The Wall Street Journal Offers Advertisers a Performance Guarantee Timed to the Election

The financial news publisher The Wall Street Journal is offering advertisers a performance guarantee, timed to the upcoming U.S. presidential election, to dissuade them from pausing their ad campaigns during the period. The guarantee, which is offered in collaboration with the attention vendor Adelaide, will be effective for impressions measured between Oct. 15 and Nov. 15—a period that represents the two weeks before and after the election, according to Josh Stinchcomb, the global chief revenue officer of the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones. “During elections, we see not only a surge in attention but a surge in performance,” Stinchcomb said. “That gives us the confidence to put in place a guarantee against that experience.” To measure performance, the publisher is working with Adelaide to assign every campaign an attention unit (AU) score, which is based on factors including the placement of the media, outcomes produced by similar media in the past, and other criteria. Any campaign that fails to meet this AU guarantee will be offered a makegood in the form of additional added-value impressions. The guarantee is not meant to assuage advertisers’ potential brand safety concerns, according to Stinchcomb. Instead, it is designed to appeal to marketers who understand the value of advertising against news content but who are wary of having their message lost in the noise of a hectic moment. Presidential performance The Journal is offering the guarantee as a way of demonstrating its confidence in the performance of campaigns run during elections, a conviction that is rooted in data it gleaned from the same period in 2020. When comparing data for September through December 2020 to the same months the following year, the publisher found an expected increase in traffic—including a 36% bump to its Business section and a 60% bump to its Economy section—during the election months. Perhaps less expected, it also found an uptick in ad performance for campaigns executed during the time window. According to Stinchcomb, 37% of Wall Street Journal readers were more likely to recall an ad than in the off-cycle period, 58% were more likely to look for more information after seeing an ad, and 125% were more likely to purchase or plan a purchase after seeing an ad. Ads shown during this election window also generated a click-through rate 1.26 times higher than those shown during non-election years, as well as a 20% higher universal interaction rate. While The Journal has welcomed the findings, it lacks a clear explanation for them. “While I can't necessarily explain why they outperformed—beyond the increased traffic and deeper engagement we’ve historically observed in election cycles—it gives us confidence they will not underperform, which is the concern of some marketers,” Stinchcomb said. “That's why we've backed that confidence with a solid guarantee.” Details of the AU guarantee The Journal is working with Adelaide, a leading vendor in the ecosystem of attention-based advertising, to verify the efficacy of its ad campaigns. The two have worked together previously, but this collaboration marks the first time The Journal will underwrite Adelaide’s services for clients. Each campaign will receive an AU score that ranges from 0 to 100, which is determined by adding campaign details to an AU score campaign calculator. The campaign will be monitored and optimized throughout its flight to achieve or surpass the AU guarantee. Any makegood credit will scale based on the month-long measurement period and how far off the AU score is from its set benchmark. To participate, campaigns must meet a handful of conditions. They must meet a benchmark spend in the fourth quarter to be offered the guarantee, and the advertiser must be willing to run surrounding the election. The partnership is another indication of the growing traction of attention-based metrics, which have been embraced by publishers as a means of proving the down-funnel effects of their brand advertising campaigns. In April, Adelaide partnered with The New York Times to help gauge the effectiveness of its campaigns, another key cosign for the technology vendor. “From my experience, the interest and buy-side adoption [of attention metrics] is growing,” said Jesse Waldele, the senior vice president of digital operations and client success at Dow Jones. “We’re excited about how it allows us to be a part of the performance conversation.”

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The Wall Street Journal Offers Advertisers a Performance Guarantee Timed to the Election

Some brands are going dark for the presidential election. WSJ has data to convince them otherwise.

Mark Stenberg

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