Slate magazine wants to sell more video ads – it just needs to use text to get there.<\/p>\n
“What\u2019s next is video, video, video – we need to get more video on the site,” says Slate associate publisher Anthony DeMaio<\/a>. “We\u2019re doing four million streams a month – it\u2019s still a very small percentage of our (total) inventory.”<\/p>\n Last month, Slate began adding video ad technology from Teads<\/a>, allowing it to insert scroll-linked video ads<\/a> in between article paragraphs – meaning Slate can make up for the lack of its own video inventory by instead using the abundant text inventory it does have. \u00a0The product is called inRead.<\/p>\n “This Teads opportunity represents an enormous tectonic opportunity,” DeMaio adds. “Overnight, it exponentially increases our inventory.\u00a0We can monetize three million pages of inventory per day.<\/p>\n “Completion rates are between 30 and 40%, versus a click-to-play preroll that\u2019s 75% to 80%.\u00a0Completion rates are half of what we\u2019re seeing on preroll – therefore, we want prices to reflect that accordingly.”<\/p>\n So far, Slate has been selling the new-style spots directly to watchmaker Breitling and travel firm One&Only.<\/p>\n