Digital Advertising has been a rough ride for news publishers over the last 25 years but GDPR and the demise of the ad-tech cookie has allowed community focused publishers to snatch back the role of the connector between advertiser and audience.
Based on our experience working with over 200 local news publisher clients across Europe, I see three big trends for 2023 and beyond:
1. Manage Complexity.
Just because digital advertising has been around for such a long time, it doesn’t mean that everyone understands it. While national advertisers and agencies have knowledge, local advertisers and sales reps still have limited understanding.
However, we see a fast growing trend for trusted local publishers who are maximising on the opportunity of managing the complexity of digital for their smaller advertisers.
Instead of complex multiple options as offered by the internet behemoths Google and Facebook that require a degree of knowledge and experience to engage with, they are offering a simple and effective “best practice” approach to digital advertising. They provide the full regional audience their advertisers want to reach in print, in digital, and make print and digital intertwined and being sold as one product at one price.
2. Use the second mover advantage.
Advertisers have learned a lot from their experiences with Facebook and Google, who have captured a large portion of SMB digital advertising spend. Most of the time, it took them a lot of work, budget and creativity to make it work. And in a lot of cases, it just didn’t work out at all for local advertisers.
Advertisers are now looking for new digital channels that cater to their needs and need a partner that provides a compelling digital offer with the confidence that only personal sales contact can bring. This is an opportunity for publishers to win back advertisers who previously turned to Google and Facebook and are now ready to return to a trusted provider of business.
3. Stop waiting for the silver bullet.
Many solutions have been proposed as “the one” for digital advertising for publishers, but they have not been the “silver bullet”: Programmatic advertising is useful for filling unsold inventory, but it only generates £2-3 CPM. Self-booking is relevant for only 3% of local enterprises (see Facebook and their 5m direct customers out of 180m worldwide SMBs).
The key to success rather is to work with all clients and segment them. Offer different bundles with different complexities, but automate the single products for each segment. This can include programmatic and agency sales for national campaigns, direct contact for regional key accounts, and full-service campaigns for smaller local long-tail businesses.
Consistency is key and there are no excuses for buying print-only in 2023. Upsell where necessary but don't be afraid to bundle. Digital advertising has great potential for news portals in the coming years, but it’s all about execution now.
About us
Smartico’s “Smart Ads” is a proven solution to grow local advertising revenue with existing print-only advertisers by taking a local ad and turning it into a high performing digital ad plus landing page. Smartico is a trusted partner of 300+ news publishers producing 100,000s of ads p.a. Customers include large media houses like Tamedia, Mediahuis and Axel Springer and lots of regional champions for whom Smartico provides reliable, sustainable and relevant bottom-line growth and profits.
Email: cs@smartico.one
Web: www.smartico.one
This article was first published in the Publishing Partners Guide (PPG) 2023, which is published and distributed by InPublishing. You can register to receive InPublishing magazine here.
