Category: News

Missed Opportunities: How Avoiding News Content Limits Advertising Impact

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In today’s complex media landscape, where your brand’s ads show up, matters more than ever. Brands are constantly trying to balance two big goals: staying in brand-safe environments and connecting with the right audience. It’s not always an easy line to walk, and advertisers have recently become hesitant to place their ads on news content. However, by avoiding news content altogether, they could be missing out on great opportunities.

The key to brand-safe advertising is to focus on placing ads in trustworthy, high-quality news environments that attract relevant and engaged audiences.

Why Keyword Blocking Isn’t the Whole Answer

In an effort to shield their brands from potentially harmful content, many advertisers rely on keyword blocking – filtering out ads from appearing near certain topics. While this approach might seem like a safe bet, it often goes too far. Ads end up being blocked from valuable and relevant content, reducing opportunities for both advertisers and publishers.

In reality, a study by Stagwell, called the “Future of News”, found that there is no negative impact on brand safety when ads appear next to hard-hitting news topics like the US election or even war/conflict coverage. This finding challenges the common belief that serious news topics are automatically bad for brands. Overusing restrictions like keyword blocking could actually hurt brands more by shutting them out of places where their audience is already engaged.

Building Trust with Quality Journalism

Advertising on trusted new sites is about more than just visibility – it’s about credibility. Premium publishers are known for their strong fact-checking and high standards, offering readers content they can trust.

Compare that to platforms like Instagram and Facebook, where Meta recently announced they will no longer fact-check their content. When brands choose to appear on trustworthy news sites they align themselves with reliability and credibility, which can make a big difference in how they’re seen by consumers.

The data backs this up. A study by Newsworks found that people trust brands 1.5x more when those brands advertise on news websites compared to non-news sites. Ads in trusted environments not only protect your brand but also improve how people perceive and engage with it.

A Smarter Way Forward

Brand safety is, and will always be, a fundamental pillar of advertising, but avoiding quality news content isn’t the answer. Instead, brands should explore smarter strategies like contextual advertising. This approach places ads alongside relevant, premium content where audiences are already engaged.

With Dianomi, brands can tap into contextual advertising to position their messages within high-quality articles that matter to their target audience. It’s a win-win: brands enhance their credibility, and audiences see ads that feel relevant and trustworthy.

Conclusion

Brand safety isn’t about steering clear of the news – it’s about being thoughtful about where your ads appear. Trusted news environments offer a unique chance to boost credibility and connect with audiences in meaningful ways. By leveraging tools like contextual advertising, brads can create campaigns that build trust, improve engagement, and still reach the audiences that matter most.

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Advertising Done Right: Avoiding MFA Pitfalls and Prioritizing Brand Safety

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Did you know that, according to the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), 21% of ad impressions come from websites designed solely to generate ad revenue? These Made for Advertising (MFA) sites not only waste marketing budgets but also jeopardize brand reputation and contribute significantly to environmental harm.

For advertisers striving to protect their reputation and ensure effective campaigns, controlling ad placements is more crucial-and challenging-than ever. The rise of MFA websites and the complexities of modern media buying processes are creating low-value environments that undermine campaign goals.

What Are MFA Websites?

MFA websites exist solely to drive ad revenue. They’re characterized by clickbait headlines, intrusive ads, and a poor user experience. Instead of engaging audiences with meaningful content, these sites prioritize sheer ad volume, creating two significant risks for advertisers:

The consequences of supporting MFA sites go beyond wasted budgets-they harm both brand reputation and the planet.

The Complexity of Media Buying

Modern programmatic platforms have transformed advertising by automating the buying process. But this convenience can lead to unintended consequences: lack of visibility and control. Without full visibility, ads often end up on MFA sites, compromising campaign brand safety and campaign effectiveness.

This issue is further compounded by pressures within the advertising ecosystem. To meet performance targets-often narrowly defined as clicks, impressions, or other metrics that fail to account for audience quality, relevance, or genuine attention-agencies and ad tech vendors may opt for cheaper, low-quality options, even when they don’t align with the brand’s broader goals. This narrow pursuit of cost efficiency and surface-level performance can lead to ads appearing in unsuitable environments, ultimately damaging the brand’s reputation.

Imagine a high-end fashion brand’s ad appearing on a cluttered clickbait site. Not only does it fail to connect with the intended audience, but it also risks eroding the brand’s perceived value.

Many advertisers are unaware of where their ads are being placed, making it difficult to ensure that their campaigns are running in high-quality, brand-safe environments.

Prioritizing Quality and Context

In today’s landscape, advertisers must take a proactive approach to media buying. By prioritizing transparency, quality, and alignment with brand values, you can protect your reputation and drive meaningful engagement. Here are three key steps to consider:

  1. Audit Media Buys: Regularly review where your ads are appearing to ensure alignment with your brand’s values and objectives.
  2. Leverage Transparent Tools: Use platforms that offer full visibility into ad placements, empowering you to avoid low-quality inventory.
  3. Invest in Premium Publishers: Choose high-quality publishers that offer controlled, brand-safe advertising environments. Through this may come at a higher upfront cost, it leads to stronger audience connections and better ROI.

For example, an ad placed on a reputable financial news platform is more likely to resonate with its intended audience that one buried on an MFA site filled with intrusive pop-ups.

How Dianomi Helps

Platforms like Dianomi specialize in delivering ads within premium, brand-safe environments. By focusing on quality placements, Dianomi ensures your message reaches the right audience in the right context.

By partnering with a platform that prioritizes transparency and high-value inventory, advertisers can confidently avoid the pitfalls of MFA sites and instead prioritize what truly matters: delivering impactful campaigns.

Conclusion

The growing presence of MFA websites and the complexities of media buying make it more important than ever for advertisers to take control of their campaigns. By prioritizing quality, context, and transparency, you can safeguard your brand’s reputation and drive better results.

With the right strategies and tools, such as those offered by Dianomi, you can focus on what truly matters: delivering impactful advertising that connects with your audience in the right context.

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Why Marketers Should Still Embrace Cookieless Targeting

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The anticipated demise of third-party cookies has been one of the most talked-about topics in the advertising industry over the past several years. Google’s recent reversal of its plan to block third-party cookies on Chrome has prompted many marketers to rethink their strategies. Despite Google’s decision, here’s why it’s smart for marketers to embrace cookieless targeting anyway.

Why Now?

The threat of third-party cookies vanishing has not gone away entirely. Google may still present users with the option to decline cookie targeting, and the likelihood is that many will choose to opt-out. With the future of cookies remaining uncertain, it’s essential for marketers to be prepared. In fact, a significant portion of the market is already cookieless: Safari deprecated third-party tracking back in 2017 and Firefox followed in 2019 by blocking third-party cookies by default. Additionally, according to a May 2023 survey from the Pew Research Center, 67% of US adults turn off cookies or website tracking to protect their privacy. Fortunately, cookieless strategies already deliver performance on par with, or even better than, cookie-based approaches. Now is the time to explore and embrace these alternatives to future-proof your marketing efforts.

The Power of Cookieless Targeting

Cookieless targeting offers an effective alternative to traditional cookie-based strategies by focusing on the context of the content rather than tracking individual users. Contextual targeting delivers ads based on the relevance of the webpage’s content, making it highly aligned with user intent in real-time.

This approach often outperforms cookie-based targeting because it places ads in environments where audiences are already engaged with related topics, increasing the chances of meaningful interactions. A user reading an article about the upcoming tax season might see ads for tax or financial planning, which will likely resonate with them more than a randomly targeted ad. It will also drive better ad recall because the ad is related to the content being viewed.

Since contextual targeting serves ads relevant to the content a user is viewing, it avoids the issue of over-targeting users and creating ad fatigue. It creates a more organic user experience. Users are less likely to feel “chased” by ads, as they won’t see repetitive ads based on tracking.

Machine learning further enhances the effectiveness of contextual targeting, allowing marketers to scale these strategies, reaching new audiences across brand-safe, premium publishers.

Establishing Trust

One of the key benefits of cookieless targeting is that it fosters greater trust and transparency between advertisers and consumers, ultimately leading to more meaningful and effective marketing. When consumers are not constantly retargeted, they will naturally feel at greater ease on content sites that feel more relevant to the current environment and not to past browsing activities. By avoiding personal data collection and tracking, it also eliminates consumer’s concerns over privacy invasion, thus creating a more respectful and ethical advertising ecosystem.

How to Make the Shift

Although this shift can seem daunting, it opens the door to innovation and enhanced audience engagement. By embracing new targeting methods, like Dianomi’s Audience Cohorts, marketers can achieve greater success connecting their brand with their desired consumers without relying on cookies. Reach out to us to learn how we can assist you in transitioning to a cookieless future and unlocking the full potential of digital marketing.

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Greener Ads, Better Results: Streamlining Your Ad Buying Process

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As the climate crisis accelerates, the spotlight has shifted from traditional industries known for their heavy carbon emissions to unexpected culprits – one of which is digital advertising. Marketers are now realizing the carbon footprint of programmatic advertising is larger than they thought and are looking to decrease the carbon impact of their programmatic buys. In the advertising industry, a common response to this challenge often involves adding more vendors to the buying process. Vendors offer a variety of solutions to help mitigate carbon footprints, each claiming to address sustainability in different ways. Some vendors promise to hand-select programmatic partners based on their sustainability credentials. Others aim to optimize ad placements to reduce wasted impressions, and some even offer environmental incentives like tree planting or wildlife conservation for every ad dollar spent. However, this approach can complicate rather than simplify efforts to achieve sustainability.

Optimizing Your Supply Path

A more straightforward and effective way to reduce carbon emissions lies in streamlining your supply path. By focusing on fewer, higher-quality ads from reputable publishers, you can significantly decrease your environmental impact. As highlighted in GroupM’s sustainability best practices note, this approach not only minimizes complexity, but also enhances the effectiveness of your advertising efforts.

The rationale behind this is simple: The fewer technology partners involved in the ad buy, the fewer servers are involved, and therefore the smaller the carbon impact. Supply Side Platforms (SSPs) often account for a significant portion of the emissions tied to programmatic advertising, so cutting down on these intermediaries is an easy starting point towards reducing your carbon footprint.

The second key step is to focus on quality, reputable sites. According to Scope3, low-quality sites with excessive ad loads such as Made For Advertising (MFAs) sites – produce 26% more emissions than their premium counterparts. By being more selective about choosing your publisher partners, you can quickly decrease their environmental impact.

So how can you put these approaches into practice? First, you should begin by looking over your supply path and evaluating where you can eliminate waste. The shortest supply path will always be to buy direct from the publisher whenever possible. Particularly for highly involved, content-rich partnerships, direct relationships with publishers are both the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly route for clients.

However, there can be an issue here around scale. Few publishers are able to truly offer global reach at a significant scale. So where do you go from there?

In those situations, working with a partner like Dianomi enables advertisers to reach quality publishers at scale, without significantly extending the supply path. Revenue goes direct to the publisher, ensuring they are fairly compensated and more of your money goes directly towards buying ads. And, thanks to a CPC trading basis, Dianomi ensures 100% visibility for the ads that you pay for, significantly reducing wastage. Both financial and environmental.

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How to Run Successful Content Campaigns

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In the world of digital marketing, a successful content campaign hinges on two key factors: the number of readers your content attracts and the level of engagement those readers demonstrate. While attracting readers to your content is important, the true measure of a content campaign’s success lies in how engaged those readers are.

1.Measuring Engagement: Time on Site

When it comes to measuring engagement, time on site is one of the best indicators of success. When high enough, it suggests that readers are genuinely interested in consuming your content. Which, if you are aiming to increase market perception of your brand through thought leadership, is crucial. Thought leadership can only be achieved if your content is read thoroughly and appreciated.

To increase time spent on your site, your content has to be engaging and relevant. High-quality content that resonates with your target audience will retain user attention for longer.

2. Crafting High-Quality, Engaging Content

To maximize the effectiveness of your content campaigns, it’s essential to create content that resonates with your audience. Here are some tips to increase engagement.

  • Know Your Audience: Conduct thorough research to understand your target audience’s interests, pain points, and preferences. Use these insights to craft content that addresses their needs.
  • Create Compelling Headlines: Your headline is the first thing your reader sees, so it needs to grab attention and encourage that crucial initial click. Ask a question, create a sense of urgency or exclusivity, call out the audience that you are trying to reach in your headline copy.
  • Enhance Visual Appeal: Visual elements like images, infographics, and videos can make your content more digestible and engaging. However, you have to be sure that your visuals correlate to the content being discussed and enhance the story being told.
  • Tell a Story: Make your content relatable and engaging through storytelling. When your brand shares an authentic story, it builds trust and credibility. It humanizes your brand or messaging, making it easier for people to connect with you.
  • Include a Clear Call to Action: Encourage further engagement by prompting readers to subscribe, download resources, or share your content. People love sharing content that resonates with them or helps them see things from a new perspective.

Once you have created compelling content to optimize engagement, the next step is to ensure that your distribution strategy is both cost-effective and impactful.

3. Choosing the Right Pricing Model

Not all pricing models are created equal, and the one you choose should align with your campaign goals. One of the most efficient ways to ensure your content campaign is cost-effective is by leveraging a Cost-Per-Click (CPC) model. CPC ensures you only pay when someone actively engages with your content by clicking on it, minimizing wasted ad spend and ensures your budget is directly tied to reader acquisition. This model is a great option for campaigns looking to drive traffic. In other cases, a Viewable Cost-Per-Thousand Impressions (vCPM) may be more suitable, where you pay for every 1,000 viewable impressions. This model works well if your goal is to increase brand awareness or reach, ensuring your content is seen by a broad audience, even if they don’t immediately click through.

Conclusion

Running an effective content campaign requires more than just attracting readers; it’s about engaging them in a meaningful way that builds your brand and establishes through leadership. By focusing on key strategies like optimizing for engagement, crafting high-quality content, and utilizing the right pricing model, you can significantly enhance the success of your content campaigns and achieve your marketing goals.

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Dianomi PLC expands its relationship with Dow Jones, now including display formats from The Wall Street Journal and other Dow Jones properties in their publisher network.

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Dianomi, a leading provider of digital advertising services to clients in the Business, Finance and Lifestyle sectors, is pleased to announce the expansion of its partnership with Dow Jones, a leading global business news and information publisher. Dianomi continues to deliver contextual content amplification at scale, enabling advertisers to reach and engage their most valuable audiences within premium environments. With no need for third party cookies, Dianomi’s solutions are privacy-first and future-proof. This partnership expansion enables Dianomi’s advertisers to leverage display ad formats to engage Dow Jones’s audience of over 100 million monthly unique visitors.

The expansion of this 8-year partnership coincides with Dianomi widening its product offering beyond native advertising, providing more quality content-led ad formats for its global network of premium publishers. Dianomi has seen a growing number of its clients adopting this higher quality demand which is delivered sustainably through an optimized supply path.

Rupert Hodson, CEO, said, “Since 2016 Dow Jones has been a highly valued and major customer for our business and so naturally, I am delighted that we are expanding our relationship further. I believe their decision reflects the growing demand from our major publishers to secure privacy-first demand across both native and display, as they continue to future-proof their business in preparation for cookie deprecation and the loss of identity signals.”

Jesse Waldele, SVP Digital Operations and Client Success, commented, “We have worked closely with Dianomi for many years and know their premium advertiser base to be a good fit with our own audiences and environment. We are pleased to be broadening our relationship with them and using their platform to serve cookie-less ads across our digital portfolio.”

About Dianomi

Dianomi, established in 2003, is a leading provider of premium native content amplification at scale for clients in the Business, Finance and Lifestyle sectors. Using a hand-picked network of premium sites that target the world’s most influential financial audiences, Dianomi represents a cookie-free, supply path optimized solution for the world’s most demanding brands. With offices in London, New York and Sydney, Dianomi delivers contextually relevant advertising in formats designed to maximise engagement, delivering unprecedented value to advertisers, publishers and readers. They match a network of over 400 advertisers, including blue chip names such as Aramco, Bank of America, JP Morgan and Charles Schwab, with an international audience of over 500 million devices per month across more than 300 premium publishers, including globally respected names such as Reuters, CNN Business, and Dow Jones.

http://www.dianomi.com

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Dianomi’s “Financial Services Marketing 2024” event in Sydney

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Dianomi hosted “Financial Services Marketing 2024” at UTS Business School in Sydney on Thursday, May 30, 2024.

We heard some very entertaining and informative sessions:

  • George Lucas, Founder of Acorns/Raiz – “From Zero to Scale: Growing Acorns/Raiz”
  • Giada Dorgia, Account Director APAC, Fundamental Media – “The Evolution of Digital Marketing – The use of technology to shorten the cycle”
  • Julian Peterson, Managing Director APAC, Dianomi – “Behavioural Economics for Financial Services Marketers”

And four panels covered a range of issues for financial services marketers in 2024:

Reality vs tracking and privacy – Featuring Ori Gold, Bench Media; Candice Driver, Louder; Sam French, Motley Fool and Moderated by Tim Burrowes, Publisher at Unmade, Founder of Mumbrella

Marketing in strange times – Featuring Natalie Wood, Fat Tail; Chris Walton, Nunn Media; Aj Koch, Pinstripe Media and Adam Lang, Fear & Greed

Engaging the investor of tomorrow – Featuring Prashant Mohan, Sharesight; Kim Robbins, Merricks Capital; David Eisman, Capital Brief and Amit Kacker, Colonial First State

Creating brand identity in a commoditised world – Featuring Clay Hagland, Orbis; Kyle Merritt, ausbiz and Chris Nardi, Ptarmigan Media

Pictures from the event can be found on LinkedIn

Thanks also to the UTS Business School and Our Friends Electric for help with the logistics. A job well done.

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Dianomi to host “Financial Services Marketing 2024” event in Sydney

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Dianomi will be hosting “Financial Services Marketing 2024” at UTS Business School in Sydney on Thursday, May 30, 2024.

This one-day event is tailored for marketers in the financial services and business sectors, with a focus on investments, wealth management, private banking, stockbroking and associated services.

Current Dianomi APAC clients are invited to attend. Please reach out to your account manager if you have not received an invitation yet.

If you are not a current client, but would like to attend, please contact our Sydney office.

If you are interested in presenting or participating in a panel discussion, please let us know.

Event details:

Speakers announced:

  • Julian Peterson, Managing Director APAC, Dianomi – “Behavioural Economics for Financial Services Marketers”
  • George Lucas, Founder of Acorns/Raiz – “From Zero to Scale: Growing Acorns/Raiz”
  • Giada Dorgia, Account Director APAC, Fundamental Media – “The Evolution of Digital Marketing – The use of technology to shorten the cycle”

More speakers will be announced soon.

Panels announced:

  • Reality vs tracking and privacy – Cookies are going and a new privacy law is coming. Should any of that matter? Shouldn’t we already have evolved to match consumers’ expectations and the legal changes? What does a data-driven strategy look like in today’s world?
    • Featuring Ori Gold, Bench Media; Candice Driver, Louder; Sam French, Motley Fool and Moderated by Tim Burrowes, Publisher at Unmade, Founder of Mumbrella
  • Marketing in strange times – what does 2024 look like? Consumers have less $ to spend but the stock market is resurgent, some sectors are in the doldrums and some are booming. How do we see this affecting marketing for the next year?
    • Featuring Natalie Wood, Fat Tail; Chris Walton, Nunn Media; Aj Koch, Pinstripe Media and Adam Lang, Fear & Greed
  • Engaging the investor of tomorrow – A new wave of investors have never spoken to a bank manager or a financial advisor, nor, possibly, can they afford to or ever will do. They invest digitally and gather information from digital and social media. How best do you market to this new wave?
    • Featuring Prashant Mohan, Sharesight; Kim Robbins, Merricks Capital; David Eisman, Capital Brief and Amit Kacker, Colonial First State
  • Creating brand identity in a commoditised world – how on earth do you differentiate or be distinctive? – Everyone is ESG. Everyone is sustainable. Does anyone care? How can you differentiate or be distinctive?
    • Featuring Clay Hagland, Orbis; Kylie Merritt, ausbiz and Chris Nardi, Ptarmigan Media

More panels will be announced soon.

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Dianomi’s Julian Peterson to present “The Marketer’s Guide to Behavioural Economics” at Web Directions Summit

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Dianomi’s Julian Peterson to present ” The Marketer’s Guide to Behavioural Economics” at Web Directions Summit in Sydney this October.

In academia and government, behavioural economics is viewed as a way of improving outcomes for the population – the “nudge” is a way to help people make better choices without taking away their choices.

On the other hand marketers must sell, or else. How should they use behavioural economics to persuade people to make the choice that the marketer desires?

Is this nudge vs sludge?

How do advertising and behavioural economics go together given that it was Ogilvy, the great ad man, who said “people don’t think what they feel, don’t say what they think and don’t do what they say”?

More details and tickets can be found here.

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A Thought Leader in Financial Services marketing, Dianomi welcomes back Ken Johnston as Head of Global Sales

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London, New York and Sydney, June 15 2023, Dianomi  (London Stock Exchange:DNM ), a leading provider of native digital advertising services to premium clients in the Business, Finance and Lifestyle sectors is delighted to announce the appointment of Ken Johnston in the US as Global Head of Advertising Sales.

Ken has many years’ experience in Financial Services marketing and was previously at Meta for seven years as Industry Manager, Financial Services. Prior to that, Ken was employed by Quantcast, Google and Bloomberg. Ken worked for Dianomi between 2010 and 2014, was the first sales person employed by the Group in the US and was instrumental in building a US presence. Ken is a thought leader in financial services marketing with an excellent track record of delivering solutions and driving results.

Rupert Hodson, CEO of Dianomi said: “ We are delighted to welcome Ken Johnston back to the fold to move the global business forward. Ken will be an invaluable asset in driving an innovative approach to our clients across all verticals. He will be leading and building the sales team on a global basis and I have no doubt that he will be an extremely effective team leader, fostering a joined-up global approach to clients between our teams in the UK, US and APAC which will enhance revenue growth for the Group and deliver truly global client solutions. His appointment leaves us well- placed to focus on driving results in a market where growth prospects remain extremely encouraging.”

Commenting on his appointment, Ken Johnston said: “ I am delighted to be returning to Dianomi at a time when connecting brand and audience through digital channels and relevant content is more important than ever. The deprecation of the cookie is a great opportunity for Dianomi as it has been a pioneer in the contextual and native space. Its platform is future – proofed for privacy regulation and will continue to deliver results, enabling clients to optimise engagement and yield, telling their story in a compelling way aided by the option to reach and engage with audiencesthrough multiple formats including video, polls, and podcasts. We are proud to be able to support agencies, brands and publishers alike at a time when marketers value high-quality partnerships with measurable results.”

For further information contact:

Dianomi

Rupert Hodson (Chief Executive Officer)

Charlotte Stranner (Chief Financial Officer)

Tel: +44 (0)207 802 5530

Media Enquiries

Novella Communications:  Tim Robertson/Safia Colebrook

Tel: +44 (0)203 151 7008

About Dianomi

Dianomi, established in 2003, is a leading provider of native digital advertising services to premium clients in the Business, Finance and Lifestyle sectors. The Group operates from its offices in London, New York and Sydney. The Group enables premium brands to deliver native advertisements to a targeted audience on the desktop and mobile websites, mobile and tablet applications of premium publishers. It provides over 400 advertisers, including blue chip names such as abrdn, Invesco and Charles Schwab, with access to an international audience of over 500 million devices per month through its partnerships with over 300 premium publishers, including blue chip names such as Reuters, CNN Business and WSJ. Adverts served are contextually relevant to the content of the webpages on which they appear and mirror the style of the page, which enhances reader engagement. http://www.dianomi.com.

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