BuzzFeed Moves to Programmatic

I found it interesting to read that BuzzFeed has made themove to selling programmatic ads, after years of holding out against it. With so many dollars in digital advertising shifting to programmatic it’s always interesting to learn about a company, especially a digital-first company, holding out against it. What’s unique about BuzzFeed is their ad dollars have traditionally come from native advertising rather than more “traditional” display ads.

As the article calls out, the shift to start selling programmatic ads could present a potential conflict of interest for BuzzFeed. Advertisers are accustomed to working with them on native advertising, and accustomed to reaching a certain number of eyeballs across BuzzFeed’s website and social channels. Now those eyeballs are going to be potentially diverted to advertisements, and BuzzFeed will have an interest in driving readers to their own website to gain more ad impressions for advertisers. Native advertisers are all the while hoping that their native content will push readers to their own websites.

How it all unfolds will be interesting to watch. Nonetheless, who can blame BuzzFeed for joining the modern advertising world by offering programmatic ads.

https://digiday.com/media/buzzfeed-selling-programmatic-ads-without-alienating-existing-advertisers/