Diversity in the Mediavine Dashboard

One thing we’ll say for 2020 — it’s not dull!  Dramatic changes are sweeping the country and the digital advertising industry is not being overlooked in these long overdue measures towards equity for all.

A few months ago, Mediavine said We Stand With You, and in that we have and are committed to actively help push the continued movement of social justice and equity forward. 

Our diversity and inclusion efforts have been both public and private facing since we began, and we have an exciting next step for each Mediavine publisher to ensure that we’re providing equitable opportunities in both advertising and influencer marketing campaigns.

Today we’re excited to announce the next phase of Mediavine’s We Stand With You initiative: new Dashboard options to help us identify minority publishers (BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, women-owned) and advocate for equity behind-the-scenes with our advertising partners. 

Did you know the vast majority of Private Marketplace deals and digital advertising spend in general currently goes to the top trafficked publishers, which are predominantly non-minority owned? 

Economic disparity in the supply chain among minority-owned businesses relays into under-monetization of those publishers. Allowing partners to identify, and therefore dedicate a percentage of their budgets to supporting these businesses via PMP deals, is great for equity and even greater for each business owner’s bottom line. 

As I said above, our commitment to diversity and inclusion isn’t just publisher-facing. Internally, we continue to ask questions about how best to serve our publishers and employees with the goals of diversity and inclusion in mind. 

Alex Roth, the product manager for these dashboard initiatives, discussed the team’s process for determining how to build the new options thoughtfully and respectfully. 

“We had a lot of private discussions with the company’s LGBTQ+ group of employees. There was a lot of conversation about how our gender options should allow most people to categorize themselves without the need to type an answer, but still be flexible enough for someone to choose how they want to present their identity.

Additionally, we discussed how women-owned businesses is a fluid definition, and how we shouldn’t be inferring someone is comfortable being identified as “woman-owned” when they don’t explicitly identify as female, but how some people who are genderfluid or non-binary might feel comfortable with that definition.”

The overall goal of these opt-ins within your influencer profile is equitable ad spend for marginalized communities. We’re committed to making sure there’s diversity in the decision-making processes behind the scenes too, instead of making unilateral decisions without representation. 

What do I need to do next?

We’ve already partnered with ad exchanges and agencies that are ready to dedicate ad spend to minority-owned businesses. We just need your participation. 

Head on over to your Mediavine Dashboard, and find the Settings button in your left-hand menu. There, you’ll find the “Influencer” button and settings. 

Pop in and fill out the details to your comfort level, keeping in mind that our ad partners are specifically setting aside percentages of their budgets to spend with minority and women-owned businesses. 

Additionally, our Influencer Marketing team uses these details to make sure they’re pulling options for each brand campaign across a diverse and inclusive set of publishers that will accomplish the brand’s campaign goals. (Hint: Opt-in to be contacted about those!)

Mediavine will continue advocating for diversity, inclusion and equity in the ad tech space whenever and wherever we can. The ad income lift that may come from these new partnerships is just the beginning, and as the movement persists, we will continue to update you on our efforts to support our promise to stand together on social justice as well.

We stand with you.