How Dow Jones’ Targeting Tool Drives New Business

Dow Jones, the parent company of titles including Barron’s and The Wall Street Journal, is using artificial intelligence to power a growing portion of its digital ads business, a strategy that has helped it increase revenue and win repeat business. The publisher’s AI-driven ad-targeting tool, Thematic, serves personalized ads to readers based on the content of the article they are reading, their broader consumption history, user profile and a litany of other factors. For Dow Jones’ current fiscal year, which runs from July to June 2022, Thematic accounts for 12% of its digital bookings, according to the publisher. Dow Jones is not yet halfway through its fiscal year, but revenue from Thematic is already up 92% compared to its 2021 year-end total, said David Minkin, gm of The Exchange and vp of strategic planning and delivery at Dow Jones. Compared to 2019, Thematic revenue has increased 333%, though the publisher declined to provide specific figures. “The significant ramp-up in revenue against Thematic targeting that we've seen since it launched is because, as advertisers have success with it, they're putting more money into it,” Minkin said. “Because of products like Thematic, clients are actually increasing their investment with us.” This has helped fuel the company's overall ad revenue. Dow Jones reported a 18% rise in revenue to $449 million this week for the quarter, thanks to higher ad revenue, increased subscription and circulation revenue, according to its earnings figures. Contextual targeting at scale To serve readers a targeted ad, Dow Jones first uses a proprietary tech tool, called Factiva, to sort content based on subject matter instantly after publication. It then sifts articles into one of 65 different categories, such as cyber security or risk and compliance. Thematic then serves relevant ads to readers in a process that resembles a sophisticated version of contextual advertising. However, the scale, precision and immediacy of AI-based ad-tech make it far more efficient than its lo-fi counterpart, said Tim Lathrop, the senior director of platform media at Mediassociates. How The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post Handled Blocklists and Their Effects “Rather than relying on cookies, AI takes a lot of complex data and allows you to target people the right way. It also makes it so you're more efficient and waste fewer impressions,” Lathrop said. “If you're in ad tech now and you're not using AI, you're not going to be around much longer.” If you're in ad tech now and you're not using AI, you're not going to be around much longer.Tim Lathrop, Mediassociates Using this kind of subject-based targeting, Thematic has been able to improve the efficiency of its campaigns. The clickthrough rate for one advertising partner—Invesco—is 125% higher than the average for clients using standard targeting, according to the publisher. “It has definitely helped with renewals,” Minkin told Adweek. “Invesco, Netscout and other advertisers who have had great success with it, they keep coming back for more.” Targeting at trigger points Dow Jones recently released the results of a months-long study, a collaboration between WSJ Intelligence and B2B International, called Trust Your Decisions. The report looks at the decision-making process that executives undergo when making purchasing decisions, such as changing tech vendors or buying new enterprise software. The survey found that there is an audience within a company that is responsible for the bulk of its business-to-business decision-making, most often the IT technology team, C-suite, the senior executive level and the finance team. It also found that certain factors, such as industry changes, expiring contracts and its internal growth plan, could spur these groups to make decisions. The publisher plans to use these insights to further optimize Thematic by improving its ability to identify these trigger moments. For instance, if a reader with a background in finance suddenly begins consuming an above-average number of articles about cybersecurity, Thematic can use that information to serve them an ad for financial security services. This ability to make intuitive decisions about the motivations of a reader is what makes AI ad-tech so effective, said Sheri Bachstein, CEO of The Weather Company and gm of IBM Watson Advertising. “AI is predictive, and our research has shown this technology can significantly reduce the guess work of whether content from a brand’s ad campaign will land with the right audience,” Bachstein said. The New York Times' CEO Meredith Levien on Balancing News and Lifestyle Products

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How Dow Jones’ Amped Up Targeting Tool Drives New Business and Ad Revenue

AI-based targeting tool Thematic has increased revenue 333% from 2019

Mark Stenberg

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Mark Stenberg