Skimlinks to reward publishers for their data contribution with new audience targeting services

NEW YORK and LONDON, Nov. 6, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Skimlinks, the content monetization platform used by more than 55,000 digital publishers, including Time Inc, Mail Online, The Independent and Refinery29, has launched a new programmatic audience targeting service for advertisers that will automatically share revenues with publisher partners based on their contribution to the Skimlinks' data cooperative.

Audiences by Skimlinks will give brands and agencies around the world access to a rich taxonomy of audience segments built from the anonymous browsing, clicking and conversion data of more than 1.3 billion unique users engaging with content across the Skimlinks publisher network. The segments will enable advertisers to target unique, high-reach audience segments at brand and product category level throughout their purchase journey.

And, in an industry-first move, Skimlinks will share data revenues with all its publishers - from enterprise media owners to niche bloggers - based on their contribution to the cooperative, without any complex set-ups or data management processes required. Publishers will also gain access to free audience insights, helping them understand the shopping behaviors of their readers to inform their content creation strategies, grow their readership, attract new advertiser partnerships and optimize ad yields.

Audiences by Skimlinks applies machine learning to the 15 billion purchase intent signals (including conversion data) collected from across the Skimlinks publisher network on a daily basis, enriched with the company's product intelligence layer, in order to build high-converting audience segments. Agencies, brands and publishers can access these segments via a number of programmatic buying platforms such as MediaMath, AppNexus, BlueKai, Lotame and Krux, with more integrations planned.

Alicia Navarro, CEO and co-founder of Skimlinks, said: "We've been observing the increasing power that platforms such as Facebook and Google have due to their scale, and are concerned about what that means for independent content creators as they try to negotiate advertising terms or understand the broader shopping intent of their audience. Skimlinks has always been a publisher-driven company, and we are leveraging our scale now to empower our publishers. With Audiences by Skimlinks, individual publishers that are part of our co-operative will benefit both with data revenues and audience insights, in ways that they couldn't achieve on their own. It's about giving power to the publishers, so they stand a chance against the power of the platforms."

Jo Holdaway, Director of Strategic and Commercial Data at ESI Media - London Evening Standard, The Independent and i, and one of Skimlinks' publisher partners, commented: "The shift towards rewarding publishers for the use of their data is something that has been a top priority for enterprise publishers for years. Advertisers and publishers have needed to work closer to better understand how content drives and influences sales much further up the funnel. Now our audience data can reflect this. Also by working as part of Skimlinks' collective of media owners - from large publishers like us to community forums and independent bloggers - we all benefit from a broader and deeper dataset, both in our own understanding of audience behaviours and our proposition to advertisers."

Skimlinks' publisher network spans over 1.5 million websites globally, enabling the capture of purchase intent signals from more than 1.3 billion unique users every month. Skimlinks' technology is used to automatically monetize their commerce-related content. For example, it instantly turns brand and product-related links into affiliate links, on-click, to enable the publisher to be rewarded for any sales they send to a Skimlinks retailer partner. This means its data is driven by the content users are engaging with, rather than the ads around that content, which offers more powerful indicators of interest and intent and thus more relevant, better-performing campaigns.

About Skimlinks
Founded in 2007, Skimlinks creates native monetization solutions for publishers, rewarding them for any e-commerce they drive by automatically turning product links and references into trackable affiliate links. Integrated with more than 20,000 merchants, Skimlinks processes 300 million clicks a month on over 1.5 million sites around the web. Skimlinks' technology helps publishers like Time Inc, Gawker Media, Condé Nast, Hearst Digital and The Huffington Post earn revenue and gain insights from their commerce-related content. Last year, the company drove $625M worth of e-commerce through its platform. Skimlinks is a team of more than 80 with offices in London, San Francisco and New York. Learn more at www.skimlinks.com.

SOURCE Skimlinks

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