Yet again, AdThrive publishers are part of a first-to-market advertising opportunity — this time with Verizon!
While Verizon is known as one of the premier telecommunications companies out there, they also operate a huge advertising technology business via their acquisitions of Yahoo!, AOL and other companies. They’ve launched a brand-new advertising program, Verizon’s Premium Access Program…
And AdThrive publishers are the first to have access to this exclusive new offering — and the ONLY publishers included in the launch!
A little background on programmatic advertising: DSPs and SSPs
Taking a step back for a moment, let’s quickly review how the ad industry operates. Almost all digital advertising these days is enabled through advertising technology companies. This technology is broadly called “programmatic advertising.”
About 85% of all digital advertising goes through programmatic advertising pipelines, so it’s where we spend the vast majority of our time and focus. While the digital advertising ecosystem is complex, the parts that matter the most can be boiled down into a relatively simple chart:
At the top are advertisers: the brand names we all know and love. They tend to work with advertising agencies (think Don Draper from Mad Men) to actually create and buy the ads.
Those agencies buy their ads through systems called Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs). You might be familiar with Google AdWords and Facebook Ad Manager — DSPs are similar tools to these.
From the bottom up, publishers and their representatives (like AdThrive!) work with Supply Side Platforms (SSPs). SSPs let us package our inventory (the spaces publishers have available for ads) correctly, optimize ad placements and more.
Finally, the SSPs connect to the DSPs, bringing publishers and advertisers together through a network of multiple “hops” through the programmatic pipeline.
The TL;DR version: publishers work with SSPs, advertisers work with DSPs, and that’s just the way things are.
But we’re never content with “the way things are.” We want to push the industry forward to make sure that AdThrive publishers have the best possible revenue and the most cutting-edge technology. Verizon, who runs one of the largest DSPs in the industry, is also working to innovate and offer the best technology and most efficient advertising to the thousands of advertisers that use their platform.
Introducing Verizon’s Premium Access: the first-ever publisher to DSP connection
Working in partnership with Verizon, we’re pleased to announce the first-ever direct connection between a publisher and a DSP.
Actually, the first 2,200 direct connections, as every single AdThrive publisher is now enabled for this unique new connection! AdThrive publishers are now connected to these advertisers in the same way that Verizon’s own properties are connected — Yahoo!, TechCrunch, Engadget, and many other names you’ll recognize. You can read the full article here on MediaPost!
Ultimately, this is about getting advertisers and publishers closer together and removing “hops” from the process.
This has a number of benefits for everyone:
- AdThrive publishers make more money as there are fewer middlemen involved between ad creation and buying ad space on each site — and we’ve seen this clearly in our data since the partnership went live!
- Fewer “hops” means faster ads as we continue to focus on the metrics that matter for driving site performance (and strong SEO!)
- Advertisers get more transparency into where they are buying, a growing trend in the industry right now.
- Advertisers receive better performance for their ads, making them more likely to buy on AdThrive sites in the future.
We’re in a fast-paced industry and things are evolving moment by moment. We’re excited to push forward to make sure that AdThrive publishers are at the forefront of these changes and future-proofed against the big changes that are coming!
