5 Questions Publishers Should Know The Answer To By Now

Certainty within the advertising industry is lacking. For publishers in particular, this can feel all the more jarring, given most think that we can be the gatekeepers for the future premium web (although as an industry, we’re still working out what this and the open web really mean. See Ari Paparo recent great post).

For most traditional publishers, they are facing a reality of declining print and open auction revenue and ambitious direct digital targets.

But achieving these ambitious targets and, frankly, surviving the new age of Generative AI (yes, I’ve said it already) requires us to have the answers that address some of this uncertainty. However, we can’t expect to have those answers until we realize what the right questions are to ask. These are some of the most important questions that I think we, as publishers, ought to have the answers to. (Picking just 5 was very hard).

1. Why do I need a 1st party data (1PD) offering?

I’m still surprised, respectfully, that some don’t believe they need to invest in this area much/at all. I can think of some edge cases in which having a 1PD offering is of limited value to a publisher, for example, if you have no direct sales team. But even then, if you want only one good reason for giving this some critical thought, it comes down to control. Does having a 1PD offering give you a greater or lesser degree of control over your future? If you think the answer is less, then this is probably an area worth at least some time and investment, even if this means consolidating or partnering with others in a similar position as you.

My advice to those who either still don’t think they need a 1PD offering or have one but feel it’s delivering limited ROI is to start by creating your ideal sales collateral. A little like how Amazon famously creates the awards entry before they’ve built the product, publishers would do a great job by defining what their offering could look like and choosing the technology partners accordingly. There are many other important things you can do, but starting with the end story in mind will give real focus to the plan you then put in place.

Identifying the tech partners and how you want to work with them will become a lot easier. It’s more a case of lifting and dropping the partners and features into your offering, as opposed to the reverse, in which you retrospectively build your data proposition conveniently around pre-existing tech or the ones your boss knows the CEO of. This takes time, of course, but investing in a 1PD offering is an investment in your autonomy and your future, and it’s worth it. And like most good investments, it won’t return instant results.

And remember, 1st party should mean more to your business than your DMP.

2. How do I get sales team buy-in?

Assuming you agree that the general direction of travel is building greater and more direct relationships underpinned by 1st party data, then you ought to be dedicating sufficient time and resources to getting your sales team on board with this. You should also ensure you have suitable talent that can bridge the gap between the technical capabilities and the sales requirements and understanding.

For many of us, the sales team is the backbone of the advertising department, and so as you build and evolve your data proposition, it’s vital that you know how to effectively bring your sales team along on this journey. Otherwise, frankly, those technologies and capabilities that you've invested in would all have been in vain.

It's somewhat oversimplifying things, but I think most publishers will probably find themselves in one of three areas with respect to 1st party data and sales buy-in:

1. Limited understanding and use of data by sales. Likely predominantly reliant on programmatic channels for revenue generation, perhaps with some basic segmentation and insight capability, but an often incoherent and fragmented sales narrative.
2. Made substantial investments in some key technologies with some strong internal expertise and capability to leverage this. Capabilities are broadly underutilized, however, and the utility of these tools is often questioned. Some might have a reasonable grasp of talking about data to their clients, but this is in stark contrast with others who have no understanding whatsoever and avoid these conversations with clients.
3. 1st party data is the lingua franca of the sales team. A common challenge is now, in fact, getting the sales team to understand that sometimes (although hopefully rarely) it’s the right thing to say to say no to a client. The primary struggle for the commercial data team is managing the demand imposed by sales, and priorities include building more self-serve sales tools, facilitating a deeper, more consultative approach with clients, and focusing on longer-term strategic conversations.

Remember, this job never ends. People leave, bad practices set in, technology and requirements change. You have to provide ongoing channels for training and development, but it will be worth it. I really believe that suboptimal tech but great sales buy-in and adoption will always surpass best-in-class tech but limited sales buy-in and adoption.

Suboptimal tech but great sales buy-in > Best-in-class tech but limited sales buy-in

If you can establish at least one data evangelist in your department, it will go a long way. Someone who is focused on tirelessly spreading the word on your data offering with a perceptive approach to the needs of your sales team will ensure you can align all those great capabilities and resources that you have, and that they are understood and bought into by your sales department.

3. How can our strategy benefit from AI?

We’ve all spent the last two years walking around with hands on heads thinking, “Wow, this AI stuff is really cool and will probably change everything” (myself included). Sadly, I remember where I was the first time I came across OpenAI's Dall-e and couldn't quite comprehend what it was doing and indeed how it was doing it.

The reality is that many in the industry and beyond speak of AI strategy when really they are just referring to tactics. Your strategy is your roadmap or plan for the destination you want to get to, and tactics are the individual steps you take to get there. Building a custom chatbot, for example, although very interesting and possibly worthwhile, isn’t a strategy; it’s a tactic. In an ever-expanding field which is hard to keep up with, don't make the mistake of trying to just aimlessly try it all. No one can predict how AI will have truly impacted our industry ten or even five years from now, but the broad themes are, for now, pretty clear. For example:

• It provides automation on a scale that was previously hard to imagine.
• Enhanced customer service and triaging
• Data analysis on hugely varied and complex datasets, in many cases with limited analytical skills required
• Tacit knowledge management and leveraging. Models can hold all of those pockets of expertise and experience scattered across your business and make them accessible through natural language
• Content and asset creation. Whether it is the scale at which this is created, the variety, quality, or extent to which it’s personalized, it's clear that AI is shifting the boundaries of possibility here
• New product testing & prototyping in some cases by those with non-technical backgrounds

Providing you can establish some AI experts or at least enthusiasts at your company and foster a culture of knowledge sharing and best practices, AI then becomes just another set of tools for you to achieve your strategy and overall vision. But don't make the mistake of thinking that because you're "doing AI" that this is a strategy. Focus on how these incredible technologies can deliver and, of course, in some cases, enhance the business strategy you have in place.

4. What is unique about your offering?

We all have something, or some things, that make us relatively unique as a publisher. If we didn't, we wouldn't have any customers (assuming you aren't an MFA site, of course). These might be related to things such as:

• Is your content unique in some way, whether that is the topics you cover or the editorial approach?
• Do you have a best-in-class, cutting-edge ad stack or a first-mover approach that always gets you ahead of the pack?
• Do you have levels of engagement which far exceed the average, or is the scale in your vertical second to none?
• Do you have data that is relatively unique that would be hard for an advertiser to obtain elsewhere?
• Perhaps you have a unique approach to the usage of your data.
• Maybe you know that, above all else, your customer service and sales approach is best in class. This goes an incredibly long way.

Whatever it is, asking yourself the fundamental question of what is unique about your offering will be key to building and maintaining a durable data proposition. If you couple this with a compelling narrative which your sales team can buy into, then you're going to be very well positioned. Steve Jobs, who above all else, was an incredible marketer, famously said that "The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values, and agenda of an entire generation." I don't think most of us need to focus on being the most powerful in the world, but aiming to be the best storyteller in your category or even organization is probably a good north star.

"The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller."

5. How do marketing and advertising align?

Publishers now face a new reality in which suddenly that treasure trove of customer registrations and subscriptions offers big advertising opportunities too.

The reality for many, however, is that the business just isn’t traditionally set up to leverage this 1st party data. These relationships with the customer have understandably been built with marketing and content personalization in mind. Advertising never really had much of a use case for customer emails (although probably should have) until recent times.

But things are changing, and the experienced publishers are reimagining the customer experience and the core value proposition so that it isn't just a "marketing thing" or an "advertising thing." This is a good idea not only from a perspective of more seamlessly working with new data technologies in the future but because what you're really seeking to do and why will become far clearer to your customer, which we can all agree is a good thing.

We ought to all prioritize spending time with marketing, product, and legal teams, aligning on the use cases and ideal setup for the new world of identity and consent. User journeys, data flows, and the preferences that need to be captured are complex projects but very important if you wish to build a durable advertising business and one that you are in control of.

Ad hoc agreements for identity vendor integrations with protracted and resource-heavy legal processes aren’t a sustainable way for publishers to move with agility. And no one wants to re-permission their customers every few months.

Closing thoughts

Open programmatic is dwindling, traffic is faltering, and AI could lead to a fundamental platform shift that disrupts the web-based model we’ve been used to for the last 15-20 years. So, we, as publishers, are thinking very hard about what a future sustainable advertising business looks like.

But "necessity is the mother of invention," after all, and for all the challenges we face, publishers can prevail with new solutions that make better use of the valuable assets we've always had, our 1st party data and highly engaged customers.

Disagree with any of this? I'd love to know.