The Washington Post debuts Zeus Prime premium ad network

The Washington Post has announced the debut of Zeus Prime, a groundbreaking premium ad-buying network that connects brands and top U.S. publishers in a real-time marketplace. The self-service platform provides publishers with a turnkey ad sales solution while also giving brands and agencies the ability to quickly purchase and place ads across national, regional and local publisher sites.

“If there’s anything we’ve learned over the last year, it’s that tone and message are as essential as placement in connecting with a desired audience. That insight is the foundation for Zeus Prime,” said Joy Robins, CRO of The Washington Post. “Our focus is to build a results-driven solution for the digital ad landscape, and we’re thrilled to first work with select established partners, creating a high-quality environment centered around speed, ease and smart targeting.”

With Zeus Prime, brands can immediately react to news moments and launch campaigns in environments that people turn to for reliable information, leveraging existing social creative for delivery across a national network of trusted publishers. Zeus Prime features an intuitive experience for advertisers, equipping them with the power to select sites to run an ad on, split the budget, see available impressions for each site, upload and preview creative on each site, modify the text or image in an ad, and pay for the campaign via credit card or invoice. In addition, advertisers can segment performance data by types such as device and site to better inform the brand campaign strategy.

“At The Post, we believe in the value and impact innovative technology like Zeus can have on the industry. Zeus, which grew out of solving for our own challenges and needs, greatly amplifies the publisher point of view and proves that you don’t have to choose between ad revenue and a great user experience,” said Shailesh Prakash, CIO at The Post. “Zeus Prime opens up a first-of-its-kind, self-service marketplace that will accelerate monetization gains for publishers while giving brands a seamless way to extend their reach and message.”

At launch, Zeus Prime will be available for early access to supply- and demand-side partners, including The Dallas Morning News and the Ad Council. More participating partners, including Graham Media Group, will be added in the coming months.

“The Zeus Prime platform allows us to seamlessly align and adjust our vaccine education messaging based on the latest news regarding the COVID-19 vaccines. The creative upload process enables us to have the most up-to-date facts and information in market in a matter of hours rather than waiting for creative development,” said Liz DeAngelis, VP, Growth & Managed Platforms, at Ad Council.

Publishers in the Zeus Prime network have implemented Zeus Performance, The Post’s state-of-the-art programmatic technology stack and rendering engine, ensuring optimal ad performance, viewability and delivery. Zeus Prime also leverages Zeus Insights, The Post’s proprietary taxonomy system to reach the right audiences at the right moment.