Find Untapped Higher-Margin Revenue With House Ads

It’s an exciting time to be you — at least, if you’re a digital publisher.

Digital media usage is expected to grow only 2.1% in 2022, reaching a new high of 8 hours, 11 minutes a day. And thanks to everything from recording TikTok videos to playing interactive games, the average time spent on mobile devices increased 2.5% year-over-year (YoY) to over 4.5 hours per day in 2022. With this traffic surge comes the opportunity to diversify revenue, build out first-party data and increase your brand reputation on the open web. 

Nativo, the storytelling platform, offers publishers the flexibility to drive revenue in ways that meet corporate objectives. Publishers can leverage the Nativo ad platform to grow direct sales and support the deployment of a publisher ad business from sales to operations. In fact, even the often-overlooked house ad can be optimized to diversify publisher revenue streams.

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What are house ads?

House ads allow publishers to backfill unsold inventory with internal promotions, such as creatives to generate newsletter subscriptions, conversions for on-site commerce products/affiliate deals, and/or more eyeballs on editorial content. They’re trafficked like standard ads, but only appear when no other demand is available to fill. 

By running house ads, you can prevent the collapsing of ad units or blank space where ads would appear on your site. In turn, readers can expect an improved onsite experience.

But here’s the thing: House ads can do more than simply prevent a negative user experience. You can leverage the House Ads feature on the Nativo Platform to promote revenue generating activities like newsletter subscriptions, affiliate/commerce product conversions and in-house content and events — and achieve diversified revenue in the process.  By using House Ads, you can optimize and prioritize the end user’s experience while adjusting to industry changes like the demise of third-party cookies and Apple’s changes to its iOS14 operating system. 

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Generate newsletter subscriptions to improve your first-party user data.

After almost two years of talk, the end of the third-party cookie is almost here. As we’ve said before, we don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing - at least not for publishers.  First-party data will be at an all time premium, and publisher content presents a strong value exchange to readers. 

If you’re offering a newsletter subscription to expand your first-party user data, you’re not alone. Newsletters are an extremely attractive solution for publishers: Not only do they help expand access to first-party data, they also open up new revenue opportunities in the form of subscription revenue, direct sales and more. 

As you likely know, to reap any of these benefits, you first need to do one thing — get people to sign up.

Enter: House Ads. Using the House Ads feature on the Nativo Platform, you can fill unsold inventory with creatives promoting your newsletter to your own readers when they’re engaged and interacting with your content. In doing so, you’re creating a perfect storm for newsletter sign ups. The right ad, at the right time, to the right audience = advertising magic. House ads can make that happen for your newsletter subscriptions, setting you up for success post-cookie.

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Promote your onsite commerce products and drive users from consideration to conversion.

Affiliate partnerships and/or commerce product offerings are increasingly on publisher roadmaps for 2021, and for good reason: Online sales accounted for over 20% of all retail sales last year. Increased consumer appetite for ecommerce offerings makes investing in affiliate partnerships and personalized product offerings an extremely attractive source of additional revenue in our new digital world — and if you’re not exploring the solution, it might be time to do so.

As with newsletter subscriptions, achieving success with product sales comes down to reaching the right audience at the right time — and the House Ads feature on the Nativo Platform can help. 

Drive people from consideration to purchase by filling unsold inventory with ads promoting your products to those most likely to convert: your readers. The end result is a seamless experience for the reader, and additional revenue for you.

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Drive traffic to your own blog or editorial content to further build your brand.

Brand building is the number one tactic we recommend to brands during times of uncertainty, and publishers are no exception. Investments in brand loyalty have proven to pay dividends time and time again. In fact, a Kantar/BrandZ analysis of the 2008 crisis showed that brands who continued to distribute consistent messaging during crises recovered nine times faster than others. 

Webinars, panel discussions, editorial content and more are all viable avenues to ensure your brand provides value in a cluttered digital ecosystem. Running house ads for upcoming events, trending content or other brand activities makes sure your brand is always top of mind — and that readers know the value you provide. An added benefit? Promoting your own content helps keep readers onsite longer, generating additional monetization opportunities in the process.

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Launch new products and services to garner broader visibility and awareness.

House Ads play an important role in launching new products and services. A good launch will garner broader visibility and awareness which opens it up acquiring more users organically. Coordinating user acquisition buys while simultaneously seeding users from house ads can give you the best chance of your product taking off successfully. As a value component to the broader merchandising launch, house ads come with the same benefits as paid display campaigns: ease of deployment, targeting (including data-informed targeting), optimization opportunities and measurability. Though, it remains a balancing act for publishers, as house ads shouldn’t be looked at as methods of controlling clutter, or constraining the supply of inventory.

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