Driving Greater Viewability
With Fandom
When Fandom, the world’s largest fan platform, wanted to boost the impact of their video, ads were a natural focus. But could they find a partner with not just the tech platform but the willingness and know how to help them optimize their video ad experiences?
Note: As you scroll, enjoy Fandom content in the AnyClip player pop-up on the bottom right of your screen in this case study!
THE COMPANY
Founded in 2004, Fandom has over 350 million unique visitors each month and is home to more than 250,000 fan-powered communities with over 45 million pages of content across TV, movies, gaming, and more.
In October 2022, Fandom acquired GameSpot, Metacritic, TV Guide and a portfolio of other entertainment and gaming brands from Red Ventures. Now, Fandom can drive engagement for fans across every step of their consumer journey – from search through transaction.
From exploring Fandom’s notable Star Wars community Wookiepedia to learning the latest news on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, House of the Dragon, Pokemon, and more, Fandom’s goal is to build the best communities, services and experiences in entertainment & gaming and be the fan’s first choice for community and experience.
FANDOM BY THE NUMBERS:
THE CHALLENGE:
Fandom wanted to identify ways to drive ad optimization and overall monetization opportunities site-wide, while ensuring a minimum of 60% viewability. To do that required more than just the right technology; they needed a consultative partnership with a partner who was invested in the overall success of their business and an R&D team willing to develop custom capabilities and features including more granular content and ad serving controls.
Finding a vendor who could provide them with the support they needed would be a challenge. That’s when Fandom started testing and running trials with nearly every major video player on the market. But to test, each video player needed to support a must-have list that required all players to do dev work to meet their requirements.
The final decision? Fandom chose AnyClip.
THE SOLUTION:
AnyClip’s Genius+ video platform provided Fandom with one centralized platform where they could manage their direct and programmatic demand campaigns and have real-time reporting on their demand performance.
At the same time, AnyClip’s proprietary Marketplace makes it easy to offer Fandom’s inventory to demand partners, offering an integrated market for inventory that includes a greater number of header bidding connections than other leading platforms. Ad-serving optimizations–from using waterfalls to setting floors–maximize and/or regulate performance, reduce latency, and are easy to execute, ensuring all revenue-generating opportunities are fully exploited across all screens and devices.
An example of Fandom content in the Intelligent Player. (Reload the page for new videos!)
Additionally, Fandom has full access to AnyClip’s Intelligent Player, which provides them with contextually relevant videos in articles to ensure their audience is always engaged. The automated metadata tagging provided by the AnyClip platform effortlessly matches the most relevant videos to pages by content. Fandom can customize players to match the look and feel of their sites for brand control.
Even better, they are able to add geo-restrictions and cap impressions on specific pieces of content, something no other video platform was able to offer.
RESULTS AT A GLANCE:
THE RESULTS:
With AnyClip’s suggestions and optimizations, video viewability increased to 90%.
“AnyClip came in and really took the time to understand our business,” says Gunn. “They were not only able to compete on metrics, but to offer us custom control and address all our concerns.”
WHY ANYCLIP:
AnyClip offered more than just monetization; they offered unparalleled support and customization.
“The response time was incredible,” says Lincoln Gunn, VP of Programmatic Revenue at Fandom. “We would reach out with customization requests on a Friday afternoon, and AnyClip could turn the changes around in 24 hours.”
Today’s environment can be challenging for publishers; not only is monetization difficult, but teams face bandwidth and time constraints. Fandom was looking for more than a vendor relationship; they wanted a partner. They wanted white-glove support, knowledgeable consultations on how to optimize, delivered against an aggressive timeline.
