The Arena Group rediscovers the power of video while driving revenue and consumer engagement
Goal
Build a robust video strategy with The Arena Group’s network of websites to drive more video views and revenue.
Results by the numbers
average gross RPM lift*
higher video dwell time*
*Within a six-month time period
The Arena Group combines powerful brands, in areas consumers are passionate about and delivers compelling experiences. Its team of award winning journalists, storytellers, content creators, and entrepreneurial producers delivers exciting and dynamic destinations in sports, finance, lifestyle, and more.
Our commitment to implementing the most innovative solutions to drive unprecedented business results extends beyond today’s successes, as we continue to strive to create more meaningful video experiences that captivate and resonate with our audiences. Our strong partnership with EX.CO has allowed us to deliver more contextually relevant video content, resulting in not only higher engagement but also a lift in revenue.
The Challenge
The Arena Group faced a problem: they knew their readers liked video and they knew that on-page video was great for monetization purposes but what they lacked was access to enough content to put video on every page and monetize the inventory in the best way. Their custom videos often went viral, and their library of content provided useful highlights for certain pages, but 95% of their pages were still video-less. Part of the challenge was that it wasn’t economically possible to create or license a relevant video for every single webpage.
The Solution
EX.CO’s online video platform offered an easy way of alleviating The Arena Group’s pain points by allowing the publisher to quickly generate new video content, thereby increasing engagement, time-on-site, and recirculation. These videos promoted recent and popular articles to drive eyeballs. EX.CO also offered AI-driven, contextual recommendations to ensure that the videos matched the content of the article that the user was already consuming. Additionally, EX.CO allowed The Arena Group to add their own demand to the platform and optimized for publisher revenue over other sources within its machine-learning-based yield engine. This change in auction dynamics allowed The Arena Group to earn even higher RPMs.
The Arena Group began by first integrating EX.CO into three of their most well known sites: Sports Illustrated, Men’s Journal, and Parade. They quickly saw a significant portion of their audiences consuming content in a new way via video, powered by EX.CO’s platform.
Soon after, The Arena Group also brought Google’s AdX into EX.CO’s platform which allowed the publisher to bring its own private marketplace and programmatic guaranteed deals to the table which they hadn’t been able to achieve previously.
The Result
The Arena Group was amazed by the results. Not only did the publisher earn 115% higher gross RPMs within a 6-month period, but they also increased user dwell time on their network of sites by 27% within the same time period. The Arena Group was also very pleased by EX.CO’s transparent demand management process and the careful decisioning around which demand source to deliver an impression to. Due to the success of its partnership with EX.CO, The Arena Group made the strategic decision to integrate the video platform into hundreds of more pages across its vast network of websites.
In today’s challenging economic landscape, The Arena Group has set a benchmark for other digital publishers around how to keep audiences highly engaged with premium video content, and its partnership with EX.CO is an integral part of that strategy. As a result, The Arena Group is now well positioned for accelerated business growth in 2024 and beyond.
Key Takeaways
EX.CO helps publishers achieve several business KPIs through video, including more dwell time, increased recirculation, and the ability to double–or even triple–video revenues.
Not all publishers have access to premium video content but EX.CO’s online video platform offers several solutions to help publishers achieve 100% video coverage (video on every page).
EX.CO provides the best of both worlds: publishers manage their own demand sources alongside ours, which allows them to optimize their yields with full control and transparency.
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