G/O Media Launches New, Guarantee-Backed Advertising Program

The multi-category publisher G/O Media, which houses 12 titles including Gizmodo, Quartz, Kotaku and Jezebel, is offering advertisers guarantees that their ads will work––or gives them their money back. Called G/O Media Works, the initiative aims to boost the advertising revenue of G/O Media amid a period of economic uncertainty, as well as further familiarize marketers with the media company, according to chief executive Jim Spanfeller. The company launched in 2019 and operated for less than a year before the pandemic struck—and the publisher hopes the guarantee of G/O Media Works will reduce the barrier to entry for prospective clients interested in working with it. “We are very confident that this will work every time,” Spanfeller said. “It goes back to a belief in our products and our platform, as well as the core idea that advertising works.” The program comes as uncertainty continues to roil the advertising ecosystem, with publishers, brands and media buyers alike all navigating an uneven economy. While rare, guarantees can act as an attractive source of differentiation in a saturated marketplace. ‘Retreating to the Core’: How 10 CROs Are Navigating Advertising Uncertainty G/O Media Works measures brand lift and requires a minimum spend The initiative, which has no fixed expiration date, works to measure brand lift metrics—rather than pure performance targets like clicks or sign-ups, Spanfeller said. To participate, clients first choose three of five available metrics: awareness, consumer consideration, favorability, message association and purchase intent. Once they have selected their three preferred criteria, the advertiser and G/O Media select a mutually agreed upon research company to analyze the effectiveness of their target campaign. It often works with the measurement firm Lucid, but it will work with any reputable, comparably priced third-party evaluator. Once the campaign has run, G/O Media Works guarantees that at least one of the three selected metrics will experience a statistically significant lift in the category. The measurement firm, not G/O Media, determines what constitutes a statistically significant figure. If G/O Media fails to deliver the guaranteed lift, it will return the money spent on the campaign, as well as the cost of the assessment, Spanfeller said. The program requires a minimum spend of $300,000, or at least $150,000 across two titles, and it has a maximum flight of three months. Any smaller amount of spend yields too little data to produce accurate results, so a client could not—for instance—spend $50,000 across six G/O Media titles. Proving the efficacy of digital advertising Data from past G/O Media advertising campaigns suggests that the company will have no problem in producing a measurable brand lift, according to Spanfeller. He pioneered a similar program while serving as the president and chief executive of Forbes in the early-to-mid 2000s. G/O Media Works also champions the efficacy of digital advertising, not just G/O Media, Spanfeller said. The publisher anticipates that the program will lead to new business from first-time clients, as well as larger deals from existing partners, who could be encouraged by the guarantee to increase their commitments. The initiative also aims to give G/O Media a competitive advantage in ad buys where brands apportion descending tiers of spend to multiple publishers. “Do we want to gin up more business? Yes, absolutely,” Spanfeller said. “But we want that business to materialize because we are the best at what we do, not because we bought someone a steak dinner. We have to introduce the media-buying community to G/O Media.” Why Publishers’ Ad Revenues Skyrocketed Last Year, in 5 Charts

Marketing Innovation

G/O Media Launches Guarantee-Backed Advertising Program

If clients don’t see lift, they don’t pay

Mark Stenberg

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Mark Stenberg