After a successful run of events across various continents, AdPushup returned to the scene with its first event of the calendar year in Barcelona, Spain. Let’s learn what happened in the First Fold Spain meet-up.

Publishers from the Europe region got together for our first in-person event of the year, “First Fold Spain,” in Barcelona.

During a series of discussions, they deliberated on several important topics, including the Rise of AI technology and how it can be useful to the industry. 

The event hosted 10 leading publishers from different countries (France, Spain, Denmark, Croatia, UK) across Europe to share their valuable insights on trends and the current industry landscape.

Some of the Leading Names Who Attended the Event included:

• Alan Jay, Cofounder, SportsMole 
• Christopher Gontharet, Head of sales, Zonebourse.com
• Susanne, Chief Commercial Officer, Bold.dk 
• Ivan Pleše, Chief Operating Officer, Index.hr 
• Marco Grossi, Founder, CEO & Developer, Ilovepdf 
• Juan Eduardo Eguiguren, Chief Business Officer, Ilovepdf
• Romain Stievenard, Product Owner, RFI 
• Jean-Marc Marino, Marketing Manager, RFI 
• Mathieu ho Thanh, Programmatic Technical Director, Groupe M6
• Diego fraga Agudo, Founder, ferendum.com

The open forum ‘Publisher’s Perspective’ led by Jean Marc Chevassus, Country Manager at AdPushup, discussed publisher’s experiences on the current scenario of the publishing industry in the EU and how GDPR affects their revenue and puts them at a disadvantage from their US contemporaries.

They also discussed common practices and the best strategies to monetise the refused consent traffic.

The event also hosted a panel discussion moderated by Shaunak Thakkar, Publisher Development Manager at AdPushup, on the limitations of automated content providers like ChatGPT in replacing human-generated content as well as utilisation of such tools for translation of human-generated content in other languages.

The attendees gained insightful knowledge from the speakers throughout the event regarding several monetisation and growth techniques.

Also Have a Look at- Publisher Meet-Up: France Chapter

PANEL DISCUSSION

Our panelists Alan Jay, Christopher Gontharet & Susanne discussed the Q1 slump and the monetisation strategies they experimented with.
As an evergreen trend, Q1 came in with a slight slump in revenue for publishers as fewer ad inventories were sold during that time. Here’s what Alan Jay said:

“January’s average for us was 50% of the previous month; however, things are expected to pick up in February.”

“January always marks a slow start to the quarter; however, once you get past January, you can already see an uptick in February.”

While most publishers across Europe saw their traffic slump during this period, Alan added that most sports websites saw an increase in traffic due to the world cup, and January ended up being a busy month for them in that aspect; however, they could not realize the value of this traffic due to the ongoing trends in the programmatic industry.

While touching upon more serious concerns, it became essential to shed some light on the current scenario for layoffs in the industry.

Alan also added that:

“ For European publishers and the market, layoffs are not very common. Heavy Layoffs have taken place in other markets due to the heavy hiring of folks during the previous years”.

He further stated that they were always open to hiring passionate people for their organization due to reasonable attrition rates.

Adding on to the same topic, Susanne Sperling, CCO, Bold.dk offered a different perspective by saying.

“ While we are always open to hiring journalists, we are not specifically looking to scale our team at the moment; hence we will not be actively hiring for now.”

During the Fireside chat with Ivan from index.hr, he shared how they rode the wave of digitalisation and became the #1 website in news and media in Croatia. He also shared that they have always focused on experimentation, utilising new tech, and creating new revenue channels.

Also See: Publishers-Meet Up on a Yacht: Dubai Chapter

---

The AdPushup First Fold Spain brings the leaders of the ad technology under one roof – to learn, share experiences and explore new opportunities in a pulsating setting.

No other conference or meet-up comes close to offering the publisher’s community, the exchange of ideas and learning opportunities across publishing, tech, and digital ecosystems.

---