July 01, 2016 / By Erin Martin

New Report: The State of Digital Advertising for Publishers

Today Mixpo is excited to announce our latest report, The State of Digital Advertising for Publishers, that reveals new findings on the priorities and challenges facing America’s top media companies.

In April 2016 Mixpo surveyed over 250 digital advertising professionals employed by U.S. publishers, and conducted personal interviews with 30 digital advertising executives from eight of America’s leading media companies. We included managers from various functions of the digital workflow to get a holistic perspective on the publisher’s digital reality, and to better understand the needs, challenges, and priorities of their businesses.

What emerged from our research is encouraging—while it is a difficult time for digital publishers, it is also filled with opportunity. Publishers are beginning to operationalize in a much more thoughtful way, by simplifying sales pitches, reducing vendor duplication, incorporating programmatic, and creating elegant video and mobile ad experiences that meet market demand. The report highlights the top ten trends that emerged from the research, and provides insights on how publishers think about, and can tackle, the most pressing issues in digital advertising.

In this 35-page report, you will see data and insights which includes:

• Video grows beyond pre-roll: Digital video’s value is growing and publishers are adopting new video ad formats as part of their strategy to meet demand.
• Mobile is still a challenge, but for new reasons: 48% of publishers are ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ concerned with the increase in mobile consumption, while device fragmentation was among the least disconcerting issues.
• Social video is dominated by Facebook: 50.2% of those surveyed have run video ad campaigns on Facebook, compared to only 31.1% on YouTube, 17% on Twitter, 13.2% on Instagram, and 1.7% on Snapchat.
• Facebook is changing everything: Facebook helps publishers reach audiences, but the new user path to content is disruptive for traffic and monetization.
• Ad blocking is a threat, but not top of mind: 46% of publishers said ad blocking is either “extremely” or “very”concerning, but on the long list of publisher concerns, ad blocking isn’t at the top.
• Vendors complicate campaign performance: A majority of publishers surveyed work with at least four ad tech vendors and 5% work with more than sixteen. This dynamic makes it difficult to consolidate metrics and understand performance.

“We created this report to get a holistic perspective on the publisher’s digital reality. Publishers are up against many challenges—Facebook battles to replace them as the daily homepage for information, mobile consumption is disrupting ad formats and inventory volume, and campaign execution has become even more complex,” says Kyoo Kim, chief revenue officer at Mixpo. “Our research found, however, that as digital advertising matures publishers are beginning to operationalize in a much more thoughtful way, which allows them to realize more stable revenue opportunities.”

Download the report to access key insights on the state of digital advertising and learn how publishers need to position themselves for successful future.