Episode 127

The God metric for audience value

In a discussion held in Cannes, I sat down with Jason White, chief product and technology officer at The Arena Group, and Johanna Bergqvist, general manager of the managers at The Rebooting partner EX.CO. A part of the conversation that resonated was how White has zeroed in on revenue per session as what he calls the “God metric” that prioritizes session depth over raw page views. This is a recognition that traditionally digital media publishers have focused on eyeballs without understanding the intrinsic value of user engagement.

"The days of not knowing the value of your audience and your content are kind of gone,” Jason said. “Marketers forever have had CRM experts; they know their audiences, they know the value of their users, the value of their products, their margins, etc. We've played an eyeball game for the past 30 years in digital media."

The benefits:

  • Organizational alignment. As highlighted in The Rebooting and WordPress VIP’s recent research, internal misalignment bedevils publishers. Different groups pursue different goals. The horror show of many webpages is a sign of internal misalignment and “shipping the org chart.”
  • True personalization. There’s no personalization without understanding the person. RPS allows The Arena Group to figure out not just how best to serve visitors – “Is this a younger audience that wants to consume video?” Johanna said. “Let’s take them down more of a video path." – but how best to make money from them. Publishing is increasingly a game of finding the high value audiences within a mass of impressions.
  • Resource allocation. The more-with-less era is a reality. It requires making hard choices about where to spend and where to cut. Having alignment on a KPI makes these choices somewhat easier, if no less painful.
Transcript
Brian:

Welcome to the rebooting show.

Brian:

I am Brian Marcy.

Brian:

The following is a spotlight episode I created in Cannes with my partners at Xco.

Brian:

General Manager for the Americas, Johanna Berkvist joined, as well as Jason White, the Chief Product and Technology Officer at the Arena Group.

Brian:

In this discussion, we talk about the essential challenges of running a publishing business.

Brian:

In a more with less era.

Brian:

And, this is a big theme of can, and in particular, Jason zeroes in on the hard choices this forces on publishers, as they by necessity, prioritize depth of a breath, really appreciate, X, co for their support, and Jason and Johanna for joining this conversation.

Brian:

Now, here it is.

Brian:

Johanna, Jason, thank you for joining me here in Cannes.

Johanna:

You're welcome.

Johanna:

Um, I mean,

Brian:

that.

Brian:

The wind,

Johanna:

the wind.

Johanna:

I thought some rose was about to take off a couple of times, which is probably a first first

Brian:

wine glasses were flying at

Johanna:

Exactly.

Johanna:

And fedoras.

Jason:

was

Brian:

Yeah,

Johanna:

So, so that was a little weird.

Jason:

end other than the torch experience was great.

Johanna:

Okay, yeah.

Jason:

Right when I first got in.

Jason:

Did

Brian:

Kassin carry it?

Johanna:

Michael Kasson

Jason:

it?

Jason:

I didn't see him, not on my

Johanna:

Yeah.

Brian:

Alright, let's get into it.

Brian:

I don't want to start bleak.

Brian:

We just started, we talked beforehand.

Brian:

I was saying how I don't like to be called cynical.

Brian:

at the same time, I don't know, I feel like a weather weather forecaster in England, right?

Brian:

it is, it's gonna rain, like, I don't know what

Johanna:

cloudy.

Brian:

I don't know what, yes, okay, well, maybe at best it could be, like, cloudy and it might rain, but, like, bring an umbrella.

Brian:

you know, I just saw, like, Comscore figures came out today, and, you know, it's Comscore, but, Everyone's down.

Brian:

Traffic is down.

Brian:

It's 7 percent at CNN.

Brian:

They made sure that both CNN and Fox are down equally,

Johanna:

very suspicious?

Johanna:

They're

Brian:

is like,

Jason:

magic how that

Brian:

right?

Brian:

Isn't that very suspicious?

Brian:

They're like, no, it's just algorithms.

Brian:

It's just, it's just algorithms.

Brian:

but like somehow we got it exactly 6.

Brian:

6 percent down for both of them.

Brian:

the Times only went up.

Brian:

Thank you.

Brian:

Wordle, NBC News down nine and a half USA Today down nine, Washington Post down 21.

Brian:

Ouch.

Brian:

Business Insider, ouch, down 29%.

Brian:

Even the journals and, and Politico are down 12 and, and 9%.

Johanna:

entering almost

Brian:

LA Times, 31%.

Brian:

Atlantic, 26%.

Brian:

It's, it's, that's bleak

Jason:

that's a trend.

Brian:

it is a trend.

Brian:

it seems like we're entering almost like a more with less era is what I call it, right?

Brian:

I mean, there's just, this is not a blip, right?

Brian:

there's gonna be, There's going to be less traffic and that's been the lifeblood.

Brian:

How do you adapt to that?

Jason:

our perspective, it's investing in intelligence.

Jason:

I think the first thing that you have to understand from a digital media publisher site is the days of not knowing the value of your audience and your content are kind of gone.

Jason:

forever, we've never known what I would say the digital media publisher's KPI should be, which is revenue per session.

Jason:

And that's embarrassing for an entity to kind of admit that they don't know.

Jason:

marketers forever have had CRM experts, they know their audiences, they know value of their users, the value of their products, their margins, et cetera.

Jason:

We've played an eyeball game.

Jason:

for the past, you know, 30 years in digital media, where it's, you know, slap an ad on it, slap an ad on it, slap an ad on it, and there's a, you know, linear line to revenue, and revenue per thousand, but at the end of the day, we don't know or haven't traditionally known, but we have invested in knowing, what, what is the value of this content?

Jason:

What is the value of that cohort?

Jason:

and how do we grow and scale those cohorts?

Jason:

in interesting ways, because we're entering an era of, from a publisher perspective, of audience.

Jason:

and we need to know the value of those audiences that advertisers see the most value

Brian:

in.

Brian:

So break down revenue procession.

Brian:

Cause I mean that, what you're saying is I mean, it's, it's a nuance, but I think it's important.

Brian:

I mean, cause it was always RPM.

Jason:

Yeah.

Jason:

It's a God, what I call like a God metric, right?

Jason:

It's one of those things, or a power KPI.

Jason:

it is the KPI, from a digital media perspective, because it contains both volume, and revenue, right?

Jason:

And so both of those things, when you're looking at them, it aligns the edit side and the product side, along with the revenue side and monetization side of the house.

Jason:

So when you look at both of those things, the interesting thing is we've always thought every page view was created equal in the era of programmatic, where advertisers are buying, picking off users, and we all say these things on all of these panels.

Jason:

But the reality is.

Jason:

They're not.

Jason:

And we know that they're not.

Jason:

Because advertisers know the value of those audiences.

Jason:

And for the longest time, digital media publishers have felt like canvases, blank canvases, that advertisers just paint on and, you know, give us a little more of this, give us a little more of that.

Jason:

And we're like, well, I don't know the value of that.

Jason:

I know content context.

Jason:

I know scarcity, the Big Bang Theory, when I was at CBS.

Jason:

We knew how to price that.

Jason:

Using tools like Yield X and the such, but when it comes to audience and understanding like what should this cohort be valued at, that this advertiser wants GM, and we look at that and go, well, Ford is now interested in that.

Jason:

So we know that that cohort is probably an auto and tender.

Jason:

We don't need to know their data, but we know that those are concentric circles that overlap and there's value there for an auto and tender is an

Johanna:

an example.

Johanna:

I think also, though, pricing those cohorts differently.

Johanna:

So knowing your power, sort of power users or your highly engaged users.

Johanna:

Kind of what you talked about.

Johanna:

So in the past, it was all about scale.

Johanna:

So the more traffic you

Brian:

Well, a cookie is a cookie is a cookie.

Brian:

And the thing is, you don't know it.

Brian:

Like, when, I remember, I used to, at Digiday, I did this confession series that was delicious,

Johanna:

Yeah.

Brian:

people, people, people frequently don't tell the truth and they have their names attached to them.

Brian:

But they do, if they're given anonymity.

Brian:

But, I remember one of the ones I did, it, it resonated with me.

Brian:

the person that said it's, we're just see a cookie, hit a cookie.

Brian:

That's, that's what this industry is.

Brian:

And the reality is the advertiser side knew the, what, you know, the demand side knew who was on the other side of that cookie, but for a publisher, right?

Brian:

Like it was just like,

Johanna:

just traffic numbers or impressions.

Brian:

it was a unique,

Jason:

you start to align on the right thing, the right metric, like you start coming up with great ideas.

Jason:

Like we, we started ideating on, cause let's talk about, go back to revenue per session.

Jason:

You're talking about session.

Jason:

How do you extend the session?

Jason:

We start asking questions like that.

Jason:

You start thinking about like product experiences for the user video, vertical video, IE social video.

Jason:

we create it and we put it on the social platforms, but we have like small followers, you know, most digital media publishers have small followers on the social platforms and we're making a pittance for that from the social media companies.

Jason:

Why not take that?

Johanna:

unit

Jason:

And the, content that you invested in and move that onto your site.

Jason:

You have tens of millions of people on your site, and if you can have them consuming more of the content you're creating,

Johanna:

to

Johanna:

them right.

Johanna:

now, especially from a video perspective, because I would say from a social aspect, that's at least when you look at younger audiences, that's how they are entering the world of content consumption.

Johanna:

It's through a vertical video format through a social platform.

Johanna:

It's not frankly, Unfortunately, reading, you know, a, a piece of written content in an, in an art, in an article format

Jason:

there will be people that want to

Johanna:

that.

Johanna:

Yeah.

Brian:

I admit that my audience is not Gen Z.

Brian:

Okay?

Johanna:

we have

Jason:

So we have

Brian:

That's why I'm doing this podcast, for

Brian:

my Gen Z

Johanna:

I would, I would also say that podcast and audio as well as video are, are on the rise.

Johanna:

I

Brian:

no, I have different segments by

Johanna:

that.

Johanna:

Yeah.

Jason:

That's

Brian:

who never Read

Brian:

the newsletter, and there's people who never listen to the podcast, and they're just, you know, I think you just have to create

Johanna:

create a

Jason:

it's value, but, but ultimately user pathing, right?

Jason:

So cohorting is what we're, you know, when you talk about audience, basically cohorting,

Jason:

is it, is it, is, is this a,

Jason:

is this a gen, Is

Jason:

this a

Jason:

gen X

Brian:

a

Jason:

to read and consume articles?

Jason:

For example, let's take them down an article path.

Jason:

Is this somebody that wants like the premium articles?

Jason:

let's take them down a subs path.

Jason:

Is this somebody that's shopping?

Jason:

Let's take them down an e commerce path.

Jason:

Is this a younger audience that wants to consume video?

Jason:

Let's take them down a more of a video path.

Brian:

But, and this is where I want to get into the look, everyone knows there's way more demand for video.

Brian:

The, The rates are better.

Brian:

I don't think anyone's like, you know what?

Brian:

I want to serve more you know, static display.

Brian:

That's where we're

Jason:

punch the

Jason:

monkey

Jason:

ads.

Jason:

That's what I

Brian:

go back.

Brian:

What was the 480 by 60?

Brian:

Whatever.

Brian:

Let's bring them back.

Brian:

but at the same time, how do you build the products when you have a page based model?

Brian:

I keep asking people we did a dinner last night, but we did one like on Monday and I was just asking, I'm like, Do you really think that people are coming to, to webpages in five years that they're like Visiting a webpage hitting a back button and like that's gonna be the main way you're engaging With with the audience because I think a lot of times what I see is the tik tok experience?

Brian:

Is completely seamless, right?

Brian:

And I think sometimes with publishers, it's how they're trying to chase.

Brian:

Okay, look, this works and everything like this, but we have a totally different container.

Brian:

So how do you sort of bridge

Brian:

that?

Jason:

I think that you're you've always challenged people to see ahead.

Jason:

And I think that you're spot on.

Jason:

We look at it as building the brand.

Jason:

First thing is understanding value.

Jason:

Like we talked about, once you understand your audience more and that value, then you can start doing things like, we, we saw, for example, that, we were taken over by private equity and we turned the company around and, we're profitable now.

Jason:

And we're also taking a look at a lot of the brands in the portfolio.

Jason:

And we look at our adventure network.

Jason:

There's great, you know, brands there like Powder Magazine and Surfer Magazine and Skateboarder that have loyal followings.

Jason:

And when you start to think about You know, let's take that content and put it everywhere, social platforms, et cetera, because you're right.

Jason:

You know, people potentially won't be coming to web, traditional websites in the future, but then also experiential type stuff.

Jason:

Once you become a brand, then you can start to ideate on that and go, let's do events.

Jason:

Let's do surfer events.

Jason:

You know, surfers for the longest time been reading surfer magazine and back in the day they did events.

Jason:

Why did that stop?

Jason:

Let's revisit that.

Jason:

Athlon, is known for a periodical that did, the NFL, draft.

Jason:

let's do Draft Day.

Jason:

and, you know, make that be a brand experience for users and invite advertisers to it.

Jason:

have celebrities to it.

Jason:

you know, old players and such.

Jason:

and really design that where you're providing the content for it, but that's content that's a module that can go anywhere.

Jason:

Johanna,

Johanna:

Yeah,

Brian:

Johanna, how do you think about that?

Brian:

I mean, with if for a lot of publishers, I feel like the page is not going to be the main monetization driver or do

Johanna:

sophisticated.

Johanna:

Yeah, I would disagree with that, actually.

Johanna:

And it was quite interesting listening to Jen and Lisa, and we kind of talked about this in our prep call as well, but,

Johanna:

I think publishers fall sort of two sides of the coin.

Johanna:

Either they're investing in building out their own technology products versus relying on, you know, like a double verifier is obviously brand safety is becoming such a huge topic.

Johanna:

But when advertisers are relying on working with companies that basically do a really good job protecting brands against brand safety, but the publisher knows their content way better than anybody else.

Johanna:

So why not build?

Johanna:

Your own technology that's going to do a better job of doing that, versus relying on some of the bigger tech platforms.

Johanna:

So when it comes to video, I think it's the same thing.

Johanna:

If you're able to have a seamless video experience

Jason:

kind of

Jason:

I guess hit

Johanna:

I guess hit the bar, meet the bar of what TikTok is doing,

Jason:

then

Johanna:

not

Johanna:

leverage that and build a really good experience for, for the user?

Johanna:

I think with video in particular.

Johanna:

It was always a very difficult format because you have things such as streaming

Jason:

and

Johanna:

bandwidth

Johanna:

and, you know,

Johanna:

loading issues.

Johanna:

so I guess, you know, at Xco, that's what we've doubled down on and how, how do we give publishers the best

Johanna:

tech

Johanna:

that's going to give the user a very seamless video experience where there's no buffering, the right ad, the right user, the right content experience, basically.

Brian:

I, I'll be interested in, in this, if we assume that we are entering this more with less zero, right.

Brian:

And, and obviously AI is, is here and, and it's, it's gonna, it's not going away.

Jason:

quotes, by the

Brian:

is is where Well, you know, it's used,

Jason:

Sure, it's thrown around, so.

Brian:

a

Brian:

little bit

Johanna:

year of mobile.

Jason:

exactly.

Brian:

but, it's only Wednesday

Johanna:

But

Brian:

But what I, what I end up, I end up like wondering is, you know, there's, it's always build by partner, right?

Brian:

When it comes to like tech and how that equation changes for publishers.

Brian:

Because, you know, we talked about this.

Brian:

You got to make tough choices, right?

Brian:

So I think a lot of publishers, I think some publishers will become, you know,

Johanna:

a BV to

Brian:

ways, not a B2B in an audience, but be suppliers, and just, just be like, you know what, we're going to take, we're not going to do any of it.

Brian:

And we're just going to supply to the people who, I mean, you see with like perplexes, like we're just going to be, we can be a supplier.

Brian:

And I think that's a path, right?

Brian:

I think, you know, you're,

Jason:

We're really good at creating content and that's what we're going to do and you get content and you get content and you yeah

Brian:

Yeah, I mean, I think that's, you know, it's a valid strategy.

Brian:

I don't know if it's, it's obviously not right for, for all brands, but how do you see that, that, you know, people making like those decisions?

Brian:

Cause every, every path has

Brian:

trade offs.

Johanna:

I would be

Johanna:

sort of a bit cynical in that sense of I think it depends on

Jason:

it

Jason:

depends on

Jason:

What stage?

Johanna:

The business itself,

Jason:

do

Jason:

they

Jason:

have capital

Johanna:

capital to be able to

Johanna:

invest

Johanna:

in their own technology?

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

Nobody's talking to me about their fancy CMSs anymore.

Brian:

I, I don't know.

Jason:

publishers

Johanna:

are definitely under duress.

Johanna:

either, you know, you're very strapped and you're outsourcing

Brian:

Yeah.

Jason:

Which is mostly the case.

Jason:

or, you know, or you're

Johanna:

owned by a, you know, a bigger, a bigger company that has deep pockets.

Johanna:

And I think you're going to be more on the sort of build side, for

Jason:

the things that are endemic and natural to your cause.

Jason:

Like this is one thing that we did at CBS and we're replicating at the arena group.

Jason:

When we came in at CBS, we were making 4 in revenue and 6 in costs.

Jason:

Like it was all upside down bill.

Jason:

And we were building our own tech, built our own ad server, order management system, forecasting

Johanna:

engine, It's like building your own

Jason:

you're not an ad tech company.

Jason:

And you're not even a public, media company, you're nestled up underneath, you know, the bosom of, of CBS.

Jason:

So once we realized, you know, who we were, we, we're a premium content company.

Jason:

And when you start to

Johanna:

identify,

Johanna:

you start

Johanna:

to

Johanna:

we're not our

Jason:

your identity, exactly.

Jason:

Then you can start to ID it on things like product that we should invest in, like CTV, you know, and that's how we came to be the first 24 7, 364 News app with CBS News, CBS All Access, creating a subs product.

Jason:

Because that's where we knew the future of consumption was going to be.

Jason:

I, I think you have to stop making it complicated.

Jason:

You have to boil it down and go, what am I?

Jason:

And then you ideate on that.

Jason:

And when you ideate on that, you come up with ideas like you're talking about.

Jason:

Take that premium content and distribute it in all the places that people are consuming

Johanna:

it.

Johanna:

But

Brian:

But what do you end up not, not investing in?

Brian:

Because, I mean, you have to, I mean, we talked about hard choices.

Brian:

Give me, couple examples of, of,

Jason:

I

Jason:

think that you don't invest in certain things like, certain technology components like, you mentioned CMS.

Jason:

CMS is a great example.

Jason:

It's very easy for a company to go, Oh, well we're publishing

Johanna:

content.

Johanna:

So why not build my

Jason:

We should

Johanna:

have the

Johanna:

thing

Johanna:

that

Johanna:

controls

Johanna:

but also why reinvent the wheel.

Jason:

Right.

Jason:

But where does that end?

Jason:

Right?

Jason:

And it doesn't.

Jason:

And then the next thing you know, you kind of look at it and go.

Jason:

Oh, well, that was ridiculous, and we spent a ton of money on that.

Jason:

print, you know, we kind of took a look at some of the traditional print stuff we had at Sports Illustrated, which was one of the problems with that brand.

Jason:

when we looked at it from, you know, a business perspective, i.

Jason:

e.

Jason:

making money, that was hemorrhaging money, right?

Jason:

And that's something that we shouldn't support that anymore.

Jason:

That's silly.

Jason:

let's not do that.

Jason:

so I think, you know, stuff like that is kind of anecdotal

Brian:

so I think, you know,

Jason:

the user experience.

Brian:

that is kind of anecdotal examples.

Brian:

It's

Jason:

around CDPs.

Jason:

When you start to, we're saying audience, audience, audience, audience.

Jason:

So, let's unpack some of the things that you invest in.

Jason:

CDPs is an area that we're investing in.

Jason:

I think those things are very relevant for publishers now.

Jason:

They've been relevant for marketers for years.

Jason:

Now publishers need to lean into those.

Jason:

we're going to build LLMs.

Jason:

If you think about it, publishers come and do click actions on sites, whether they're reading a thousand, five thousand articles, to your point, that's going to go away slowly, but watching videos, understanding metadata.

Jason:

E commerce, understanding those click actions, all of that information, storing that, and then, you know, doing LLM models on top of it to do smart user pathing to go, oh, just like we were talking about earlier, they need to go here, they need to go there, they need, that's something that a publisher should invest in.

Jason:

Now, there's licensing that comes along with that, we're not going to build our own CDP, we're going to license that, But there's certain things like, you know, CRM, data scientists and the such that you should invest in.

Jason:

And that's more human, powered capital than it is building technology.

Jason:

It's the people that know how to

Johanna:

use

Johanna:

the

Jason:

technology,

Jason:

architect the databases.

Jason:

Schemas, building those message buses back and forth, you know, in those databases.

Jason:

But I think people that understand data and know how to use it and present that for a more elegant, user experience, to your point, is the winning

Jason:

recipe, I

Brian:

up becoming almost like a general contractor when it comes to technology?

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

You know, and how the things like link together.

Brian:

So how does, I have to ask the AI question.

Brian:

Sorry,

Johanna:

it's

Johanna:

okay.

Johanna:

Go for it.

Brian:

it's illegal.

Brian:

I'm legally obligated to

Johanna:

ask.

Brian:

ask.

Brian:

because I wonder, cause I get, I think in a lot of conversations I have, things are changing so much, right.

Brian:

And that can be that, that's scary and maybe exciting.

Brian:

but it could also lead to some like paralysis, right.

Brian:

Because you don't even know what to build, right.

Jason:

to

Brian:

You see the advances that are happening, seemingly weekly, not daily, and, it could be a little bit paralyzing.

Brian:

what, how do you think, whatever is to come with this AI era, how does that impact, how publishers think about,

Johanna:

I mean, this is

Brian:

Well, I mean, there's look, we focus a lot on the search side, the distribution side, et cetera, and like a lot of stuff's out of your control at the end of the day.

Brian:

but you can control, you know, your own strategy and how, and how you react to that.

Brian:

so how do you see AI changing, this sort of decision making that publishers are making with what to build?

Brian:

Yeah,

Johanna:

what to build.

Johanna:

Yeah, we talked a little bit about this in terms of doesn't make it easier for publishers to build their

Johanna:

own tech to a degree, potentially,

Brian:

being like, you know,

Johanna:

of course, but I think

Jason:

with

Johanna:

I, it can be used for so many different things, right?

Johanna:

It can be used to Automate it can be used to scale.

Johanna:

It can be used to, I guess, become more efficient as a business.

Johanna:

Is

Brian:

But is that where you see, both you see the biggest impact, the positive impact for publishers, right?

Brian:

I think a lot of times it's viewed as a threat, and that's because, there's, it's reality, that, that there are a lot of negative implications.

Johanna:

I think you

Johanna:

have to jump on the opportunity.

Jason:

Yeah,

Jason:

I, I, I agree.

Jason:

As with,

Jason:

as

Johanna:

with, you

Johanna:

know, the way this, so I used to sort of be more on the influencer marketing side.

Johanna:

Yeah.

Johanna:

back in

Jason:

in 2010

Johanna:

YouTube was just becoming a format, brands were not working with, you know, influencers.

Johanna:

We had to do a huge education piece.

Johanna:

Now that's

Jason:

Now

Johanna:

arguably.

Johanna:

all that

Johanna:

you see on the La Quisette is you know, influencer activations.

Johanna:

Exactly.

Brian:

athletes.

Brian:

A lot of tall

Jason:

think that aren't

Jason:

making any

Johanna:

of tall people should have worn my

Jason:

think with AI It's going to be one

Johanna:

more of these sort of fundamental shifts

Jason:

in the

Jason:

way

Jason:

that

Johanna:

the

Jason:

internet

Johanna:

works, if

Jason:

that makes sense.

Johanna:

and I

Johanna:

think

Johanna:

we have

Johanna:

to

Johanna:

jump on it.

Johanna:

So, at least on the Xco side, we've doubled

Johanna:

down

Johanna:

on

Johanna:

the optimization or yield side.

Johanna:

we've always been very supply side focused, so how do we give tools to publishers

Jason:

to help

Jason:

them

Johanna:

leverage their cohorts and make them more competitive?

Johanna:

There's a lot of technology

Johanna:

on

Jason:

the advertiser

Johanna:

side, to what you said earlier of them having all this data and understanding the users, but the publishers weren't looking at it in

Brian:

Well that's always been the challenge, right?

Brian:

I mean, it feels like, particularly with audience data,

Brian:

like, yeah.

Jason:

think

Jason:

with

Jason:

AI,

Johanna:

AI you can do a lot of clever things where in the past you probably have to hire a significant amount of data scientists.

Johanna:

Yeah,

Jason:

scientists.

Johanna:

ops people in

Jason:

And that doesn't, and that

Jason:

doesn't scale.

Jason:

It

Johanna:

It

Johanna:

doesn't

Johanna:

scale,

Jason:

got us in the problem that we're in.

Jason:

We've leaned into, sorry,

Brian:

No, no, no.

Brian:

Go ahead.

Brian:

Because I wanna get into the internal question 'cause I think one of the questions with the more, with less and when it meets with AI is how do you use it to be more efficient?

Brian:

I don't mean

Johanna:

like, try to

Jason:

the analysis parallel is saying that you brought up is important.

Jason:

No, but I think that it's, so a couple of different things.

Johanna:

Analysis paralysis is definitely

Jason:

And stop doing stupid things.

Jason:

Right?

Jason:

But,

Brian:

Usually a good strategic

Jason:

yeah.

Jason:

yeah.

Jason:

Don't,

Jason:

don't

Johanna:

make stupid decisions.

Johanna:

That's right.

Johanna:

Yeah.

Johanna:

That's

Johanna:

right.

Johanna:

Sounds easier said

Jason:

I mean, we lean into, so let's go back to understanding your KPIs and analysis paralysis.

Jason:

Once you understand your KPIs, you can, and your operating levers, there shouldn't be more than like 20 or so, but there's one golden KPI, but then the levers that move that KPI and you start ideating around that and that should take you down a path of You know, having a list of things that you want to work on, and then you cut that list down to more than five things, like, all of those institutional things to streamline stuff.

Jason:

But once it starts getting complicated, you have to cut that out.

Jason:

You have to laser focus everybody on, we need to extend sessions on our site, okay?

Jason:

How do we do that?

Jason:

What are the product ideas around that vertical video, isn't that, okay, let's write that one down.

Jason:

And you start writing those ideas down, and then you know the things that you can get done in a quarter.

Jason:

Okay.

Jason:

or six months.

Jason:

and then you invest in those things.

Jason:

So that's how we look at it.

Jason:

A.

Jason:

I.

Jason:

From an efficiency perspective, we look at the operation side and, you know, I'm sorry, but like people that fear certain things that That's like the accountant fearing, Excel back

Jason:

in

Johanna:

the 80s.

Johanna:

Or like

Jason:

that that's

Jason:

going to take my job.

Jason:

No, it's a tool.

Jason:

It's a tool.

Jason:

And the smart accountants that knew how to do, you know, the pivot tables and the joins

Johanna:

and

Johanna:

all of

Johanna:

that Only had to

Jason:

that were more

Johanna:

hours a day versus 24 basically.

Jason:

and they had a better work experience, and their clients had a better experience as a byproduct of that.

Jason:

It's the same thing with you know, at Operations we do order to cash, automations, and we lean in those technologies, built a company around that, Jiffy, that ultimately takes the order to cash paradigm, that last mile for digital media publishers, especially

Johanna:

in the direct side,

Jason:

You have an insertion order that comes in on a PDF.

Jason:

You have to take that information, you have to put that in the order management system, the CRM, and the ad server.

Jason:

The same information, and we expect human beings to do this job?

Jason:

It's a terrible job.

Jason:

Terrible.

Jason:

That's absolutely something that should be automated.

Jason:

doing, creative checking, you know, on a site and screenshotting and sending that to a client.

Jason:

A human being still does that job.

Jason:

That's something that can be fully automated.

Jason:

So you have to look at the positive applications in the use case that can make your business, A, more efficient and your workers

Brian:

does that job.

Brian:

That's something that you can't automate it.

Brian:

So you have to look at the positive applications and use cases that can make your business, A, more efficient and your workers happier.

Jason:

those

Brian:

Those of us

Brian:

like on the, you know, the, the laptop class, we love automation when it, when it, it, it hits, you know, more analog world of you know, it's like factories and, and, you know, with globalization, we're like, yeah, well, that's just how the economy works.

Brian:

And then all of a sudden, all of a sudden the technology that comes after like the laptop

Johanna:

let's stop.

Johanna:

But

Jason:

but let's slow it down

Jason:

a second.

Jason:

Yeah, wait a

Jason:

second.

Brian:

but yeah, I mean, it's inevitable.

Brian:

I

Jason:

in my

Johanna:

Not in my backyard.

Brian:

on all sides of the media industry, there's just, I would love to know a global figure of, of how much money actually goes towards transferring data from one system to another system.

Brian:

So

Johanna:

I

Johanna:

I mean, I won't, I won't name the event and who the person was, but I heard, so obviously on sort of like the news side, the brand safety and allow lists and block lists is a huge topic and nobody knows how to get on or off

Jason:

It's set and forget.

Johanna:

but

Jason:

so,

Jason:

A 25 year old sets it, and then they forget it, and then you wonder why your campaign

Johanna:

know, what's fascinating is.

Johanna:

basically a senior agency exec said one of her biggest pain points is the fact that for each campaign and brand, they have a different obviously set up in six different DSPs, each DSP in each brand has a different allow list and block list that somebody manually has

Johanna:

to go and update in basically six different systems

Jason:

per

Jason:

client.

Brian:

get

Johanna:

And that's why you never get off a block list, because nobody even knows in what system or what list where it actually lives.

Johanna:

So that's, that's, that's an

Jason:

played on.

Jason:

That is what they mean by that

Johanna:

And they probably,

Jason:

oh, don't worry about

Johanna:

100 100 emails per day.

Johanna:

Like, Hey, I think I may be on

Johanna:

a block

Johanna:

list

Johanna:

and nobody, we have

Jason:

a

Jason:

problem.

Jason:

yeah.

Brian:

I will, I will obscure the publisher name, but a very prominent business publisher was handed a 4, 000 term block list in which, in which they, their

Johanna:

Should ask AI to try to write an article with that, without using one of those words.

Brian:

That literal name of the publication is

Jason:

with.

Jason:

Well, we've had a client in the past group black.

Jason:

I mean, think about that.

Jason:

This is the DDI category.

Jason:

Black Lives Matter was blocked on a black owned media site.

Jason:

Well, yeah, they're covering that, but they're not covering that in a hate speech

Johanna:

nobody's taking words off.

Johanna:

Right.

Johanna:

They're only adding.

Jason:

correct.

Jason:

And that, but that prohibits, you know, somebody wants to invest in a D I campaign to run on a, you know, a black owned site like that prohibits them from running on there because they had a block on that the entire time.

Jason:

There does need to be a better process.

Jason:

And automation can be applied to that as well.

Jason:

for sure.

Jason:

But I think that that's a easy problem to fix that we

Jason:

should.

Johanna:

Right.

Johanna:

Right.

Johanna:

I think AI could do a lot with that

Jason:

So what are the

Brian:

So what are the hardest problems to fix?

Johanna:

that.

Johanna:

Yeah, which sounds really

Jason:

throwing a ton of human capital against it, to, to do it, to start it in the first place, but then they forget it.

Jason:

Yeah.

Jason:

So you need to apply technology to then fix that.

Jason:

I think some of the harder problems are, so from a digital media publisher perspective, Google Chrome's, sorry, Google, Core update, Ground kind of shifted.

Jason:

You were just quoting numbers at the top of that.

Jason:

So to bring it alpha to Omega We're investing a ton in our audience teams to understand that fully How should we rearchitect all of our sites which we are doing?

Jason:

But again, it's all about brand if you look at that core update, you know They even take it down to the level of understanding pronoun usage At a hyper local level.

Jason:

and so I'll use this as an example of a sports site.

Jason:

So a sports site.

Jason:

so we have Athlon.

Jason:

It's the same model as like SI.

Jason:

So we have National Desk.

Jason:

And then we have local desks.

Jason:

And on the local side, because we can only scale so many writers so much, we strike partnerships with people that are in those local markets.

Jason:

Dallascowboys.

Jason:

com, denverbroncos.

Jason:

com, atlantabraves.

Jason:

com, and put those on the subdomain, where we tap into those guys for what their expertise are.

Jason:

They're editors.

Jason:

They're there.

Jason:

They're on the scene.

Jason:

I was here.

Jason:

I was hanging out in the Dodger locker room.

Jason:

We went over to the Dodger game and covered this.

Jason:

It's like the nuanced level.

Jason:

The new, the new, core updates love that.

Jason:

Because that's something that's relevant.

Jason:

It shows investment.

Jason:

It shows relevancy for the users.

Jason:

Which is going to equal a better user experience.

Jason:

But those are things that you have to invest in.

Jason:

in order to

Brian:

Well,

Brian:

that's why I like, sort of, I don't know.

Brian:

I go back and forth over like things like coupons gate because, on the one hand, look, it's a dot, I mean, like I understand it, you know, you set up a sub domain, they supply, it goes straight to the bottom line.

Brian:

it left, I was told like at one dinner, like a publisher lost a 7 million hole in their balance sheet.

Brian:

I mean, that's

Brian:

tough.

Brian:

And then they're going to.

Brian:

appeal to, to, to Google, which is also, I think

Johanna:

the,

Johanna:

the sort

Johanna:

of

Brian:

of just hiding behind the algorithm, the fact that like you have to go in person to appeal.

Brian:

and then the meeting

Jason:

Yeah, shocker.

Brian:

but at the same time, like I understand, like publishers have respond, responded to incentives in the market and those incentives have been set up by, by the people on the beaches at the end of the day.

Brian:

And then the blaming, The, the publishers are responding to the

Johanna:

they set

Jason:

Yeah, that You

Jason:

set up.

Jason:

Why are you doing that?

Jason:

It's it's the game that you, you set the terms of the game.

Brian:

yeah.

Brian:

So, I mean, that's

Jason:

That's like passing Go and Monopoly and going, you are mad at me for passing Go?

Jason:

I thought we

Johanna:

we were

Johanna:

supposed to pass

Johanna:

go.

Johanna:

Those were the rules.

Jason:

right?

Jason:

Yeah,

Brian:

and, you know, I don't know, there's a lot of intergalactic battles going on between technology giants and, and governments and, and there are things that publishers really can't

Johanna:

impact

Johanna:

on.

Jason:

can, and you shouldn't get distracted by that.

Jason:

Like you should understand the outputs of those things because those are tectonic, like shocks to the, and it can impact your business.

Jason:

But just understand those things once they, once they settle, how can it impact your business?

Jason:

Develop your strategy and then laser focus on executing on that strategy like we

Johanna:

we talked about.

Johanna:

I think agility so learning to become more agile businesses.

Brian:

Yeah.

Johanna:

I think historically media companies are quite set in their ways

Johanna:

terms of processes or sort of just Quarterly planning or annual

Jason:

think you have

Johanna:

I think you have to be more

Brian:

it's underrated how conservative, it's small.

Brian:

C.

Johanna:

know, things can be on board

Johanna:

large.

Johanna:

We on board

Johanna:

large

Johanna:

premium publishers and

Jason:

that process.

Johanna:

You know, sometimes it's one developer that needs to put one piece of code.

Johanna:

It can take months.

Johanna:

so I think agility and being a little bit more opportunistic rather than sort of, I guess, fear.

Johanna:

fear mongering around

Jason:

the changes that,

Johanna:

you know, we've talked about the cookie going away for the

Johanna:

last,

Brian:

mongering, don't

Johanna:

yeah,

Jason:

away.

Jason:

yeah.

Jason:

well he's got us covered.

Jason:

But no, but gone are the days of fear driven organizations being overly conservative, And building, you know, fiefdoms and the such and creating bureaucracies.

Jason:

This era that we're entering in is the anti, exactly.

Brian:

Yeah.

Jason:

Create bureaucracy at your peril.

Jason:

Yeah,

Brian:

it's going to break a lot of that.

Brian:

I feel like, because I mean, there's just some crazy stuff that still exists.

Brian:

you know, like a big newspaper, you know, they, you know, commerce, you know, they set up a commerce operation and they're fighting like the newsroom says, ah, you can't do the, you can't do the credit card reviews.

Brian:

do you know what kind of bounties, like a credit card?

Brian:

what was it like, but our personal finance team, you know, does that as part, and it's like

Brian:

you, you can't afford

Brian:

that

Jason:

By the way, if they knew more about value, if everybody rallied inside that publisher around revenue per session, And that's the golden god.

Jason:

It doesn't matter if you're an editor and your words are beautiful and everything that you write is amazing.

Jason:

Well, we know that that's how they have viewed it.

Jason:

But you have to understand value.

Jason:

And get rid of the conch shell.

Jason:

Look at data.

Jason:

And let that be your guide.

Jason:

And get rid of all that bureaucracy.

Jason:

Because when you do that, a lot of that silly behavior goes away.

Brian:

and

Brian:

get

Johanna:

use your words beautifully, by the way.

Jason:

Yeah.

Jason:

he does.

Jason:

very much.

Jason:

Yeah, exactly

Brian:

because when you do that,

Johanna:

You

Next Episode All Episodes Previous Episode

About the Podcast

Show artwork for The Rebooting Show
The Rebooting Show

Listen for free