Digiday recently held their Publishing Summit in Key Biscayne, FL, and we were proud to sponsor such a thoughtful event for publishers. Publishers have experienced many headwinds this year including GDPR regulations, dropping display revenues, and frustrations scaling other revenue streams, but conversations at the summit remained optimistic and pragmatic.

With industry changes in privacy, tracking, and regulation, publishers are looking for additional ways to monetize users attention. Video has been tempting but we heard that scaling those streams has been a problem because of the proliferation of bundles and distribution platforms. Publishers have also tested out alternative forms of revenue like products and private groups to varying success. The big hurdles there will be reliably repeating successes and adapting to changing user tastes.

Perhaps, most concerning for publishers is the loss of the third-party cookie. Trying to figure out what the drop will be to open exchange revenue and how to prepare is not creating any fun conversations around the office. But it can be a productive one if you’ve got all your data mapped and normalized so your analysis and forecasts are based on reality.

The hurdles that publishers have faced this year strengthens the need for a reliable and automated data practice. Managing change, both good and bad, starts with an internal analysis and if your programmatic data is all over the place, you won’t know where you stand.

If you’re wondering how to get your data cleaned and ad ops processes automated, we can help. Send us a note here ›