Mobile monetisation for premium publishers has been an ongoing topic of controversy, due to the fragmentation of content consumption, lack of mobile-first technology, limited understanding of the mobile infrastructure, and how mobile is generally consumed. However, technology has moved on, and the opportunities are there for premium publishers to get the most out of their mobile audience. Paul Gubbins (pictured below), UK country manager, PubMatic, tells ExchangeWire how premium publisher reticence towards mobile monetisation came about, and how it can be overcome.

Unlike many industry experts, I firmly believe premium publishers can make money from their mobile inventory. Below, I explain why I am so firm in this belief. But, before that, let’s get us all on the same page.

When digital advertising became mainstream, publishers found themselves in the position of having enough, but not too much, inventory to monetise. Predominantly, they did this through IO-based, contextual buys.

As the internet exploded, the amount of inventory became unmanageable and so aggregation (and selling) through ad networks became an option.

Fast forward to around 2012, when programmatic technology became more common, and we saw many publishers partnering with a DMP to segment their audiences within defined cookie segments and working with an SSP to surface and expose those audiences to buyers in either open or private marketplace (PMP) environments.

Three very different ways of monetising a publisher’s digital assets, but with one important thing in common: the vast majority of the impressions were viewed via a desktop and every one of those was targeted via cookies.

That all changed when the publisher's audience migrated from consuming content from one screen (the desktop) to multiple screens (smartphones and tablets).

Cue mass panic among publishers as they watched their audience shift at a speed that, frankly, they weren’t ready for. Some might say that the rate of adoption from single- to multi-screen consumption made Moore's Law look glacial in its pace.

Why the panic? Surely publishers could just ask their SSP to manage their mobile web and in-app inventory as well? Correct, and many did. However, at that time, the vast majority of desktop-first SSPs weren’t connected to mobile-first DSPs; and those that were found they had predominantly gaming advertisers on their books who were looking for the lowest priced inventory that would convert to a cost-per-install (CPI) or back out to lifetime value (LTV).

As desktop-first SSPs failed to fill a ‘traditional’ publisher’s mobile inventory at the same price and volume they were selling their desktop inventory for, publishers became increasingly frustrated. Many turned to mobile-first SSPs to help solve this problem, as they believed that they ‘understood mobile’ and all would be well again. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Publishers were still setting their mobile floor prices too high and many had failed to understand that in this predominantly cookie-less environment, without passing first-party data, device ID, or robust location data, all impressions were basically the same with very little to differentiate them. The net result? Traditional premium publishers were being trumped by apps that had launched less than six months previously, that nobody on their board had ever heard of.

So, why was monetising mobile inventory proving to be so difficult for traditional, premium publishers? They’d certainly never had any issues with desktop.

The first challenge was where the audience’s time was being spent. The majority of mobile inventory that was being consumed was in-app and, therefore, no cookies were available. No cookies meant no visibility, so DSPs would often take a pass on bid requests resulting in large chunks of mobile web supply remaining unsold.

This was somewhat addressed when both Apple and Google released mechanisms that enabled app developers to extract device IDs and pass these back to buyers. This meant that, for the first time, buyers could manage things such as reach, frequency, and attribution when they bought in-app inventory. As buyers became more confident about what they were buying, publishers started to take apps seriously, with many investing in building proprietary apps to capture the demand they were failing to secure via mobile web. This persistent form of identification encouraged gaming clients to spend heavily on app install campaigns. Problem solved.

Well, no. Premium publishers never really benefitted from this influx of spend, as gaming advertisers were often on their block lists, or they set their floor prices too high to support the CPI mechanic that was driving this investment.

Couple that with the fact that, for a long time, large agency groups would not invest in programmatic mobile, as the audience was unquantifiable and in-app traffic was predominantly originating from utility and gaming based app’s – not an easy sell to the CMO of a luxury brand who is asking: what on earth does squashed fruit have in common with their luxury watch brand?! Add to that the complexity faced in trying to de-duplicate across multiple screens that offered a combination of desktop cookies, no cookies on mobile web, and device ID, if you also had an app, and the sell becomes almost impossible.

So far, not looking good for premium publishers and my original assertion that they can make money out of mobile. Despite all of the above, I believe that many premium publishers are in a stronger position than they think.

Firstly, the issue of not having cookies on mobile web inventory is now an easy problem to fix. Publishers just need to ensure that the data management platform (DMP) they are using to segment their digital audiences has a device graph feature. This will enable publishers to expose a single ID to buyers, via their SSP, informing them that the user that is consuming their inventory via a desktop (through cookie matching) is in high probably the same user that is consuming their inventory via mobile web or mobile app. Instantly, this gives their vanilla mobile web impression context and will increase bid density and yield when cleared. This is known as 'probabilistic matching'. Of course, if a publisher has a sign-in environment, then there’s nothing probable at all about the matching.

In addition to the above, the device graph feature will also allow publishers to create a single user ID for desktop, mobile web, and mobile app users, enabling buyers to better target, and manage frequency and attribution. Something that is almost impossible to do without a logged-in to environment or probabilistic matching.

Then there’s audience extension. At PubMatic, we are increasingly seeing our premium publishers use cross-device technology to power their audience extension business as a means to capture incremental budgets. Audience extension is not new; however, finding your desktop user in other relevant, brand-safe, and premium environments, such as mobile apps, is.

We are also seeing premium publishers taking the audience insights they have exposed within their desktop PMPs and pushing these into mobile PMP packages. Publishers are increasingly bundling inventory from mobile and desktop together to create cross-device PMP packages, which is of great interest to media buyers, and attracts higher CPMs. Over the past three quarters, PubMatic have observed a shift in advertiser buying behaviour as they direct spend towards high-quality mobile inventory via PMPs. PubMatic’s Q1 2016 Quarterly Mobile Index (QMI) revealed that mobile PMP spend in the sports category increased 1000% year-on-year.

Advertising has become about reaching one consumer on multiple devices and formats with a unified message, which calls for the need for a holistic strategy. As outlined above, publishers now have the tools and control to monetise across desktop and mobile, both in-app and web, environments, with very granular targeting abilities. By keeping all of these channels in siloes, publishers will face more problems than necessary; they need to be able to execute the most successful strategies with a single solution.

Apps no longer represent the only premium inventory on mobile. In fact, according to the QMI report, average CPMs on both app and mobile web increased 50% year-on-year on PubMatic’s platform; and, in Q1 2016, 80% of monetised mobile inventory came from the mobile web. The mobile web represents a significant opportunity for publishers; and by incorporating things like geolocation, device IDs, and PMPs into overall strategies, publishers can continue to drive value.

I’d say that, although mobile inventory once seemed like the wild wild west of the advertising industry, this is evidence that industry leaders have been able to overcome the challenges, settle in this new territory, and effectively monetise.

A testament to this holistic strategy is one of the UK’s most popular travel sites, National Rail Enquiries (NRE). The premium publisher saw its average CPMs increase 25% across all ad inventory between February 2012 and April 2016. In addition, since employing enriched tags to capture device IDs on mobile apps, NRE has seen a 65% increase in revenue on mobile since the second half of 2014.

So, if you’re a premium publisher reading this, I hope you will realise that making money from mobile is entirely possible, but only with the right technology and holistic approach. The advances we’ve seen in this space over the past few years have been extraordinary, not only in the area of driving monetisation, unlocking and activating your audiences, but also in allowing you to deliver content to your audience that is responsive to their device, contextually relevant, and highly engaging. All very attractive attributes for brands that are looking to communicate with your desirable audience.

Remember, you are open, premium, and the custodians of your content. It’s all to play for.