Publishers need to get in now with brands on native or risk missing out warns Josh Luger
Josh Luger, the former director of revenue and new business at Upworthy, has told publishers who are looking at native advertising to get in now before brands cement relationships with the key publishers they intend to work with in the future.
Speaking at the Publish Conference in Sydney today, Luger said: “Within a few years what you’ll likely see happen is brands are going to set, these are the five, 10 people I’m going to work with.
“It’s hard to see a world where a brand says I’m going to do native with 200 different publishers at once. What they are trying to work out now is who are the best partners for them and who is the best fit.
“Being early and being on the game early in the process of them figuring it out, which is now, is really important.”
Luger said for publishers to be able to create a “successful native product” they need to have a “unique digital product.”
He also warned them to respect their audience when it comes to monetising a product with advertising, including native, in an effort to deter adblocking.
“It goes back to respecting your audience. People didn’t wake up and say the first thing I want to do today is download an adblocker. They pay to have one. There is a value in having an adblocker.
“The reason why there is a value is because for too long publishers have been lazy and greedy to want to do whatever they can to monetise their site.
“We have all been to sites where the page load is slow, the ads take longer to load then the content, there’s autoplay videos, there’s pop up ads.
“You have to respect your audience and be trying to monetise in a way that doesn’t mean someone wants to develop an adblocker.”
Luger’s keynote presentation also covered how publishers need to look inward and consider what type of content their audience want and how they want it to be delivered in an effort to remain relevant.
He said the same approach needs to be taken when looking at how to monetise the site, but also bringing to that process the same passion applied to editorial and the content strategy.
Miranda Ward
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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All i hear is commonsense and the need for great digital gurus.
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Totally wrong; “these are the five, 10 people I’m going to work with.” – heck that sounds like organising a 4-ball on Friday.. Reckon the universe of total advertising relationships is more than 5-10… And i’m a native ad believer but also that programmatic isn’t a race to the bottom but a data driven way to understand premium audiences and A-B test range of different ad/vertorial formats to see which gets best result…. Any native publicity is good publicity tho i guess.
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