The Way The Cookie Crumbles: Google Announces First Steps in Finally Disabling Third-Party Cookies
It appears the chefs in the Google kitchen are prepared to offer the first samples for what the future of online advertising might taste like. (And, yes, cookies are finally finding their way off the menu.) Last week, Google announced plans to disable third-party cookies for 1% of Chrome users and migrate those users to Privacy Sandbox starting early next year. As Anthony Chavez, Privacy Sandbox’s VP, writes in Google’s update, this one-percent plan would “support developers in conducting real-world experiments that assess the readiness and effectiveness of their products without third-party cookies.” 

 

TikTok Partners With Top Publishers On Its New Premium and Brand-Safe Ad Slot, “Pulse Premiere”

TikTok is partnering with big-name publishers, including NBCU, Condé Nast, DotDash Meredith, BuzzFeed and others, in an effort to pull in more premium ad dollars. The video entertainment company announced a new premium ad product that would allow marketers, for the first time, to position their brand ads directly after TikTok’s publisher and media partners’ content in over a dozen categories, including lifestyle, sports, entertainment, education and more.

 

Email Tries Hard: How Teams Manage Their Workflows

Here’s some good news for email teams. Email is by far seen as the most effective marketing channel: 41% of marketers say so, versus 16% apiece for social media and paid search, according to the 2023 State of Email Workflows Report. 

5 Advertising Trends That Are Changing Media Buying

Writing on the International News Media Association’s Advertising Initiative Blog, Mark Challinor says the way advertisers buy media has changed. Challinor, INMA’s advertising initiative lead, acknowledges that post-COVID, advertising predictions are really difficult to make. However, he sees five major advertising trends that need to be addressed if publishers are to succeed in digital ad sales.

The Highs and Lows of Publishing CRM, and How To Embrace The Complications

In publishing and beyond, it’s easy to find success stories about customer relationship management (CRM) software, right alongside ever-increasing numbers relating to publishing CRM usage and publishing CRM return-on-investment and everything else rosy and promising about this ultimate revolutionary supertool. Sadly, magazine CRM systems are neither invincible nor undefeated. Keeping an exact score is difficult, as the CRM failure rate has been measured to be anywhere between 18% and 69% over the years. 

 

US Digital Ad Spend Growth To Recover Next Year

US digital ad spend growth will return to double digits next year at 11.2%, following this year’s 7.8%, according to our forecast. Growth certainly won’t go back to the 37.6% we saw in 2021, but it will increase steadily. Come 2025, US digital ad spend will pass $300 billion and keep climbing to nearly $400 billion by the end of 2027.

 

Survey Reveals 71% of CMOs Believe They Lack Sufficient Budget to Fully Execute Their Strategy in 2023

The survey revealed that marketing budgets compose 9.1% of total company revenue in 2023, remaining relatively flat but still dipping slightly from the 9.5% reported in 2022.

 

Google Ads Benchmarks 2023: Key Trends & Insights for Every Industry

It’s no secret that one of the most effective ways to promote your business online is through search ads. In fact, when correctly optimized, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising returns $2 for every $1 spent—a 200% ROI—on average. But how do you know your search campaigns are optimized to their fullest capacity?

Readers Trust Newspapers More Than TV, Social Media For Public Notices (New Report)

America’s Newspapers just released its 2023 Local Newspaper Study, not only highlighting how news consumption and readers have changed but, as America’s Newspapers CEO Dean Ridings puts it, also “measuring the difference local newspapers make.”

 

US Subscription OTT Revenues To Pass $50 Billion This Year

OTT video subscription revenues will hit $50.56 billion this year, an increase of 12.5% YoY, according to our forecast. Revenues will climb to $64.12 billion by the end of 2026.

 

Podcast Ad Study Finds Consumers Prefer Single-Brand Sponsorships

The findings — which are based on a study on online interviews conducted with 2,028 weekly podcast listeners (date not disclosed) — generally found overwhelmingly positive attributes about podcasts vs. other media, although at least one question explicitly addresses the relative impact of podcast advertising formats.

 

New Marketing Automation Research: 2023

Business-to-business (B2B) marketers are tasked with creating effective customer journeys that identify, engage, and inform prospects to build pipeline for sales and ultimately generate revenue for their business. Marketing automation can make this process significantly more efficient when utilized effectively.

Small Price To Pay: Will Twitter’s Micropayments Plan Help Publishers?

The Magazine Manager Blog has previously written about micropayments as just one of the many options publishers could pursue as part of a balanced alternative-revenue-stream diet. Want to attract the occasional reader who might not purchase a full subscription? Give them a per-article option! Now, Elon Musk’s most recent idea-thrown-against-the-wall to offer publishers a micropayment option may actually have some stick to it, particularly if it is able to accomplish what he hopes is a “win-win for both media orgs & the public.”

 

Navigating Print Frequency Reduction Effectively

With costs rising, many publications are looking for ways to cut down on expenses in order to increase ROI. One such strategy for decreasing expenditure might be a reduction in print frequency, but publications must consider the effects of such a change on their brand and audience.

 

AI Confidential: The Hurdles To Using The Technology for Personalization

Everyone likes personalization, both brands and customers. But there are issues on both sides, judging by The State of Personalization 2023, a global study by Twilio Segment. Of the businesses polled, 92% are using AI-driven personalization despite a host of challenges.

 

How Advertising Strategies and Sentiments are Evolving

Since 2020, the digital advertising industry has prioritized the phasing out of tools and methods that don’t mesh with the paradigm shift toward consumer privacy. The game is changing fast, and publishers and advertisers have had to adapt quickly or risk being left behind. But what solutions are taking shape, and how are they affecting the present and future of doing business online?

The Great Recruitment: How To Hire Great Ad Sales Reps in 2023

Heading into 2023, the forecast was pointing to further global ad spend growth, albeit at a slightly slower rate of change. Growth is good news no matter what year it is. But coming out of the last few years and following so many changes in the workplace, including what many were calling The Great Resignation, perhaps there’s no better time to embark on what I’d like to call The Great Recruitment — an opportunity to bring great, available talent together with 2023’s promising opportunity for the good of your publication.

 

More Publishers Adopt 4-Week Subscription Billing Cycles

A growing number of publishers are using 4-week billing cycles instead of calendar months in order to extract additional revenue from their subscriber bases. Four-week (or 28-day) billing cycles enable publishers to charge subscribers 13 times per year instead of 12, which equates to 8% additional revenue on an annualized basis. It’s an approach currently being used by major news publishers including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Boston Globe, and the Los Angeles Times, among others.

 

B2B Budget Freeze-Up: Few Brands Have Greatly Increased Their Marketing Spend

B2B marketing budgets have gone up at least slightly in 2023. But there have been cutbacks in several areas, including personnel, and 66% of marketers are suffering from burnout, according to The State of B2B Marketing Budgets, a study by Integrate. Only 11% of U.S respondents are significantly expanding their budgets over those of 2022. Another 34% say they are slightly higher.  

 

Consumer Trends Report: Consumers are Using SMS and Push and They Demand Personalization

Among the core findings were that more than 40% of consumers say they are willing to share personal data with brands in exchange for better personalization.