The best way to build advertiser trust is to work directly with brands, according to the Daily Mail.
The paper still generates most of its digital revenue from programmatic advertising, but it is increasingly relying on direct sales of tailored content, particularly in video and social media, says Hannah Buitekant, commercial director at Mail Metro Media, the advertising arm of the Daily Mail and its sister publications, including MailOnline and The Mail on Sunday.
Working closely with advertisers is also paying off on the programmatic side of the business. The company uses its first-party audience data to create tailored audience segments for brands and then sells those segments through private marketplaces (PMPs) and programmatic guaranteed offers.
Direct partnerships with brands have also proven effective in overcoming their brand safety concerns, Buitekant added.
Buitekant and Linda Villani, Chief Revenue Officer for the US at MailOnline, spoke with AdExchanger.
AdExchanger: Give us an overview of your monetization strategy.
HANNAH BUITEKANT: We focus on omnichannel delivery. Given the diversification of news media and the way consumers interact across different platforms, we want to ensure tailored content experiences on each of those platforms. And then comes monetization, which is about delivering effective advertising solutions in the same way we deliver content.
Which media channels stand out right now? What are your strongest revenue streams?
LINDA VILLANI: Our strongest revenue streams are entertainment and sports and the customized content we put out on TikTok and social platforms. A lot of our revenue still comes from display. Video and display revenue is comparable. (On our website) the split between programmatic and direct is 60/40.
With the loss of third-party audience signals, programmatic advertisers are moving from audiences to content. However, advertisers also want to improve content-based targeting using third-party audience data. How do you deal with this?
BUITEKANT: We are now seeing more and more large reach with assigned first-party data, which is great for PMP, guaranteed programmatic targeting, retargeting or always-on activation.
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We use a data management platform called Permutive that creates targeted cohorts based on interests. Let’s say you do an acquisition that’s targeting a large reach. All of the insights from that acquisition – views, shares, interactions – create another cohort of intent-driven users. And we have partner programs, so every click, purchase, and acquisition feeds into intent signals. We bundle all of that into a Seller Defined Audience (SDA).
One of the most common discussion points of the SDA is: Buyers are unsure if they can trust the way publishers package their inventory. Is there any reluctance on the buyer side towards SDA?
BUITEKANT: We use a standard taxonomy: sport for sport, maybe also for (more granular categories) like football, rugby, etc. We can’t really blur the lines on that. And the proof is in the measurement. If users are engaging, then it’s the right audience for you. If not, you redirect, diversify and pivot, right?
VILLANI: We also talk to a brand, and if we haven’t defined or built the (desired) segments, we add them, monitor them, and give the brand an idea of what that segment looks like every week. That builds trust because they can see a percentage increase from week one to week four. You can’t promise to reach a million people in the first week with a brand new segment.
How do you react to Google is distancing itself from its plans Rejecting third-party cookies in Chrome? Has that changed your priorities?
BUITEKANT: We are still going full steam ahead and hope that the market does not slow down and work on research without cookies. We are testing ID providers to make sure our media is available at scale.
We had concerns about the Privacy Sandbox. The measurement needs to be improved. The value difference between cookies and the sandbox needs to be improved. But we welcome the initiative. We started testing as soon as 1% (cookie-less audience) was available and we will continue to work with Google. (But Chrome) is not the entire browser market. Safari has a significant reach and this needs to be made addressable.
The Daily Mail has recently released a new video program. Will you sell this inventory directly, or will some of it be sold programmatically?
VILLANI: At the moment we are focusing on direct sales. We want to offer it to our partners for sponsored content and customize it.
The new video content you produce will be published on YouTube, which fits the updated IAB Tech Lab standards for in-stream video. Do you use in-stream video to reach advertisers?
BUITEKANT: We have inventory in every category. YouTube is instream, click-to-play, user-initiated. We already had significant size in the instream space, but (the new video content) expands that. And it expands it outside of the platform, rather than being dependent on our own, and to new audiences that we wouldn’t have reached before.
Has brand safety been an issue for monetizing the Daily Mail? How do you work with buyers to address any brand safety concerns?
BUITEKANT: In the open market, this is a challenge for all news media. We work with advertisers to understand their blocking mechanisms. We run their monitoring tags and integrate them according to their requirements, usually at keyword level. And we find that sometimes they are quite strict and not really relevant for news media. For example, blocking words like ‘shoot’, ‘attack’ and ‘shootout’ has a big impact on our sports content, especially around the Euros.
Brand safety tools are evolving and now take sentiment into account. It’s not as strict as keyword blocklists, but it’s something we need to work towards.
We have seen publishers like the New York Times Expanding sports coverage or games as a brand-safe alternative to newsIs the Daily Mail considering something similar?
VILLANI: Starting in September, we’ll have a new editor in the U.S. There will be some changes on our sports channel, and we’re always talking about how we can expand the health and wellness section.
This interview has been edited and shortened.
