BOCA RATON, Fla. – September 30, 2020 – Mediavine, the largest exclusive ad management company in the United States and a Comscore top five lifestyle property with 130 million unique monthly visitors and 13 billion monthly ad impressions, introduces Grow.me, their proprietary first-party data solution, featuring an integration with LiveRamp’s (NYSE: RAMP) Authenticated Traffic Solution (ATS).
Built and powered by Mediavine, Grow.me is an audience engagement framework that enables independent publishers to provide audience authentication through engagement tools like social sharing, email opt-ins and other content curation features. Grow.me provides an effective mechanism to create more meaningful relationships between the site and its audience, as well as work with first-party data.
Optimized for speed and ad revenue, the Grow.me feature set is designed as a single-tool replacement for myriad existing plugins, making it invaluable to website owners. Additionally, Grow.me solves for addressability on Safari and Firefox today, allowing for a lift in revenue long before changes to Chrome are expected.
Third-party cookies have been the linchpin of the programmatic ad industry since its inception, but growing privacy concerns have caused the industry to reevaluate its relationship with this type of data, and look toward a future without third-party cookies. In the absence of third-party cookies, the industry is architecting a new digital advertising ecosystem based on trust, and which puts consumer interest first.
Mediavine is the first publisher to implement ATS through an audience engagement framework. With the addition of ATS, publishers will be able to connect authenticated user data with advertiser demand while protecting publisher data and consumer privacy. Further, Grow.me empowers publishers to expand their first-party audiences’ data, enhancing revenue opportunities, improving bid values and more — all without a reliance on third-party cookies.
Currently in beta and live on more than 1,000 websites, Grow.me was developed specifically for an ecosystem where publishers’ first party relationships with their audiences are central. The Mediavine partnership with LiveRamp helps publishers monetize these trusted consumer relationships while protecting publisher data and preserving consumer privacy.
Website tools such as expanded site search, easy navigation to favorites across websites and improved sharing experiences over the most active social media platforms are part of the initial release.
The product’s roadmap includes enhanced email interactions and relationship tools like follow, subscribe and tailored content recommendations.
“Many people in the Ad Tech industry have been talking about the demise of third-party cookies for a while. We decided to build a solution. Grow.me at its core is about keeping the web open and free, which means coming up with privacy-centric advertising that works for users, brands and publishers. We’re excited to partner with LiveRamp, a pioneer in omnichannel advertising solutions, to create sustainable ways for marketers to reach users – both today and into the future when third-party cookies are gone,” said Mediavine CEO Eric Hochberger.
“Publishers, regardless of their size, need addressable solutions that persist in the face of browser- and device-level restrictions such as those we’re seeing with third-party cookies and mobile ad IDs. In fact, many small- to midsize publishers, including bloggers, often have an advantage in that their audiences are incredibly active and engaged,” said Travis Clinger, SVP, addressability and ecosystem at LiveRamp. “By integrating our Authenticated Traffic Solution into Grow.me, we’re truly leveling the playing field: making it easier for publishers of all sizes to attract and sustain revenue opportunities, demonstrate improved return-on-ad-spend and deliver enhanced content and experiences to their users. It’s a win-win-win across the advertising supply chain.”
As publishers seek to sustain and attract new revenue opportunities across channels, such as display, mobile, and connected TV (CTV), ATS delivers a competitive advantage: expanding and maintaining addressable reach, enhancing publishers’ relationships with brands and most importantly, consumers.
Mediavine is a company deeply committed to user experience and engagement. As such, each Grow.me feature set has been evaluated based on reader interactions with the more than 7,500 websites Mediavine currently works with as their exclusive ad manager, and the over 100,000 websites using Mediavine products overall. Grow.me is available to Mediavine publishers in this initial phase, and will be available to any and all publishers at a later date.