From September 2020 to September 2021, publishers using Nova (then known as Polar) generated over $100m of digital advertising revenue from advertisers who repurpose ads built for social platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, to run on their websites.
Over 150 trusted media publishers in 20 countries use Nova, including Bloomberg, Conde Nast, ESPN, Hearst, Le Monde, NBC, News Corp, Singapore Press Holdings and The Telegraph.
As digital media consumption continues to increase worldwide, Nova has invested in new product capabilities and sales enablement tools for publisher sales teams to offer creative advertising formats consistent with what consumers are accustomed to seeing on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn and Snapchat.
“Creative advertising formats on the web have not kept up with what consumers prefer to engage with and what advertisers are building creative for,” shared Kunal Gupta, CEO, Nova. “In contrast, the social platforms have developed beautiful ad experiences that 3 billion consumers notice and engage with. Facebook has also inspired 10 million advertisers to build assets for their creative ad specifications, which Polar enables everyone else to access now”.
Over 6,000 advertisers have activated 15,000 campaigns with publishers who offer Nova's Social Display and Video. Ad volume has grown 177% and campaign volume has grown 89% in the past 12 months on Nova.
The last decade in online advertising will be known as the “decade of data”. Programmatic delivered greater efficiency for advertisers with audience targeting and dynamic pricing. Data signals are now getting disrupted with increasing privacy concerns, an evolving regulatory environment and browser changes. Advertisers are looking forward to the next innovation in digital media to deliver continued effectiveness and efficiency for their spend.
The “decade of creativity” is now here. Data from Nielsen has proven that 56% of the effectiveness for digital campaigns is primarily due to creative, more so than data. Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest, among other social platforms, have proven how beautiful creative can deliver higher attention, engagement and performance for advertisers.
“The growth in programmatic over the past decade was fueled in part by the democratization of data. Campaign managers can access and activate against rich first-party and third-party data without requiring data scientists,” commented Kunal Gupta. “The growth in Social Display and Video we are witnessing is in part due to the same phenomenon being repeated, with the democratization of creative. Nova's creative advertising products are developer-free and designer-free, meaning that anyone can access and activate high-performing creative now”.
Over 35,000 unique social and web creatives were activated by 2,300 users within Nova's self-serve UI in that year, evidence that Nova has democratized creative with its proprietary software platform.
Nova also announced the addition of Matt Crenshaw to its executive team as chief commercial officer. Crenshaw will be responsible for leading the company’s global publisher business, marketing functions and growth strategy.
“Matt is a proven industry leader who brings experience, expertise and empathy to support our publisher partners as they continue to accelerate their revenue growth with our products,” said Kunal Gupta. “With Matt’s leadership, we will accelerate our investment in helping enable our publisher partners with the right technology, tools and training to compete more effectively.”
Matt Crenshaw was formerly the General Manager of North America for Outbrain, where he led strategy and operations for both the buy side and the sell side of the company’s business. Prior to running the North American business, he was responsible for building out the company’s global network of publishers and launching new distribution segments. Crenshaw also served as Vice President, Digital Marketing for the portfolio of brands at Discovery Communications.
“Nova has a proven track record and demonstrated long-term commitment to help publishers to grow their direct-sold, high-margin ad revenue. As a former publisher, I find this inspiring and energizing”, shared Matt Crenshaw. “And at Outbrain, I learned how to scale high-performing ad products into meaningful revenue. Social formats are clearly the highest performing ad products today and Nova's technology and team are the best in the market at enabling these for the rest of the web”.
Nova's revenue grew 61% in the that 12 month period. The company has hired new talent in sales, marketing, services, product management and engineering in the past few months.
Earlier this year, Nova launched a new market-facing brand focused on offering company’s programmatic solutions for brands and agencies. Leah Malone, who joined from Foursquare earlier this year as head of the US market for Nova, has been promoted to global chief revenue officer for Nova. Nova's agency arm works with over 150 programmatic agencies and in-house brand teams in 30 countries.
To learn more about Nova, visit CreateWithNova.com.
