How Bloomberg Media is using promotional ads to build its audience

Ryan Barwick of Marketing Brew writes about how Bloomberg Media has stopped using programmatic ads and turned to promotions for its own products to boost its audience.

Barwick writes, “Over the past few months, Bloomberg has effectively replaced those advertisers buying on the open market with in-house promos—inventory worth $7.4 million over the last few months, Beizer estimated. These are ads for the media company’s podcasts, events, reporting, and new shows like Getting Warmer With Kal Penn. Bloomberg’s own internal data has shown that subscribers are more likely to retain their subscription—or subscribe in the first place—if they consume four or more different verticals, Beizer said.

“Bloomberg Media, a privately owned business, has publicly shared that advertising revenue grew 15% in 2022.

“The company is also offering its own first-party data capabilities with a product called the Audience Accelerator, announced in October. It’s made up of data, survey responses, and Bloomberg’s own internal audience data to craft a more bespoke media plan for advertisers, like what time of day readers are most concerned about fixed markets, Beizer explained. The audience segments Bloomberg is selling include industry sectors like energy and tech, job functions like financial analyst, and interests like AI and sustainability.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.