The shift in ad spend from traditional to digital media is an enormous opportunity for publishers, but it also presents challenges. With an average of 55% of people only spending 15 seconds on a site before deciding to click away, it is vital publishers engage consistently and effectively with their audience and harness their data to develop actionable insights, which can be used to create personalised and targeted experiences.
As publishers sell more ad inventory programmatically, they need access to real-time data that will enable them to make relevant business decisions in real-time. By utilising analytics solutions that enable this, publishers will be able to increase their revenue and see better yield and performance due to the optimisation and new revenue opportunities.
This, however, relies on publishers not only having the right technology in place to aggregate the real-time data gathered, but also the talent to turn that data into actionable insight.
Reaping the rewards of real-time
Forrester recently revealed that 67 percent of publishers believe that real-time data is important to their campaign efforts. However, only 27 percent of publishers reported that they had access to real-time data when making critical business decisions. This is a huge disconnect.
Real-time data alone is not enough to make a difference to revenue. Data intelligence is what is needed; it allows publishers to measure the performance of advertisements and determine their success against industry benchmarks. Those that are able to benchmark their inventory’s performance against their peer set within the framework of the real-time programmatic ad sales market are at a distinct advantage.
Publishers need to look for the right technology platform that provides this advanced real-time analytics ability, delivering actionable intelligence and ease of use reporting that results in superior real-time optimisation. This will lead to improvements in pricing strategies, the ability to identify new advertiser partners, and ultimately an increase in revenue generation. Additionally, real-time analytics helps to uncover new revenue opportunities and finds untapped markets in the advertising space.
Balancing technology and talent
Given the the vast amount of data coming from digital media consumption, it’s no surprise that 60 percent of large publishers find managing huge amounts of data challenging. With millions of impressions, comes billions of data points. Having one platform that provides a holistic view will help publishers successfully manage their inventory and help their workforce better digest and utilise the information being provided.
Many tools also exist that make it easy to understand insights using natural language processing. However, whilst the technology is an enabler, publishers still require the people-power with the right skills to analyse and digest the data. Publishers must ensure that their teams are fully equipped to grasp the data analysis process and use the data to the advantage of the publisher.
Get ahead, get real-time
Real-time data is hugely beneficial to publishers and has become a crucial component of the digital media industry. Possessing a wealth of data and insights puts publishers at a competitive advantage, enabling them to make timely decisions, and as a result target their audiences more efficiently and effectively.
In order to do this successfully, however, publishers need both the right talent and technology to gather and action that insight. In doing so, publishers will discover new revenue opportunities, be able to benchmark against competition and optimise more efficiently. As a result, publishers will equip themselves with the right tools and talent to lead in this digital age.
By Bill Swanson, VP of EMEA, PubMatic.
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