How Publishers Can Increase Ad Inventory and Maximize Ad Revenue

Blog 6 min read | Apr 3, 2024 | Francesco Montesanto

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Video publishers typically need to confront a binary set of options when it comes to streaming technology implementation;

Work with an online video platform (OVP) that allows for ultimate flexibility at the expense of enormous amounts of tech debt…

or…

Employ a plug and play ad unit experience that relies on a revenue sharing (rev share) model, but lacks flexibility and control.

There are, of course, many pros and cons to both solutions.

When working with traditional live & VOD streaming partners and OVPs, it’s usually incumbent on the customer to either assume the developmental burden of implementing the product or incur the additional costs. The upside of having control over the developmental process is it provides greater latitude when it comes to customization. Branding, support, and maintenance can all be handled in house.

For plug-and-play options, customers get an out-of-the-box, easy to deploy solution with minimal developmental hassle. However, they may not have the same degree of flexibility as when deploying their own solutions.

In an ideal world, video publishers would be able to adopt a hybrid model that draws from the best of both worlds; an easily deployable ad unit experience with ultimate flexibility, customization, and minimal development time.

Thanks to JWP, now you can.

JWP allows you to easily route the viewer journey through ad experiences based on custom parameters, or to integrate a plug-and-play option right through JWP’s platform, so you have the same degree of flexibility and customization depending on which system best suits your needs.

Since JWP eliminates the need to choose between video platforms and rev share partners when it comes to ad monetization, publishers can focus on increasing ad inventory and maximizing their ad monetization strategies.

Recommendations

Many publishers have a ton of videos in their library with countless more in the pipeline being produced. What’s the best way to leverage video libraries to keep viewers engaged after they’ve completed watching their initial video?

Instead of spending an inordinate amount of time creating manual playlists, JWP’s recommendations engine uses currently-watched video to automatically suggest videos that are highly likely to match the affinity of original content. JWP relies on contextual relevance to automatically queue which videos are most relevant to the content the viewer just watched, thereby increasing the likelihood for further engagement.

Recommendations are used to keep your audience engaged and on site well after they’re done watching the initial video content. Through automated content curation, relevant content is surfaced based on signals from viewing activity across the JWP network.

Recommendations relies on automation to remove any additional editorial lift, which leads to increased engagement (publishers generate 88% follow-on plays per initial play) and increased ad inventory (publishers generate 79% follow-on ad impressions per initial play).

Article Matching

Imagine being able to match videos with contextually relevant article content already on your site without need for editorial involvement.

Not only would it boost the page value of each article, it would open up the door to more video plays and increased ad inventory, but also monetization.

Article Matching allows you to embed contextually relevant videos from your library into your articles. Article matching works by automatically inserting relevant videos from your content library into contextually relevant articles. Rather than relying on manual processes, JWP uses contextual signals to determine video content relevance. Article matching deepens audience engagement to increase click-to-play rate over 70% compared to trending or manual playlists.

Ad Schedules

JWP allows you to dynamically schedule pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll ads. Publishers can set ad schedules based on custom parameters, tags, and meta data. They can also maintain situational control over deployment of video/content types based on presence of ad fill and visit criteria like geo, device type, referral resource, and more.

Applying this degree of granularity allows for endless ways to own the viewer journey to ensure maximum ad relevance and yield. For example, you can preset pre-roll ads to only show on content above 2 minutes in length

Contextual Targeting

Contextual advertising spend is expected to double by 2030.

Ad buyers are doubling down on contextual’s efficacy because it can potentially deliver much higher ROAS than behavior targeting.

With 3rd party cookie deprecation becoming a reality in 2024, ad buyers and content providers are adjusting their strategies to better adapt to the changing landscape.

Contextual targeting harvests signals from the video content itself in order to determine ad relevance and placement. Rather than relying on behavioral targeting, which relies on gathering user behavior, contextual targeting relies on the actual substance of the video in order to create as seamless a viewing experience as possible.

In fact, contextual targeting leads to a 93% boost in ad recall and purchase intent when compared to behavioral targeting.

All of this leads to one central truth: contextual targeting creates stronger viewer engagement, which increases demand for premium inventory.

Knowing that premium ads are going to be placed in contextually relevant content will take a lot of the guesswork out of anticipating ROAS.

Dynamically Control the Viewer Ad Journey

JWP allows publishers to control the narrative when it comes to determining the viewer journey and which ads they see. So, whether you rely on a rev share, plug-and-play option for ad placement or you’re partnering with a traditional OVP, JWP is able to integrate either of these solutions into your workstream to maintain total customization and control without added tech debt.

Since the publisher is in control of the viewer journey, they can dynamically route viewers towards ad experiences that best correlate with the videos they’re watching as well as proprietary, 1st party data that is obtained through JWP analytics. Some examples of how publishers can maintain control to open ad inventory are:

  1. Setting parameters around pre, mid, and post-roll. Publishers can decide on pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll ads being shown based on video length. By setting guidelines based on video length, you have the potential to add more ad opportunities that weren’t previously being taken into consideration.
  2. You can control whether video shows up based on the presence of ad fill. This boosts site-side ad inventory by only having videos show up if you have an ad filled.
  3. Route users based on segmentation: You can dynamically route users towards ad experiences based on targeted location, device type, referral source, and more.

Conclusion

JWP specializes in helping publishers expand video plays in order to open up advertising opportunities in ways many other video platforms cannot. With features like recommendations, article matching, ad scheduling, contextual targeting, and dynamic routing of the viewer’s ad experience, viewers are put in prime position to stay on site as long as possible and consume more video content, increasing incremental plays, opening up ad inventory, and maximizing ad revenue opportunities.

Contact us today to learn more about how we can maximize video ad revenue for you today.