How Publishers Can Balance Revenue & User Experience In Video Discovery

Since the dawn of advertising technology, there have been two forces opposed to one another. On one side, publishers must prioritize monetization if they want to keep their business healthy and keep their editorial staff on the payroll. On the other side, providing users with a positive experience will keep them coming back and help establish a lasting brand. So, no matter how profitable, ads shouldn’t compromise the happiness of the visitor.

With video advertising, this dilemma becomes even more pronounced. Video has indeed proven to be more engaging for users than text or static images, and video advertising is growing faster than all other types of online advertising. However, when video is applied without proper care for the users’ experience, it can completely alienate fans from their favorite websites.

The Next Evolution in Video Discovery

Earlier this month, Primis, the Universal McCann owned video discovery platform, launched Primis Next, an engagement-based discovery engine that empowers users to choose their own video experience. Until now, video discovery has brought great value to publishers by recommending readers relevant content in the right place and at the right time. Through its updated discovery engine, Primis Next takes video discovery to the next level by allowing users to skip content they do not find engaging automatically.

Primis Next features three primary innovations:

• Users that engage with a video get an uninterrupted video experience, no breaks, no ads.
• Videos that didn’t lead to engagement will be auto-skipped, to allow users to discover the next video.
• To support the uninterrupted video experience, most mid-roll breaks will be replaced with pre-rolls.

This adds a valuable new layer to the technology that makes video discovery both profitable for publishers and enjoyable for users. The new development goes beyond simply recommending relevant video content for each user in each context. Finally, when users show that they are interested in watching a video, they’ll be able to without interruption. And all of this without compromising CPMs for publishers.

Why Publishers Should Care

While video advertising has continued to grow over the last few years rapidly, those benefits have mainly gone to the walled gardens and not independent publishers. This is at least partially because larger entities like YouTube and Facebook can develop and harness discovery technologies that are out of the grasp of their competitors.

Video discovery has already leveled the playing field to a certain extent. Still, with this new evolution of the technology, publishers will finally have a unique advantage when it comes to giving their users more control over their experience. While Facebook and YouTube will continue to interrupt their viewers’ watching experience with ads, Primis Next provides them with the content that they love, without interruption.

Kean Graham

Kean Graham is the CEO and founder of MonetizeMore & a pioneer in the Adtech Industry. He is the resident expert in Ad Optimization, covering areas like Adsense Optimization,GAM Management, and third-party ad network partnerships. Kean believes in the supremacy of direct publisher deals and holistic optimization as keys to effective and consistent ad revenue increases.