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A new partnership claims it will deliver the industry’s first global programmatic platform for native advertising – enabling brands to increase their audience exposure. It will initially be launched in the US and UK and roll out to other markets later.
The partnership brings together Xaxis, the world’s largest programmatic media and technology platform, and Disqus, the web’s largest network of discussion communities. The new platform will enable Xaxis clients to programmatically buy sponsored comments ad units across three million Disqus-powered websites around the world.
The duo claim that the new platform is the first advertising offering capable of delivering native advertising with the scale, safety and efficiency advertisers have come to expect from their premium digital advertising campaigns.
Comment ad units
The Disqus Sponsored Comments ad units appear above discussion threads on websites using the company’s commenting platform and participating in its advertising. This, says the duo give a range of creative possibilities for brands using the platform that can include text, images and embedded video, tailored to specific audiences, topics under discussion, or both.
The platform is set up to continually scan the words and expressions used on sites and in comments so that ads are not placed in rogue environments but in brand-safe environments instead. By using the same technology to perform enhanced targeting, brands will also be able to target more than 1,000 discussion topics, breaking news and trending memes.
Brian Lesser, global CEO of Xaxis feels the new platform works because of it scalability and ability to sit in alignment with the rest of a brand’s digital marketing strategy.
“With the Disqus partnership, advertisers can now apply the same audience-based lens to the delivery, tracking and measurement of native ads that they apply to their existing display, social, mobile and online video campaigns,” he said.
Discussion is the centre of engagement
The move is certainly interesting since it seems users are spending more time than ever reading and engaging in comments and discussions on websites. Publisher analytics company Chartbeat claims this is where the majority of engaged time on websites take place.
“People use Disqus to add commentary to content on websites covering every topic imaginable. So our advertising business is based on a basic idea that we know what people are interested in because they’re talking about it on Disqus,” said Daniel Ha, CEO and cofounder, Disqus.
“Our relationship with Xaxis accelerates and expands our capability to deliver advertising that connects our audiences to brands with relevant and compelling content.”
