2018 Mediavine Preview: Capitalizing on Growth (and Going For Teal)!

We recently capped off an exciting, record-setting 2017 at Mediavine, a year we could summarize with just one word:

Growth.

That growth came in the form of publishers, with nearly 2,500 live, and reach, with more than one in two women in the United States reading a Mediavine blog every month. We also saw rapid growth internally, with our team expanding from six to 26 full time employees.

How will 2018 possibly top that?

Well, for starters, everything is going to be a lot more Teal around here, beginning with my new video series, Go for Teal, which touches on this very topic. (Intrigued by that plug? You’ll have to watch the video to see what that means!)

If we had to summarize 2018, it would be the year we capitalize on that growth. We spent last year setting ourselves up for success that will fully come to fruition over the next 12 months. Below is a rundown of how each of our departments is ready to make it happen!

Publisher Support

Our publisher support team has grown to eight full-time members, including two support engineers, to handle even more technical issues at equal if not faster response times.

The support team is the backbone of Mediavine, allowing us to stay agile despite massive growth in an ever-changing industry. For example, our network boasts the web’s fastest ads.txt adoption thanks to their relentless diligence, along with yours, in making sure everyone is up and running.

Ad Tech Engineering

We’ve gone from two to five full-time developers dedicated exclusively to ad tech, and they will be busy unveiling all new versions of our script wrapper, video player and AMP ads – all of which will be so different, we’re labeling them 2.0.

Their behind-the-scenes innovation will ensure that your ads are loading faster, your viewability is higher, your users enjoy better experiences and – most importantly – your revenue increases.

WordPress Engineering

With 91 percent of our publishers using WordPress, we’re dedicating even more resources to our WordPress plugins in 2018.

In addition to our support team’s WordPress experts, we now have two WordPress engineers focused on improving integration between the Mediavine Control Panel and the Mediavine Dashboard. That means simpler and faster video uploading, changing of ad settings, and viewing of earnings, all from the same place where you write your content.

The engineering team is also working on a suite of plugins to make your lives easier, including the long-awaited Mediavine Recipe Card. Our goal is to help you focus on what you do best – creating and marketing your content – while we take care of the rest.

Sales

For the first time in Mediavine history, we have a dedicated sales staff of three, led by Phil Bohn, who recently joined us from SheKnows Media.

The sales team’s goal is simple: Harnessing the newfound size and reach of our group of publishers that we touched on earlier and taking it to the next level.

The most exciting part about this is that you will directly benefit from these efforts; Mediavine doesn’t have a flagship Owned & Operated property like most ad management companies, so it’s your sites we’re taking to the market and selling like never before.

This is one big reason Phil thinks 2018 will be the best year yet for Mediavine publishers, along with …

Video

When we say this is the year of capitalizing on growth, a major component of that is video, specifically the Patent Pending video adhesion unit we launched at the end of 2017.

This ad unit has the potential to be a game-changer – the rare trifecta of an advertising experience that is embraced by users, publishers and advertisers alike.

Our sales team is already out there selling this unit while our developers add and improve features to make sure 2018 becomes the year of video.

We’re also revamping and adding new features to the existing Mediavine player and have so much more we can’t wait to roll out in the coming months.

Marketing

Complementing our sales efforts will be our rapidly-expanding marketing department, now featuring four full-time members. Led by Stephie Predmore, our Director of Influencer Marketing, we plan to more than double the sponsored work we bring to Mediavine sites.

If you haven’t participated in sponsored campaign with us, be sure to fill out your influencer profile in the dashboard so our team can help you forge relationships with brands and connect you to the best ones.

Mediavine Publishers Conference

We hope you can join us for the 2018 Mediavine Publishers Conference at Google’s headquarters in California, where we want to unveil much more about our road map for this year. Thank you all for coming on this journey for us, and we look forward to making this another record-setting year.