Posts Tagged ‘publishers’
We are excited to announce Federated Media Publishing’s new Tech Blog. With FMP’s recent acquisition of Lijit Networks, technology has come to the forefront of the company’s business strategy and the new blog will share details about current and future technology initiatives.
Employees across FMP will lift the curtain and talk about the high level technology behind FMP’s advertiser and publisher products and services. As Tim Musgrove, Chief Scientist and FMP, states: “we’ll share some of the results, surprises and problems we’ve uncovered along the way, as well as our ideas on where things might go in the future.”
We already have a few posts up about current initiatives at FMP:
- Our very own Todd Vernon, Founder and CEO of Lijit and now EVP of Technology at FMP, provides his thoughts on how FMP’s acquisitions of Lijit, TextDigger, FoodBuzz, and BigTent will help turn FMP into a top 5 media property.
- FMP Chief Scientist Tim Musgrove provides a deep dive into Conversation Targeting (CT), a top technology priority for the company in early 2012.
- Peter Ridge, Senior Director of Product Management at FMP, discusses security requirements for a wireless network.
Please take a moment to check out the new site, and let us know what you think!
Tags: industry, Lijit publishers, new features, publishers | View Comments
Direct sales and programmatic sales are often discussed as competing functions within the publisher business model. However, the two channels are distinct enough that they should not compete with each other. In fact, the most successful publishers we work with from a revenue standpoint have a strong aptitude for managing direct and programmatic sales alongside one another. In order to do so most effectively, it is important to understand the distinctions. Specifically, the following five points cover some of the things that publishers can offer advertisers through direct sales that they cannot get through programmatic channels:
- The guarantee/sponsorship/future: Advertisers want the guarantee of being placed next to premium content, above the fold, in front of a guaranteed set of eyeballs, for a specific period of time, at a set rate. Further, media buyers are tasked with spending 100% of their budgets for fear they are reduced next quarter because they didn’t spend enough. Without a guarantee in place with publishers, their media spend is at risk of (a) not being spent or (b) being spent in less than ideal context at the end of a fiscal period. Programmatic buying technology like real time bidding (RTB) provides advertisers/media buyers no guarantee on price, contextual placement, or impression volume.
- Site takeovers and other non-standard ad units: A site takeover or “skin” is very visible to a reader, generates high CTRs, and creates brand awareness. Because of this, takeovers have very high CPM rates and cannot easily be bought or sold on an exchange due to the infinite ways for designing and architecting a site. Likewise, ad units that are not standard IAB sizes (160×600, 300×250, 728×90) can and should be integrated into the unique design and architecture of a site, and sold for premium prices.
- Banners integrated with content: Below is a banner from Miller Light from my Fantasy Football league that has been creatively integrated with content. This banner shows the score of the Fantasy game each week and allows Fantasy players to “Smack Talk.” This must have been an expensive campaign due to the way it is integrated into the site. The more integrated the advertisement is into the content of the site, the less the chance that an algorithm can decide the price programmatically.
- The leading edge of media technology: While there are emerging exchanges for both video and mobile inventory, nothing yet exists that is as efficient as the market for standard IAB display banners. Publishers can much more easily package and directly sell media like video, audio, mobile web, and applications than any exchange currently can. Even as exchanges mature for some of these types of media, there will always be something that is a little newer or more innovative than that which can be quickly commoditized.
- Conversation: Publishers have their own brand. And in the age of social media, brands need to be a part of the conversation. Blog posts, comments, and tweets are where this conversation lives in a public forum. The influence of a publisher’s brand within the conversation should not be underestimated—marketers are willing to pay a lot for it. This is something that our sister company, Federated Media Publishing, is pioneering across the Independent Web.
So why in the world would advertisers ever buy programmatically? It comes down to one thing: audience data. I will delve deeper into this subject in my next post and explore some ways publishers can manage their programmatic channels more effectively. Again, the better a publisher is at understanding the distinctions between programmatic and direct, the better the two channels can compliment each other, working together to maximize inventory value and revenue.
Tags: employee guest post, industry, Lijit publishers, publishers | View Comments
We caught wind of some changes over at SAY Media. Seems they have asked some of their smaller publishers to find an alternate ad network.
We could speculate as to why they made this decision, but that really does not matter much.
What does matter is the publisher.
We would love to extend an invitation to any publishers who would like to work with us over here at Lijit.
Publishers are our people.
Let us know right away if we can help you continue your revenue stream – especially at the most important time of the year.
Here is more information on our ad services.
Please email us and a member of our publisher development team will be in touch shortly. We look forward to working with you.
Happy Holidays!
Tags: industry, Lijit publishers, publishers | View Comments
Introducing Lijit’s Advertiser Insights for online publishers.
Dec 5th
by sonya in Company, Lijit publishers, features, release announcements
It is a core company philosophy at Lijit that from an analytics perspective we feed as much data as possible back to our publishers, and that we make the data so easily digestible that you can take immediate action on it. It’s what we like to refer to as “actionable analytics.”
Today Lijit released a new tool as part of our audience analytics platform called Advertiser Insights. Advertiser Insights provides publishers with a list of the top brands that align to your site’s readers. Publishers can use this data to support direct sales efforts as well as to develop editorial content that better attracts top brand advertisers. Any publisher using any of Lijit’s services (ad services, analytics, and/or reader engagement tools) now receives Advertiser Insights in their publisher dashboard – just log in today and check it out!
Simple to digest? Couldn’t be easier.
What’s cool about our new Advertiser Insights data is that it highlights the brands that align to your site’s readers, not just your site itself. It aggregates all of the data we have as readers traverse the entire Lijit network, and provides the information back to publishers to apply directly to your site.
With over 150,000 sites and 300 million global uniques, the Lijit Network continues to grow exponentially. We’ve seen a 700% growth in ad calls in 2011 alone, and currently deliver over 11 billion ad impressions each month. Now that’s a lot of reader data we’re trying to reflect back to publishers!
As we look for new ways to help publishers build their business using valuable analytics, we will continue to leverage the power of the Lijit Network to help publishers grow their site and make more money through targeted advertising. To read more about the value of a network, check out a previous blog post from Lijit’s COO Walter Knapp, “For a Publisher, the Network Matters.”
Tags: Lijit publishers, new features, publishers, release announcements | View Comments
So you’ve managed to imbue your articles and posts with wit and creativity. Check. You’ve developed an audience. Check. You’ve embraced the twitterverse and gotten positive response but you’re still not getting paid. Wait, what? Every day I meet new people who are in the various stages of monetizing their website through online advertising. From seasoned veterans to the novice looking for a turnkey solution, one aspect of connecting with your prospective income conduit is often overlooked: the personal branding found on LinkedIn.
Many publishers embrace the anonymity that is afforded them through their work by posting in a pen name or simply staying under the radar. When it comes to digging up information about potential advertisers it’s a cold case with no leads. If you want to make money with your content, and you should, let it be known who you are and why the world should do business with you. There are literally hundreds of options out there waiting at your beck and call to put a dollar sign in front of that talent if they could just find you.
Tags: employee guest post, Lijit publishers, publishers | View Comments
How to turn your hobby into a business: lessons learned from Lijit publisher Kurt Kohlstedt
Sep 13th
Longtime Lijit publisher Kurt Kohlstedt is the Founder and Executive Editor of Webist Publishing and Misnamed Media. His collection of sites include WebUrbanist, WebEcoist, Dornob, and Gajitz – which each have their own theme relating to creative, innovative, and sustainable art, architecture, and design.
Kurt is the quintessential mid-size Lijit publisher who has used online advertising to successfully transition his hobby into a business. Read on to learn how Kurt got his start and how he built his business using analytics and online advertising.
How did you get your start in the world of online publishing?
I was finishing my graduate degree in architecture and slowly began to realize that I was equally interested (if not more) in writing about design as I was in becoming an architecture professional. It was at that point I decided to give online publishing a shot as a full-time career. I built an audience by testing out various topics and found a nice balance between what I liked to write about and what people liked to read. I launched my first site, WebUrbanist, in the middle of 2007.
Tags: ads, Lijit Advertising Services, Lijit publishers, lijit stats, publisher spotlight, publishers | View Comments
Using analytics to understand your audience, learn about your traffic, and make more money
Jul 8th
by sonya in Community, Lijit publishers, industry
As a marketer, I’ve used Google Analytics for years. The problem with Google Analytics is that it provides too much information… so much that very few people know what to do with it all. It often comes up in conversation with our publishers, and they all agree.
Lijit’s goal is to provide an easy-to-use alternative to Google Analytics so we held a roundtable discussion with 15 publishers to learn about the most beneficial data for their site. Everyone agreed that “actionable analytics” are what’s important. Publishers don’t want or need every last detail about their website and traffic. What they do need is relevant data they can use to grow their site and make more money.
The premise: the more you know about your audience, the more you can tailor your content to meet their needs. This engages your audience which helps increase pageviews and grow traffic. The more traffic to your site, the more money you can make from online advertising.
We have recently done a lot of work at Lijit to enhance our Audience Analytics and focus on what we refer to as “actionable analytics” – meaningful and actionable stats that help you grow and monetize your site. For those of you who may not know about all the data we provide, you can each log into your personalized dashboard depending on the type of Lijit services that you use. Data includes:
- Audience demographics: age, gender, ethnicity, income level and education.
- Advertising performance: stats on ad requests, ad impressions, CPM, fill rate, and earnings to help you optimize revenue.
- Audience understanding: data on pageviews, geography, referring sites and searches, top posts, outbound clicks, and other sites that link to you.
- Search intent: statistics relating to number of searches, top searches and last searches, top clicked results and last clicked results, and searches that returned no results.
For those using Lijit’s advertising services, an ‘Ads Today’ section provides trending data comparing the current day’s ad performance to performance one week and one month prior.
Check out the cool interface:
To download Lijit’s Audience Analytics, click here. Please let us know what you think – we’re always looking for feedback!
Tags: Lijit publishers, lijit stats, publishers | View Comments
Lijit Product Updates: Reader Demographics
May 9th
by Daniel in Company, features, release announcements
We just completed another round of updates and improvements to our publisher products. We’re putting a lot of energy behind building out our ad services and publisher analytics and we’re expanding our offerings with every software release. So what’s new?
Reader Demographics:
The most important part of being an online publisher, is understanding your audience. On top of all of the other great audience analytics we provide to help you understand your readers, we now offer reader demographic data right inside your Lijit dashboard. This new statistic allows you to see the overall makeup of your online audience, and further understand who you are creating content for, and the demographic distribution of people frequenting your site.
Why are demographics important?
- Understanding your readers
The best way to effectively create relevant content for your readers, and to attract new readers, is to know who they are. Understanding the makeup of your audience is key to ensuring you are producing content that will engage and resonate withyour audience.
- Monetizing your site
Advertisers looking to reach the right audience for their online display advertising campaigns always consider demographics when making targeting decisions. You will be better equipped to attract and sell advertising for your site if you understand the demographic makeup of your audience
Check out your dashboard to see the demographic makeup of your site and start down the path of better understanding your readers. Just goto www.lijit.com, login and check it out at the bottom of your Lijit dashboard.
Other News:
- Removed MyBlogLog support
We removed support for MyBlogLog and disabled it’s use as a content and network source for publishers who use our search engine services. MyBlogLog had a great run and was a key integration partner in the early days of Lijit. Yahoo is shutting down all MyBlogLog services at the end of May, so we decided to deactivate it on our side before that happened.
- Welcome Widget support
We made the difficult decision to “end-of-life” our Welcome Widget product. Publishers who previously used this feature will no longer see a UI to manage settings for the Welcome Widget, and we automatically disabled the functionality it provided. We’re always looking for ways to enable our publishers to better engage their readers, so keep an eye out for more site tools and functionality in the future.
Tags: features, Lijit Advertising Services, lijit stats, new features, publishers | View Comments
Lijit Study Shows Publisher Adoption of Social Media Tools Grows 80%
Mar 2nd
by sonya in Community, Company, Lijit publishers
Over 15,000 sites on the Internet use Lijit’s advertising services, on-site search tool, and other widgets (analytics widget, recent readers widget, related content widget). Analytics are built into all of our tools but we do not sell the data. Instead, we feed it back to our publishers to help them better understand their audience and monetize their site. We also aggregate the data and use it to optimize CPMs and fill rates for our publishers.
Over the last few weeks we ran a detailed analysis to see what widgets are most often deployed on publisher sites across the Lijit network. We compared 2009 and 2010 data to identify market trends. Outlined below are some of the most interesting takeaways.
Background:
- 2010: 735,834 sites surveyed, 84.8% with widgets installed (13,541,022 widgets)
- 2009: 744,848 sites surveyed, 84.7% with widgets installed (13,826,562 widgets)
Key research findings:
The Lijit Top 50
Below is a list of the top 50 widgets and tools implemented on publisher websites. The adoption of social media widgets – including tools used for social networking, micro-blogging, bookmarking, and photo sharing – grew 80% from 2009 to 2010. Widget adoption specifically related to Facebook and Twitter almost doubled, growing from 6.96% to 11.86%.
Additional analysis revealed the following trends:
- Many content and engagement tools joined the Lijit Top 50 list for the first time in 2010. These tools include Twitter’s image sharing service, LinkWithin, Wibiya, and Tynt.
- Related content tools to keep readers on-site longer didn’t make the list of Top 10 tools in 2009 but are now being used by 3.68% of sites surveyed.
- Online advertising services continue to track at a 20% adoption rate; however, new monetization tools used in affiliate marketing programs such as Skimlinks, Infolinks, and Amazon saw a 16% increase in 2010.
- Audience analytics tools from Quantcast are becoming much more prevalent. Over 44% of the sites that use analytics use Quantcast to gather reader data, representing a 15% year-over-year growth.
- Website commenting systems now integrate social media components. Disqus, used on almost 75% of the sites that use a 3rd party comment provider, now supports social media commenting and sharing on Facebook and Twitter. In addition, Twitsteps, a Twitter-powered commenting system, now ranks the second most widely used commenting system after growing 356% in 2010.
Referring traffic
Three main categories of referring traffic data were analyzed: 1) search engine traffic; 2) organic traffic (defined by sites linking to each other); and 3) social media traffic. A deeper look at referring traffic from social media sources verifies that both social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter as well as social sharing tools such as StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit are being used to drive traffic to publisher websites.
For additional insights into our research analysis, please read our press release, “Lijit Networks Announces Results of 2010 Publisher Tools Analysis.”
Our methodology:
Our definition of “widget” is “any regularly-occurring functionality on a website powered by an external service, voluntarily installed by the site owner, and powered by Flash or Javascript.”
- “Functionality” includes analytics widgets. These add functionality for the publisher but are invisible to visitors.
- “Voluntarily” excludes widgets automatically added by the hosting platform. We are only interested in widgets that publishers make an effort to install.
- Image-based badges, such as FeedBurner subscriber counts, are not counted. HTML forms, such as the original Google search boxes, are also not counted. We may include support for these in the future.
- Our crawl is “centered” on sites with the Lijit widget (ad tags, site search and other Lijit widgets). Our crawler then expands outwards by following blogrolls and other linked sites. This may skew the overall results since research originates from sites within the Lijit Network.
Tags: industry, Lijit publishers, lijit stats, publishers, widget statistics | View Comments
Are you interested in learning more about how to create and manage online communities?
Then come join us at the Forum and Communities Conference in San Francisco next Wednesday, February 16. Todd Vernon, Lijit’s founder and CEO, will be speaking on a panel titled “Technology and Community” along with executives from eBay, VigLink (a Lijit partner), and CloudFlare. The panel will be moderated by Dan Gill, co-founder and CEO of Huddler.
During this one-day event, a team of experts will provide guidance on how to effectively engage with communities, give tips on how to maximize the value of communities, and offer insights into new services to try and trends to watch out for. Click here for additional details on the event. We hope to see you there!
Tags: events, industry, Lijit publishers, publishers, Todd Vernon | View Comments