The end of one quarter and the beginning of another is usually an excellent opportunity for introspection and goal-setting.

For most publishers that means reevaluating their processes and figuring out how they can increase their audience size, improve the quality of their content and maximize their revenue.

So, to start off this year’s second quarter right, here is a list of 3 tools that you’ll need to grow your publisher website or mobile app and have a successful year!

1- A programmatic direct platform:

By the end of 2018, most publishers were monetizing their ad inventory (or at least some of it) programmatically. That is why advertisers purchased 81% of their digital display ads through programmatic platforms last year.

That being said, with growing concerns about brand safety a lot of advertisers are increasingly looking to buy ad impressions directly from a restricted group of publishers.

As a result, publishers have a unique opportunity to sell a higher percentage of their ad inventory directly at a fixed price. Selling directly also allows publishers to sell impressions at a higher price, seeing that advertisers know that their ads will be seen by their target audience!

Nevertheless, direct ad sales come with their own challenges. The operational cost of selling ad impressions in such a manner is usually high, which is the main reason publishers (especially small publisher) opt to sell all of their inventory directly.

To get the best of both worlds (the simplicity of programmatic and the higher returns of direct sales) programmatic direct is your best bet!

What is programmatic direct?

Programmatic direct is an ad sales approach that allows publishers to sell their ad inventory directly to advertisers in a programmatic manner without obliging them to go through an auction.

That way, advertisers are able to buy ad impressions at a fixed price, and most of the purchasing is done solely through software.

A programmatic direct will then allow you to boost your ad yield (the return of your ad inventory) and attract a new class of brand-cautious advertisers all without increasing your operational cost.

2- A consent management platform:

Last year, data and online privacy were the main topics of discussion of the AdTech industry. The EU’s introduction of the General Data Protection Law (GDPR) had a significant impact on the ecosystem: it practically led to the creation of the Data Protection Officer’ role and created the need for a new type of tools; i.e., Consent Management Platforms.

What are Consent Management Platforms?

According to the IAB, Consent Management Platforms (CMPs) are platforms that request, receive and store the consent of users. They also remember the list publishers’ preferred vendors and the purpose behind the data they collect.

CMPs usually display a popup ad to users asking them for their explicit consent. Once the user gives her permission, the CMP can distribute that information to the vendors that process the data.

Why do I need a CMP?

Whether you are based in the EU or not, as long as your process the data of European users you have to respect the GDPR law and collect the explicit consent of your users.

Failing to do so can cause you to lose a lot of money seeing that the EU plans to fine publishers who don’t respect GDPR up to €20 Million!
(Which explains why 27% of publishers started using a CMP in the first 4 months after GDPR)

Will a CMP help me increase my revenue?

Consent Management Platforms are still a young family of tools, so their actual impact on revenue is still unknown. That being said early reports by MediaVine confirm that publishers who use a CMP have seen their CPMs grow by 52% and their fill rates improve by 39%!

3- Anti-adblocking software:

With over 30% of internet users using Adblockers, Publishers have taken a severe revenue cut this past couple of years. eMarketer even estimates that large publishers, such as the Dailymail, are losing up to $22 million yearly!

In order to recover some of their lost revenue, many publishers have started using Anti-Adblockers or Ad-Walls.

Anti-Adblockers allow publishers to identify when a user is using an Adblockers so that they can then display a specific message asking them to deactivate their Adblocker or whitelist their website.

Some Anti-Adblocking solutions even allow publishers to ask users who are choosing to block ads to subscribe to a monthly or a yearly plan to get an ad-free experience on the site.

Implementing one of these revenue recovery strategies has become a must, seeing that more and more users are blocking ads on their browsers.

Despite the meteoric rise of Adblockers, 61% of people blocking ads say that they would turn off their Adblocker to access content.

So before asking users to pay for a subscription, you might just want to request that they add you to their Adblockers whitelist. You also need to make sure that the ad formats that you have implemented on your website are not harming the experience of users on your site.