On October 17th, a Maryland circuit court judge struck down the state’s tax on digital advertising services. The ruling held that the tax violated the Internet Tax Freedom Act, the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, as well as the First Amendment. The Alliance applauds the court’s decision and maintains the stance that taxes on advertising are bad public policy, and harmful to the economy. The Alliance successfully fought for the exemption of newspapers and magazines under the legislation upon its original passage in 2020. The Alliance acknowledges the importance of advertising revenue for publishers as a means to providing quality news to their communities and will continue to oppose legislation that negatively impacts that ability.

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With the rise of digital platforms as a major distribution channel for news, concerns about “filter bubbles” and “echo chambers” – a phenomenon that occurs when platforms’ algorithms only serve readers content that they already agree with – have arisen. As more and more news consumers get information online, the scholarly community has worked to investigate the impact of this shift and the degree to which it perpetuates partisan viewpoints due to the lack of visibility of alternative perspectives. A study published in the journal Science Advances in 2022 added new data to the field and suggests that unlike TV, online news is not a major driver of partisan news consumption.

The cross-disciplinary study, conducted by researchers in the fields of communications, computer science and economics, set out to understand where TV news consumption fits into the question of American news consumption and partisanship. As the report explains, “What is missing from this debate is a broader view of partisan audience segregation that includes the Internet but recognizes that the modal American experience of news cannot be adequately described or explained based on online behavior alone.” With 64 percent of Americans saying they get their news from TV sometimes or often in 2021, according to the Pew Research Center, this inclusion is vital.

At the highest level, the finding suggests that concerns about partisan news consumption should focus on TV rather than online sources. The researchers declare that “while only a minority of TV viewers are part of a partisan-segregated news audience, this minority is far larger and far more internally consistent than what has been found in the online media environment.”

Four key data points underline this finding:

• About 17 percent of Americans are partisan-segregated via TV—roughly four times as many as are partisan-segregated via online news consumption.
• TV news consumers are several times more likely to maintain their partisan news diets month-over-month.
• TV viewers’ news diets are far more concentrated on preferred sources, while even partisan online news audience members tend to consume from a variety of sources.
• Partisan cable news audiences are growing even as the whole TV news audience is shrinking.

New Paper”Quantifying Partisan News Diets in Web and TV Audiences” in @ScienceAdvances with Dan Muise @homahmrd Baird Howland @markusmobius @duncanjwatts: if you are concerned about partisan-segregation, you should be focused on TV, not online https://t.co/9rXUFR3O5a 1/7 pic.twitter.com/NG4yjih2Mt

— David Rothschild (@DavMicRot) July 13, 2022

Publishers working in non-TV media should pay close attention to these findings. As online news consumption continues to grow, people who get their news there will likely continue to get information from across the ideological spectrum. Companies that invest in gathering and producing unbiased news are continuing to meet their responsibility to the American public.

Though many detractors of the legacy news industry attack its supposed “partisanship,” these findings suggest that high-quality news, when consumed online, provides a more balanced view of major issues. The results also suggest that the digital platforms through which most Americans find their news should promote quality journalism sources further. Online news distribution, so often algorithmically managed, could be used to fight partisan segregation, if the online platforms would use their power to promote real, unbiased news sources.

The post Study Suggests Online News Not a Major Contributor to Partisan News Consumption appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

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Building the technology that underpins the online advertising ecosystem is a lucrative business. The two largest online advertising companies, Alphabet and Meta (parent companies of Google and Facebook, respectively) are also some of the most valuable companies that have ever existed. But many other companies have found success in the ad tech market, earning money by inserting themselves into advertising transactions that once took place between only advertisers and publishers. However, three recent developments suggest that ad tech – which already has many known flaws – may be negatively impacting publishers even more than previously understood.

The black box of ad technology, particularly “brand safety” tech, has long been suspected to cause harm by needlessly scaring advertisers away from supporting news with their ad buys. We now have even more insight into the harm caused to advertisers and publishers by these unscrupulous middlemen, supporting our previous call for advertisers to walk away from this system.

The first notable finding centers on the fees siphoned away from publishers. Research conducted by Adalytics found that the fees taken by the “supply chain” range from 22-45 percent, with an average of 35 percent of ad dollars taken from publishers. In some extreme cases, demand-side and supply-side platforms (DSPs and SSPs) take 98 percent of an advertiser’s spend, leaving a mere two percent for publishers. The study also highlights how in the complex, auction-based system, some SSPs deliberately take a loss on some bids, “juicing their overall win rate.” Publishers are trapped in a system controlled by companies with few motives beyond winning, so that they can continue to take their cut on sales.

Even ad tech companies that claim to be looking out for advertisers and publishers do not seem to be acting honestly. “Brand safety” companies prey on advertisers’ concerns about where their ads will run, providing little benefit to brands while cutting off publishers from revenue that could be reinvested into newsgathering and distribution by encouraging keyword blocking. A joint statement from the News Media Alliance and Digital Content Next in 2020 explained:

Fact-based, reliable journalism supports the online ecosystem by providing readers with invaluable information and advertisers with high-quality content and access to these readers. Keyword blocking threatens this symbiotic relationship at the worst possible time.

This threat made it more difficult for news organizations to report on Covid-19 and the January 6 riots, and will make it more difficult in the face of hostilities in Ukraine.

Beyond harming news publishers, many brand safety tools don’t even do what they promise. On March 8, The Wall Street Journal reported that Gannett inadvertently reported inaccurate information about the location of ad placements to its advertisers. In a fully programmatic and machine-led marketplace, no individual advertiser can see every live ad, and reporting is vital for their tracking. However, Gannett’s error – which was widely agreed to not be malicious or fraudulent – highlights another flaw in the system. “Brand safety” companies sell tools and earn money from advertisers and publishers on the promise of avoiding just this type of mistake through careful monitoring and reporting. However, the brand safety trackers failed to flag this issue for months. As Matt Rogerson, head of public policy at Guardian Media Group tweeted:

Question from a dummy: if Gannett was doing this in error, what’s to stop far end of web sites from feeding the same data into the ecosystem? Similarly, if the ecosystem not catching these errors re Gannett, how can we believe they are catching them for bad actors?

— Matt Rogerson (@MattRogerson) March 10, 2022

Implicit in his question was why these companies should earn millions of dollars.

The brand safety companies – while not doing what they claim to – have found new ways to drain value from publishers. A March 10 report in Morning Brew details an additional form of abuse – ad tech companies scraping publisher data and selling contextual advertising segments based on it without permission. Contextual advertising – where the content of the story matters more than the reader’s data profile – is seen as one potential way for publishers to earn back some control in the marketplace with the disappearance of audience-based cookies. This scraping is, according to the trade groups quoted by Morning Brew, “not only a violation of publisher terms and conditions, but also the potential infringement of basic intellectual property rights.” Publishers seemingly can’t win, even with their own assets.

The harm that ad tech companies cause to publishers is now clearer than ever. They take away publishers’ ability to earn enough on advertisements to support the expensive, important work of gathering and sharing real news, waste their dollars with fraud and sell useless “safety” tools that don’t make things safer. And in an age when disinformation is rampant online and information warfare is fueling actual war in Ukraine, choosing to support real news outlets directly and advertising alongside high-quality news can literally save lives.

The post Ad Tech: It’s Worse Than We Thought appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

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This post originally appeared on Medium. Click here to view the full article.

Disinformation and trust in news were key drivers of the tragic riots that took place on January 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol. But as the crisis unfolded, advertisers paused many of their online ads, including those running alongside news content, a practice that ramped up during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is understandable that brands would pause ads in order not to appear insensitive, but advertisers’ continued fear of bad news events is having a negative impact on publishers beyond social and digital media and can be linked to the spread of violent, dangerous disinformation and lies.

Read the full post on Medium.

The post Flaws in Ad Tech Contribute to False Perceptions of Brand Safety, Ad Blocking, and Disinformation appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

If you are a news publisher, click here.

Dear Facebook Advertisers:

Worried about your ads appearing next to disinformation, misinformation or hate speech?

Our journalism is written and edited by professionals. We take responsibility for what we do.

Our audiences continue to grow. The public wants and needs quality news and information more than ever.

Let’s talk.

Overview

Americans are looking to their local print and digital news publishers in this time of paramount public health concern and historic protests. Traffic to news websites has increased significantly as consumers want to know what is happening in their communities so they can stay safe and healthy, as well as engage with their fellow community members.

Our high-quality journalism offers brand safe environments for advertising. Yet news publishers are facing greater challenges than ever due to decreasing advertising revenue resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.

Facebook has not sufficiently addressed advertisers’ concerns about hate speech and misinformation appearing on their platform.

As you are considering alternatives to Facebook for your advertising budget, we hope you will consider advertising in your local newspaper, print or digital. Not only will you be able to feel confident in the content alongside which your ads are appearing, but you will be helping to ensure that during these challenging times, news publishers, who are working tirelessly to bring the news to their communities during this crisis, are around to cover the next one.

Support Real News. Contact your local newspaper about advertising opportunities today.

Locate your local news publisher

The post Facebook Advertisers – Let’s Talk appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

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Since early March, many people have been living largely isolated lives as the novel coronavirus has spread around the world. Their one guaranteed source of information since the start of the pandemic has been high-quality news – especially local news outlets. However, even as these news outlets have received renewed attention from readers, their staffs are grappling with how to continue delivering critical news with reduced revenue and resources resulting from the crisis.

Right now, the cost of journalism is incredibly high. Journalists, newsroom staff and newspaper delivery personnel are putting themselves at risk every day to provide an essential service to their communities. However, as many in the industry have noted, the cost of not reporting on the COVID-19 situation would be much higher.

If publishers are taking such risks, they should receive equivalent rewards. While traffic to news sites is up amid the ongoing public health crisis, unfortunately, most publishers are not seeing an increase in revenue.

In March, visits to local news sites were up 89 percent compared to February. That traffic is partly due to readers wanting more information about what’s happening in their own communities during this global crisis. The measurement company Parse.ly saw that from January 1 to March 31, their network was producing 45 percent more stories, garnering 124 percent more views on that content. Of the stories produced in March, slightly more than 10,000 stories accounted for more than 10 million views. Stories about the coronavirus earned more than 900 views per article – far more than the 257 views per article on non-pandemic content, which had still increased more than 50 percent from January.

A survey from the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin finds that the stories people most want are about the local response to the pandemic. People want to know their local government response, how local hospitals are responding and what restrictions there might be in their municipalities.

Readers are deeply engaged with the day-to-day changes taking place as state, local and national governments respond to new developments. More than 50 percent of U.S. adults say they are following COVID-19 news “very closely,” while another 38 percent are following “fairly closely,” according to a poll from Pew Research Center. Meanwhile, 70 percent of people think the media are doing a good job of covering the crisis.

As critical advertising revenue sharply declines in response to the pandemic, news publishers across the country are struggling to provide the same level of quality journalism. Many are being forced to furlough or lay off their staff, cut salaries and reduce print days to save money as the COVID-19 crisis enters its second month in the U.S. Although some publishers have seen an uptick in subscriptions, the growth hasn’t been evenly distributed. While large outlets like Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal and The Boston Globe have experienced a surge of new subscribers, other outlets – especially local publishers – have struggled.

In a survey of news publishers conducted in mid-March, the International News Media Association (INMA) found that as many as 62 percent have experienced a decline in advertising revenue. While much of that initial drop was from sectors such as travel and tourism, as well as event advertisements and big-ticket items like real estate and cars, other sectors, seeing fewer people shopping due to numerous state Shelter in Place orders, are scaling back their advertising budgets for the year.

Even grocery stores are pulling ads, INMA found. The stalwarts of newspaper advertising have seen an increase in business, but because of that, they haven’t had the same need to advertise as they normally would.

In addition, many digital advertisers and ad tech companies are blacklisting COVID-19 stories. These stories, however, are the ones driving increased readership and traffic, with coronavirus news receiving about 32 percent of all pageviews during the week of March 23, 2020, according to Chartbeat. Stories about the pandemic also account for about 34 percent of total engaged time.

Blacklisting news that is receiving such a significant amount of attention means publishers are unable to make money on those essential stories. It also means advertisers are missing out on reaching a captive audience.

In the U.K., newspapers could potentially lose as much as £50 million (approximately $61 million) in digital ad revenue due to the blacklisting of coronavirus stories, if the pandemic lasts for another three months, according to The Guardian. The potential loss is so great that publishers across the U.K. wrote a joint letter to advertisers, asking them to reconsider. “We understand many marketing budgets are under real pressure now. All we ask is that when you launch your next campaign you check you’re not unknowingly blocking trusted news brands from your plans,” they wrote. “Publishers are the only ones who are punished, in an advertising sense, for reporting and distributing the news that society desperately needs. The system needs an overhaul, the technology needs improving.”

It’s hard not to look at what’s happening right now – in the world and in our newsrooms – and not be scared. But news organizations are on the front lines of this crisis, reporting real, credible and vital news in order to help people protect themselves and their families.

The fact that news is so clearly essential, however, should not prevent publishers from earning revenue, even during these trying times. If anything, the ongoing pandemic has proven over and over how much we need quality news. But publishers need to be able to reinvest in continuing to provide quality journalism.

The News Media Alliance and Digital Content Next recently issued a statement asking digital advertisers and digital advertising companies to stop using keyword blocking practices that jeopardize the sustainability of high-quality journalism during this critical time, stating, “Fact-based, reliable journalism supports the online ecosystem by providing readers with invaluable information and advertisers with high-quality content and access to these readers. Keyword blocking threatens this symbiotic relationship at the worst possible time.” Alliance President & CEO David Chavern said, “This is a global emergency, and the public needs access to information that helps them protect their families, plan for their futures, and learn about public health efforts to combat this pandemic.”

The post COVID-19 Drives Traffic to News Sites, But Will Publishers Benefit? appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

Paper Revolution.

68% of paper and paper packaging is recycled into new products, great to know for the 61% of U.S. consumers who prefer their news in print.

Paper recovery for recycling is a national success because of the commitment millions of Americans make each day to recycling at home, at work, or at school. Newspaper recycling is a big part of this overall success as nearly 70 percent of old newspapers are recycled into new newsprint, boxboard and other products.

Two Sides, a global resource to promote the sustainability of print and paper in North America and in five continents around the world, has created an ad that News Media Alliance members can use to inform readers about printed newspaper recycling efforts.

News Media Alliance members are provided the ad at no additional cost. You may download the PDF ad in quarter- and full-page sizes below.

Download the ad:

Click on the links below to download and run the ad.

Full-page color (PDF) (11.55″ x 21″)
Quarter-page color (PDF) (5.7″ x 10″)

Sources: American Forest and Paper Association, 2019.
Two Sides North America/ Toluna, 2017. An online survey of 2,132 U.S. adults.

The post Paper Revolution Ad appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

Event brings together news publishers, advertisers/agencies in one place

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Arlington, VA – The News Media Alliance will host its next adXchange event on February 24 and 25 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Fort Lauderdale, FL. A signature Alliance event, adXchange offers a cost-and-time-saving opportunity for its news publisher members to have private one-on-one meetings with advertisers and agencies.

adXchange is a popular event with Alliance members typically including representatives from news publishers, advertisers and ad agencies.

The event is typically held semi-annually, first in late February or early March in varying U.S. locations, and again in the fall in Chicago. This event is unique in that the agenda is focused on face-to-face meetings between publishers and advertisers/agencies.

Meeting space is provided for each advertiser, and the advertisers and news publishers schedule their own meetings. Upon registration, attendees will receive a link to their own webpage where they can access the advertiser contact list. Advertisers will also receive a link to their own webpage where they may download the news media attendee list. News publisher attendees and advertisers/agencies can mutually reach out to each other via email to set up private meetings. As the meeting hosts, advertisers/agencies are responsible for filling up their meeting slots. The Alliance can help to connect people if they are having trouble getting responses, but does not pair up publishers and advertisers/agencies or set meeting schedules.

“We have received very positive feedback from our members about adXchange over the years. It is a truly unique event that encourages the formation of new advertiser/publisher relationships, as well as maintaining existing partnerships, both of which provide great value to all parties involved,” stated Alliance President & CEO David Chavern.

Alliance Vice President, Research & Insights, Rebecca Frank stated, “Newspaper media are among the most trusted forms of media by consumers. Likewise, the news audience is more likely to engage with and take action because of advertising in the newspaper, which makes them a valuable audience for advertisers.”

A 2018 news publisher attendee said about adXchange, “This event, along with the Chicago fall event, are of extremely high value to me. Nowhere else can I see up to 25 important advertisers and agencies in such a short period of time at such a low cost.”

Jason Armstrong, Director of Media Development at Mediaspace, a full-service print and digital media buying and planning agency said, “adXchange is essential for Mediaspace in sustaining personal relationships and understanding the ever-evolving opportunities available to our clients.”

Alliance members as well as advertisers/agencies that host meetings receive complimentary registration to adXchange. For a per-person fee, non-Alliance-member news publishers may also attend. The non-member early bird rate of $300/attendee expires on December 20, 2019.

For more information and to register, visit www.newsmediaalliance.org/adXchange.

Contact Alliance Event Planner & Executive Assistant Rachel Fox with questions about adXchange.

###

Media Contact:
Lindsey Loving
Manager, Communications
571.366.1009
lindsey@newsmediaalliance.org

The News Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing more than 2,000 news organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States and globally. Alliance members include print, digital and mobile publishers of original news content. Headquartered near Washington, D.C., in Arlington, Va., the association focuses on ensuring the future of news media through communication, research, advocacy and innovation. Information about the News Media Alliance (formerly NAA) can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

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Earlier this year, the News Media Alliance launched the Advertising Intelligence Center (AIC), an in-depth database of case studies provided by our members that highlight their successful advertising campaigns. The AIC allows our members to learn and be inspired from each other’s success and creativity.

The Alliance is always on the lookout for new case studies to highlight and share with members in the AIC. A steady flow of case studies from our members ensures the AIC can continue to highlight the value of creative, targeted advertising campaigns for advertisers and news consumers.

A requirement for inclusion of a case study in the database is that it must include actual results — whether that is in the form of engagement rates with the campaign tactics or actual revenue generated by the advertisers — so that publishers who use them for inspiration can also compare the success of their ideas.

Cases in the database cover six major advertising industries:

• Home Improvement
• Healthcare
• Arts/Entertainment/Tourism
• Food/Beverage
• Education
• Automotive

One-third of the cases focus on campaigns targeted at a single market.

Some examples of big wins from news publisher campaigns included in the AIC:

• $1.25 million in revenue for a regional theater client, attributed to a print and digital campaign
• More than 100,000 entries to a sweepstakes via a nationwide campaign
• $2 million in annual revenue (out of a total of $14 million) for a luxury furniture store client, generated by a year-long campaign
• 100 percent increase in sales for an auto dealer client, driven by a print and digital integrated solution

We hope that the AIC will serve as a valuable resource to our members’ advertising and sales teams to help inform successful news advertising campaigns moving forward.

Check out the AIC and see how it can inspire your work for your advertising customers.

If you have questions about how best to present your organization’s success in a case study, please contact rebecca@newsmediaalliance.org.

The post Highlighting News Publisher Success in the AIC appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

I never win contests. I am not lucky, but I still try. I join StepBets and buy lottery tickets and tag my friends in every Instagram contest that shows up in my feed. And do I win? Almost never. But does that stop me from entering? No way! Because I could win. And that’s what contest ad campaigns are all about — that feeling of excitement and that drive to engage.

I spoke with Julie Foley and Liz Crider Huff, of Second Street, about how you can add these contests to your advertising mix to draw in readers — and big-time advertising revenue.

Advertisers want to build relationships with your readers and have a way to market to them directly at a time when that person is most receptive to their offerings. The contest advertising campaign both encourages engagement with readers, and collects data from those readers.

If your readers will fill out a survey or agree to provide advertisers their email address, you’re providing something nearly as valuable as a sale — a chance to market directly to that person, and encourage a sale down the line. And with Google and Facebook hoovering up all the data your readers could possibly share, it’s become much harder for advertisers to get any information on their potential customers. That’s where contests come in.

“If you focus on email, there’s a lot of revenue to be had,” Huff explains. “It’s the best way to get people to engage with your content, and you don’t have to rely as much on social media.”

“You don’t want to be worrying what Mark Zuckerberg is doing,” Foley adds. “When you control your database, you control your destiny.”

But to build up that database, you have to give readers something to engage them. Quizzes, surveys and ballots are all ways to do this. This “middle-of-the-funnel” approach creates a solution that advertisers need most, and which local media is uniquely positioned to provide.

One of the best ways to start with this approach is to monetize something your media company is likely already doing: a best-of list. “If you do nothing else, ballots are a huge revenue opportunity that everyone should be doing,” she says.

To successfully monetize a best-of ballot, combine your print and digital products. By putting your ballots online, you make it easier for readers to submit entries, and for businesses to build up grassroots efforts around nominations. It also gives you the opportunity to sell sponsorships for the ballots, either as a whole or for different categories. Later, you can create a digital list of winners, creating yet another sponsorship opportunity, since you can have winners buy ads in the digital product or pay for enhanced listings.

Whatever you’re doing digitally for your promotion, add a print component if you can. Have paper ballots for the people who want them. Publish your best-of winners in a special print section before it goes on your website. Utilize all of your channels to encourage the most engagement and draw in the most revenue.

As a reminder, when presenting readers with surveys or quizzes or any kind of contest that asks them to provide their personal information, you should be up front about the fact that you and/or your advertising partner will be using that information later to reach out to them. It is imperative that you be honest with your readers about why you are collecting their information and how you will use it, and that you stay true to your word, or you risk losing the trust of your audience.

Another unique element of local coverage that can be monetized is high-school sports. High-school athletics has a huge local audience, from the student athletes to their parents and families to school alumni. And chances are, you’re already running “athlete of the week” stories or fun contests, so why not monetize that coverage?

You can’t go wrong with kids and pets and high-school sports,” Foley says.
Sports coverage is perfect for a school spirit photo contest, a “best mascot” ballot, or features on the school marching band or cheer squad. And there are a lot of advertisers who want to get in front of this audience. Does the local bank want to promote student loans or college savings accounts? Have them sponsor a story or series, or a contest. Get the local college to partner on a quiz. And get the community involved. If your contest pits one school against another, people will get involved and they will participate. “Anything that has a great prize for the school will drive engagement,” Foley adds.

Making the leap from top-of-the-funnel ads to middle-of-the-funnel is not the easiest thing to change, and it involves more work. Huff recommends having conversations with your advertisers to find out what they want, and be willing to customize your offering to each client. It’s not as cut-and-dried as the typical print ad, but having the conversation at the start will lead to real results.

Where responses to top-of-the-funnel ads are hard to quantify, middle-of-the-funnel projects allow you to bring real data to your clients. If your readers are filling out a survey to enter a contest, they’re telling your advertiser about themselves. They’re saying, “I may need to buy a new car in six months,” or “I’m in the market for a hearing aid,” or “I’d like to buy a fishing license” (all successful promotional campaigns Huff and Foley have run), and your advertisers are getting their product in front of the people who will actually be compelled to buy it.

For more ideas on how you can branch out and find new promotional advertising opportunities for your clients, you can check out the slide deck Huff and Foley used during their presentation at the 2018 Mega-Conference. In it, you’ll find success stories about their clients, and ideas for partnerships you can aim for with your own promotions.

Are you already running contests and monetizing them? We want to know about it! Tell us what contests you’ve run and how you engage your readers with promotional ads. You can email jennifer@newsmediaalliance.org, or find me on Twitter at @EditrixJen. And when you get in touch, let us know what other media business tips and tricks you’d like to learn about this year!

The post How To: Use Contests to Increase Your Ad Revenue appeared first on News/Media Alliance.