LAS VEGAS – Stricter data regulations worldwide have given people more control over how their personal information is used for advertising, challenging marketers to find ways to reach the right audiences while respecting privacy. For Dotdash Meredith, the digital publishing arm of Barry Diller’s IAC, helping brands to reach key consumer groups is a process of gathering signals and mining them for insights.
“There’s really been an opportunity for us to identify other types of information that we can add on to impressions and to the specific user experiences that we have within the content,” Lindsay Van Kirk, senior vice president and general manager, D/Cipher, at Dotdash Meredith, said in this interview at CES 2025 with Julian Zilberbrand on behalf of Beet.TV.
As visitors to Dotdash Meredith’s outlets “move down the purchase funnel, that is a huge opportunity for marketers to drive awareness, to drive consideration all the way down to actual purchases,” Van Kirk said. “In some cases, we have clients who work with us on the media that we run where they see foot traffic increases to their brick-and-mortar stores.”
The open web – or the part of the internet that isn’t behind a firewall or in a digital “walled garden” – has a broad variety of content to appeal to specialized interest groups. Dotdash Meredith, whose media brands include Better Homes & Gardens, Verywell, Investopedia, People, Brides, Simply Recipes and Martha Stewart, reaches more than 200 million U.S. consumers a day.
“For us, it really starts with how do we make sure that we’re continuously engaging those consumers with all the right information that they need?” Van Kirk said. “From there, what can that engagement with that content really tell us about what they’re interested in, and helping our advertising partners be also the answer to the question of what they’re looking to accomplish?”
To improve audience targeting for brands, Dotdash Meredith two years ago introduced a cookieless platform called D/Cipher. The targeting tool uses more than 11 billion signals among the company’s 40 media properties and more than 1 million articles to understand consumer engagement.
“It allows you to build much more connected and interesting advertising experiences and more engaging advertising experiences for the consumer because you’re meeting them where they are and you’re meeting them with more nuance,” Van Kirk said.
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