Digital ad spend in the U.S. is expected to grow 15.9% this year according to eMarketer’s latest forecast. As expected, the oft-discussed duopoly between Facebook and Google leads the digital pack and everyone is talking about it.
Facebook’s ad revenue is projected to increase 32.1% and Google is set to increase 14.8%. Together, they control over 60% of the U.S. digital ad market, however, you don’t have to put all your eggs into these baskets. In this interview with AdMonsters’ Brian LaRue, LiveIntent COO, Dave Helmreich talks about the possibilities of publishers’ own valuable audience insights, outside of the walled gardens.
Here are highlights from the interview:
BRIAN: About Facebook and Google. The “duopoly” term is already borderline cliché. What’s your advice to publishers trying to show the value of their unwalled gardens?
DAVE: Most publishers haven’t invested enough in audience insights. In programmatic, the prevailing wisdom is that more impressions equates to more revenue. But ultimately, a highly-curated, smaller audience is more valuable, because those audiences monetize better. If you understand the makeup of your audience, you’ll understand their value to certain brands pursuing specific demographics and lifestyles.
Brands are desperate for what they term custom audiences, or what we call live audience – logged-in environments where people are paying attention. That’s one reason why social media initially became so attractive, but the engagement in email is significantly higher than in traditional social media channels. I would advise publishers to not just hand over all their articles and inventory and emails to Facebook and expect them to drive traffic and monetization for you. Take more of the effort on your own. Email and authentication can help combat the power swings publishers experience in the market.
The interview goes on to discuss how identity marketing can be leveraged to inform prospecting, and how it affects programmatic and mobile revenue. Helmreich also highlights trends that we should all be thinking about and explains how LiveIntent can scale people-based marketing across the web, outside of the inbox.
Read the entire interview on AdMonsters here.
