, audience and data strategy consultant.
Google may have a solution to the antitrust regulatory pressure it’s facing from governments around the world: a proactive spinoff. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is exploring splitting Google’s digital ad business into a separate entity under the Alphabet umbrella. The question is whether Google’s proposed solution will pass muster with regulators, and if it does, who stands to win – and who stands to lose?
The market is not being kind to digital media companies. The nearly 40% drop in BuzzFeed’s stock price on Monday and the decline of its valuation from $1.5 billion when it went public in December to roughly $300 million now is no doubt causing other digital-native publishers to rethink their IPO plans. But any doom and gloom about the long-term viability of digital publishers in public markets is likely overblown.
The debate following Netflix’s recently released Q1 results illustrates the need for a less binary perspective on advertising vs. subscription models, writes audience and data strategy consultant Alessandro De Zanche.
