Publishers, here’s how you build your first-party strategy
Succeeding as a media or news publisher in the internet age makes a lot of demands on us as a publisher. It’s not enough to just understand how to make our content appealing to the audiences. You also need to understand the technology that makes it possible for us to help get our news in front of them.
Distribution. It’s where the magic is. Efficient distribution is how your audiences discover with your content. In fact, a latest report, 'Indian Languages - Understanding India's Digital News Consumer' by Kantar in collaboration with Google talks about how Indian news consumers flock to social media platforms and online search to find their news. The share of news apps or websites is far lower than these two channels combined.
Thus, clearly, online search is an important channel for you. And since Google owns 92.64% of the market share, what Google wants or does to modify online search would have implications for your business.
Google has decided to deprecate its third-party cookies in the coming year. We discussed this in detail in our first blog in this three-part series - Are you ready to live in a cookie-less world? In it we covered everything from helping you understand what third-party cookies do and how they help advertisers action targeted ads for products and services.
We also touched upon how this advertiser-publisher collaboration results into an important advertising revenue stream for publishers. And, with Google switching off these cookies, publishers need to prepare for this stream being disrupted. In fact, 80% of marketers are still heavily reliant on third-party cookies.
That’s why we are not stopping here. We want you as publishers to know that moving away from third-party cookies isn’t something new per se. But more importantly, it is an opportunity to reinvent your digital presence in a way that makes your business more likely to succeed in the long term. In other words, the ‘no-third-party’ cookie business is good for you. Here’s why:
Be a part of the solution, not the problem
Avoid being a third-party annoyance
Advertising is increasingly being seen as annoying, especially by the Gen Z and Millennials, not to mention the GenXers. According to a 2020 study by American market research and analytics company ‘Harris Poll and Double’, 90% of consumers find digital ads intrusive. In that instant when people expect to experience your content, a digital ad may turn them off of that experience itself. Not the outcome you’d want as an advertiser.
Be more personalised while ensuring privacy
More and more people are becoming concerned about how their data is being used by third-party collectors. Rising awareness has led to growing data privacy regulation across some of the most advanced economies, where collection of third-party data has turned into an elaborate action of seeking consent, with users expecting greater transparency. It is indirectly turning into a downside for systems using third-party data.
Aiding this is the growth of platforms that offer strong first-party alternatives. Apple’s Safari began blocking third-party cookies in 2017, for example. Moreover, the rise of mobile marketing – which too uses first-party data, has further led to a downslide of third-party cookie usage. Thus, today, there is a plethora of first-party solutions for businesses.
Leverage growth opportunities
A world dominated by third-party cookies is still less personalised than with first- or second-party cookies. And as a result, advertising may hit the mark less frequently and cost more, unit-wise. On the other hand, the rich data that publishers have can be effectively used to build user personas. They can use these personas to collaborate with relevant brands and retarget customers accordingly. It has the double benefit of the user finding value in the publisher’s content and enabling brands to find the right customer.
Start now, start right
To do all of this right and within tight deadlines (2024 is 5 months away), the starting point would be getting smart control over your news distribution. The first step towards this is the adoption of a Newsroom Content Management System (CMS) and an Audience Engagement System.
A News CMS lets you and your teams scale their content creation and distribution seamlessly. This way, your newsroom stands digital transformed, ready to create more relevant content for your audiences. Additionally, an audience engagement system – commonly referred to as commenting system, lets you skyrocket your user engagement – which helps you collect those first-party cookies.
If you want to know why more than 200 publishers trust Quintype for digitally transforming their newsroom, read this blog. If you want to know how why Metype is the go-to audience engagement tool for leading publishers and creators online, click here.