Dive Brief:
- Digital ad networks can benefit smaller publishers by offering ad sales support, according to reporting done by Ad Age.
- Ad networks recently came under scrutiny when Distractify, a small publisher in the Vice Digital Network, saw decreased traffic in February and it put a dent in Vice Media’s overall traffic numbers.
- However, ad networks can provide support for independent publishers by rolling their traffic and ad inventory into one entity, achieving the scale that agencies and media buyers seek but smaller publishers cannot achieve.
Dive Insight:
Publishers such as Vice Media are partnering with smaller publishers and rolling them up into their traffic numbers and ad inventory. Although these partnerships have come under scrutiny recently after a small publisher's traffic dip impacted Vice Media's overall numbers, Ad Age reports that smaller publishers see the benefits of being part of a larger network.
"People are kind of making a big deal now of comScore and the rollups and traffic rollups and things like that, but in my estimation this has always been the way things work, and the people that benefit are the independent publishers," Michael Macher, publisher of the Awl Network and a participant in Vice Digital Network, told Ad Age.
Refinery29 is another new school digital publisher with an ad network, and Greatist, a smaller health and fitness publisher, is part of that group. Greatist founder and CEO Derek Flanzraich described the relationship, saying his sales team focuses on direct native ad sales while Refinery29’s team handling display inventory sales.
Jane Wladar, publisher and chief revenue officer of Modern Farmer magazine, part of Vice Digital Network, echoed Flanzraich’s comments. She described the ad network as “literally an extension of our sales team.”
Publishers with digital ad networks can tout larger traffic numbers to marketers looking to achieve scale. The downside for publishers is that the larger members of their ad networks can have an outsized impact on overall traffic if they leave the network or experience a serious drop-off in traffic. The onus is on marketers to develop a good understanding of where a publisher's traffic is coming from and what they are actually paying for with their ad dollars.