In 2023, Sovrn announced the creation of a new Ad Management Steering Committee composed of leaders, innovators, innovators, and programmatic experts throughout the publishing industry. Steering committee members represent companies like Ziff Davis, System 1, LoveToKnow Media, and more. Their mission: to collaboratively tackle the biggest challenges facing publishers today and assist in developing the products publishers truly need from their ad tech partners.
With access to some of the best minds in the business, we wanted to tap into their valuable expertise and share those insights with you. We recently sat down with Jeremy Gan, SVP of Revenue Operations and Data Strategy at Daily Mail, to get his thoughts on the state of digital media and his experience with Sovrn’s Ad Management publisher steering committee.
Q: In your role with Daily Mail, what are your top priorities, and where will your team focus its energy over the next 12-18 months?
A: This is a very timely question because we’re planning for our next fiscal year. First and foremost, we’re thinking about cookie deprecation. As you know, we were at one percent (on Chrome) throughout this year and expect a slow ramp-up over the course of 2025. But now, with Google Chrome scrapping its plans, we don’t know what the CMA [the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority] will decide ultimately. Things could escalate quickly, as we saw with Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) – it could go from zero to 70 or 80 percent overnight. Nevertheless, we continue to collaborate, test, and learn with our partners to ensure that when the time comes, we, as publishers, are ready.
Closely related to cookie deprecation is the topic of addressability. There are tons of identity solutions available in the market. But as we think about our aspirations and where we want to be as a publisher, we realize that none really meet all of our needs (across all transaction types). Too many identity solutions are simply trying to replicate cookies, whereas we want to do things in a way that adds value to the buy side, agencies, and marketers. So we’re working on our own identity solution, which could be the first step in a new evolution for ad tech that includes measurements and attributions.
Finally, supply path optimization continues to be a hot topic for us, so we’re looking to streamline our ad stack to reduce QPS for DSPs and drive more value to our inventory. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for publishers to drive revenue because we constantly have to bolt new services onto our tech stack — flooring, optimization services, bid throttling, and more. And each one takes a cut of your revenue. So a dollar CPM ends up being more like 70 or 80 cents once you take out all the fees. So we’re scrutinizing every partner to make sure they’re really adding value.
Q: From your perspective, what are the top challenges facing publishers today?
A: Cookie deprecation is obviously a challenge, but more specifically, I think publishers may struggle to set themselves apart from their peers in the absence of cookies. Once cookies are gone, it becomes much more difficult for publishers to connect buyers with the audience they want. So how does a publisher position themselves to sell against that specific bespoke audience? How do they identify and package that audience for buyers? And how do they demonstrate that their audience is more attractive than another consumer set that looks virtually identical?
The other major challenge, as I mentioned previously, is simply fees. It’s become increasingly costly to do business as a publisher. Over time, I don’t think that’s going to be sustainable, because publishers are all paying more to make less money. And on top of all that, publishers have traffic concerns. Publishers are constantly losing traffic to SEO changes, algorithm updates, and now AI-generated search result summaries. And of course, if you don’t have traffic, none of the other issues matter.
Q: What should publishers be doing to meet those challenges?
Unfortunately there’s no simple answer that can solve these problems. But I’ll tell you what we’re doing is taking a fresh look at literally everything. We know that we need to be more nimble than ever before, so we’re scrutinizing everything — even things we haven’t looked at in a long time. For example, we’ve been putting a lot of resources behind supply path optimization, which is very tactical. The question we ask ourselves is whether it is worth the effort. Especially when there are other areas — like ad blocking — that we haven’t looked at for a long time and might be a better use of our resources.
We’re also scrutinizing every partnership. For example, with addressability — do publisher have the right testing methodology and skillset to justify adding an additional layer to our tech stack? The success of these solutions depends on the publisher’s data, and if publishers are not evaluating the right KPI, you won’t get the results you expect. For so long, publishers have just been adding solutions and saying yes to everything without actually having their house in order to use these solutions effectively. So my biggest piece of advice is to take a step back, scrutinize everything, and clean house once in a while.
Q: Where do you see the industry heading in the next few years? How can publishers prepare for that future?
A: I think the industry is more vibrant than ever before. I’ve been fortunate enough to be involved for almost 10 years, so I’ve seen everything from the rise of header bidding to the wrapper wars, and then in the last few years it’s been a case of slower and more deliberate change. Over the next one to three years, I think we’re likely to see almost a domino effect, as cookie deprecation shapes modern marketing. First, without the cookie, how will publisher recognize changes in buyers’ behavior? And then second, the outcome of the ongoing DOJ trial versus Google adtech along with privacy regulations in the US may fundamentally change how publisher adstack are set up.
I also think there will be a lot more combining of power through mergers and acquisitions. There are way too many players in the adtech ecosystem that don’t drive much value, so more M&A would help to shrink the publisher ad stack to a more manageable size so every business can operate in a way that makes sense.
So the key to preparing for that future is, again, rethinking how you do things across all aspect of the business. Publishers are going to have to rethink how we generate traffic moving forward. I try not to mention AI too much because it’s such a buzzword, but AI will fundamentally change not only productivity but also how traffic is driven to a website. There will be new revenue streams, and we need to be nimble enough to prepare for that opportunity by keeping an open mind. And with all things adtech, we will also need to test and partner with new entrants, which will require testing and learning as we move forward.
I’m actually excited about where we’re heading, and I don’t think we’re done by any stretch of the imagination. If anything, I’m more optimistic than ever about how this industry will continue to grow and I’m excited to see what real change will bring over the next few years.
Q: Why did you feel it was important to get involved with Sovrn’s Ad Management Steering Committee?
A: For me, it’s all about that process of partner, test, and learn. I learn a lot through conversation. I also learn a lot through getting my hands dirty and being part of the process. So in looking at the Sovrn product and testing it, I have a chance to think through the different use cases and how it could be better. For example, we talked about fees. What can Sovrn do from a product perspective to mitigate fees? Do you have a managed service, do you include optimization, do you have data layers? If you can provide all of these different solutions under one umbrella and charge a single fee, there’s more value to the publisher.
The bottom line is, I’m here because I care. I like to participate at the ground level and actually shape the product to be the best it can be. I think there’s real value in growing that long-term partnership, and there can only be real value for both sides if we are transparent with each other.
Q: How can groups like this help to drive positive impact and change?
A: What I really enjoy about the Sovrn community so far is they’re not afraid of tackling the hard problems or talking about things that people tend to shy away from. Ad Management Steering Committee conversations include parties from all sides of the ecosystem, talking about things candidly and transparently. There’s often too much red tape in our industry, and you don’t solve problems that way. It takes honest conversation and debate — not argument, because it’s always professional. So having an opportunity to share different perspectives and present our positions has a lot of value for solving industry problems.
For more insights to help grow your business on the open web, visit the Sovrn blog. You can also contact us at sales@sovrn.com for more information about our comprehensive suite of publisher solutions for advertising, commerce, and data.
