All Bets Are Off: The Guardian Bans Gambling Advertising

The Guardian and its U.S. outpost, The Guardian U.S., will no longer feature gambling advertising across any of its advertising touchpoints beginning June 15, according to senior vice president of advertising Luis Romero. While the move aims to create a more healthy atmosphere for sports fans, the policy could bolster the appeal of The Guardian…

Yahoo Lets Advertisers Buy Based on Attention With Adelaide Tie Up

Yahoo and attention vendor Adelaide are letting advertisers buy high-attention pre-bid segments through the Yahoo demand-side platform, according to Yahoo chief revenue officer Elizabeth Herbst-Brady. This is the latest industry move focused on elevating attention-based advertising, which should, if successful, make ads more effective, improve the reading experience and, ultimately, lead to higher revenues for…

With Its Frequency Tool, The Financial Times Fine-Tunes Ad Exposure

With the planned deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome coming next year, The Financial Times is using a solution designed to help marketers replace–and potentially improve upon–one of the cookies’ most vital functions: ad frequency capping. And early indications of its success are encouraging. Introduced earlier this year, the publisher’s frequency optimization tool aims to…

Google Opens Access for Transparency Tool Amid Industry Debate on Ad-Tech Fees

Google is introducing a tool throughout its ad-tech products today that is designed to help publishers and buyers track ad-tech fees, a contentious area of programmatic where Google has not always been seen as an honest broker. While the tool thus far has not revealed any hidden fees, programmatic execs would like to see more…

Despite Increased Ad Spend, Some Black Publishers Question Brands’ Strategy

Brands and marketing agencies have, largely, made good on their 2020 commitments to devote more ad spend to Black media. But the increase in investment has gone primarily to a handful of scaled publishers, according to interviews with eight Black media executives. As a result, while advertisers can credibly point to their increased investment in…

Using Attention Metrics, Publishers Aim to Prove Their Ads Work

Publishers have long struggled to prove the efficacy of their digital ad products to brand partners, but in the last year, media companies including Cond? Nast and Insider have begun experimenting with attention-based ad metrics to more clearly quantify their value, ultimately looking to drive more ad revenue. Using attention-based metrics–devised often by a mix…

Axios Local Slows Its Rapid Expansion After Missing Revenue Goals

The nationwide network of free, local newsletters from Axios, called Axios Local, has slowed its rapid expansion, citing the need to grow its existing readership and monetization capabilities before launching into new markets, according to a person familiar with the matter. After Axios Local launches in San Diego in July, its sixth new market of…

With Help From Succession, New York Magazine Tops 1 Million Email Subscribers

Since retooling its newsletter strategy in 2019, the Vox Media title New York Magazine has seen its email readership–as Succession’s Kendall Roy might say–go supersonic. The publisher, which topped 1 million subscribers across its 30 email products in December, has achieved its growth through a multifaceted strategy: one that blends traditional newsletters with five subscriber-only…

British Consumer Champion Which? Enters a New Era of Building Trust

After more than 65 years, British not-for-profit organization Which? has come to describe itself as “the consumer champion.” The platform focuses on researching and reporting consumer issues, offering product tests, reviews and expert recommendations from a place of independence. With a monthly average of 9 million visitors a month to its site (based on the…

Vogue’s Met Gala Livestream Notched 53 Million Views in 24 Hours

On the first Monday in May, more than 53 million people across the globe tuned in to watch Vogue’s third livestream of the Met Gala, the annual fashion extravaganza that serves as both the primary source of funding for the museum’s Costume Institute and, increasingly, a tentpole event for Cond? Nast. Within the first 24…

One Year After Removing Its Paywall, Quartz’s Traffic Continues to Drop

Last April, the business news publisher Quartz stunned the media industry by removing its three-year-old paywall, a move designed to expand its general readership at the potential expense of its paid membership business. One year later, the pivot serves as a valuable, if limited, case study in the challenges of balancing the dual revenue streams…

Mansueto Ventures Executive Arrested for Embezzling the Company

The head of human resources at Mansueto Ventures, the media company behind the publishers Inc. and Fast Company, was arrested after committing financial fraud against the company, two sources told Adweek. A representative for the company, RoseMarie Terenzio, confirmed the news. The accused employee, Nirvani Sabess, has worked as the director of people and culture…

On TikTok, USA Today Finds Traction Without News

For USA Today parent company Gannett, social media success has little to do with the news. Two of its editorial franchises, Humankind and Problem Solved, have seen growth in their social reach across TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, where the brands have prioritized vertical video formats. There, the media company has used the viewership to generate…

Bloomberg Media Fills Chief Revenue Officer Role, Accelerating Ad Revenue Growth

The business news publisher Bloomberg Media has hired digital media executive Christine Cook as its first chief revenue officer, according to the publisher, Adweek can exclusively report. The publisher had previously hired Keith A. Grossman, who left in 2019, as global chief revenue officer. Before him, Paul Caine held the position. Cook begins the role…

Dotdash Meredith Pens Pinterest Partnership, Joining Condé Nast and Tastemade

The lifestyle publisher Dotdash Meredith, which houses titles including Better Homes & Gardens and Southern Living, has partnered with Pinterest to produce 180 original, seasonally aligned vertical videos. Pinterest will fund the creation of the content, but it wouldn’t share financial specifics. The year-long deal follows on the heels of two similar tie-ups struck by…

By Attracting National Budgets, Texas Monthly Grows Ad Revenue 31%

Publisher Texas Monthly, which marked its 50th-anniversary last month, grew its overall revenue 39% in 2022, an uptick the privately owned media company attributed to its expanded number of advertising channels and an ongoing effort to cultivate new sources of revenue. The publisher increased its advertising revenue 31% year over year, according to chief revenue…

TelevisaUnivision’s Post-Cookie Targeting Shows Promise for Seller-Defined Audiences

As the industry scrambles to find replacements for cookies, a lack of scale has been a recurring issue for buyers transacting on publishers’ first-party data. Among a litany of third-party cookie alternatives, seller-defined audiences (SDA) promise publishers control of what signals they put into the bidstream. And unlike other solutions that rely on first-party data,…

As Axel Springer Expands, Its US Identity Remains a Question

The German media company Axel Springer SE announced plans in February to shift its commercial focus toward the U.S. and its lucrative advertising market. But it will need to more clearly define its identity and the value of its portfolio of publishers in order to realize its goals, according to interviews with media buyers and…

Glamour Launches a Standalone Commerce Operation, ByWomen

The Cond? Nast title Glamour launched a digital storefront on Wednesday called The Glamour 100, a shoppable grid featuring 100 curated products from women-owned brands, as part of its efforts to build commerce and advertising revenue. The landing page is part of a larger franchise, called ByWomen, which also includes a permanent database of women-owned…

The Speed of Culture Podcast: Catering to Every Consumer Passion Point

For nearly two centuries, The New York Times has been building a legacy as a company with its finger on the pulse of the public. Since David Rubin joined as its first chief marketing officer in 2016, the Times’ subscriber base has shot up by nearly 7 million. What are the tactics behind this growth?…