Discord’s advertising campaign continues: A Q&A with new Discord CBO Jules Shumaker

As Discord continues to grow its business with brands and advertisers, the publisher has hired its first chief business officer to expand his sales and business partnerships.

Jules Shumaker, Discord’s new CBO, comes to the company with more than two decades of media experience. Most recently, he was the CRO of Lotagatasi between 2021 and 2024; Prior to Unity, he served as vp of advertising for game publisher Zynga. His first day as Discord’s CBO is January 6.

Shumaker’s entry comes at an opportune time for Discord. Establishing itself as a specialist in advertising and audio broadcasting, the company hired a team of specialized advertising and gaming professionals to launch its first advertising product, Play Quests, in March 2024. In October of last year , Discord launched its second release. product, Video Quests. Both ad campaigns — ads that give users an in-app reward in exchange for their engagement and attention — encourage Discord users to play a specific game or participate in other activities to earn rewards. numbers on the platform such as image overlays. .

To learn more about Shumaker’s plans to help build Discord’s retail business, Digiday spoke to the company’s incoming CBO for an informative Q&A.

This discussion has been edited and shortened for length and clarity.

On Discord’s decision to focus its advertising products on game streaming

Jules Shumaker: “I think the most powerful campaign in the media is the reward-based campaign. Basically, it’s the game-changer for Discord: we have games that are completely aimed at that device. The thing that drives them – achieve, achieve, win. That arrangement works for all publishers in the world; there is no part of it that does not work.

The question is, for this core base of players who love us, we are the place to talk and play first, during and after games – and that requires the speed of adoption from the disease in no. We can open it to everyone now and be very financially successful; I don’t think we have an economic decision at all. But the player is in the middle, and people want to see and participate in things that are relevant to them. As we go up the stack and learn what works for our game, that will determine how wide we go and how fast we go.

Digiday: Discord’s Quests represent direct commercial partnerships between Discord and advertisers or agencies; no programmatic or personal marketing. In this case, the special features of game publishers made many advertisers use the platform’s Quests. In November 2024, Discord’s advertising business expanded to film and television through Quest Video promoting HBO’s “Dune: Prophecy” series. Currently, however, the media has not released its advertising products in any form or media outside the realms of sports or media and entertainment. Discord’s current sales are about $600 million, according to Bloomberg reports last year.

Shumaker’s response made it clear that Discord is taking steps to maintain its core identity as a game-centric platform, despite the revenue that can be generated from expanding its coverage to other areas. Although Shumaker did not draw any clear comparisons between Discord and other platforms, his answer suggests that Discord may be reflecting the expansion of the media business of other game-community-centric platforms such as Twitch, which lost some of its hold. on the players while driving the advertisers not to harm in 2022 and 2023.

On Discord’s aggressive approach to lower prices for its advertising products

Jules Shumaker: “In the early days of any business I’ve grown, cost is a starting point, it’s trial and error, A/B testing. When it comes to scale, cost is a matter of return. on ad spend – it’s really easy. Look at the AppLovin’ ad business, right? They don’t have to calculate the price.

We are in the phase now where we are not demand- or supply-constrained. We are in the crisis model, the stepping stone on our way to the right path of growth. For me, there needs to be an aggressive fight in court. I think we left a lot on the table, and that’s a real part. Sometimes, finding your match means that you have these changes, and, sometimes, an advertiser really benefits from the lower price, and there are other times we see that maybe we pushed a lot.”

Digiday: Discord’s advertising products are currently offered at a fixed price based on comparisons of reach and frequency, promotion rates and user engagement with each Quest, according to Discord representative, who declined to disclose metrics, but said that Discord sells its search results and CPM in the range of $25 to $30, depending on variables such as format, region and reach. Discord is priced by CPM instead of cost-per-action because all the views and engagement with Quests provide value to advertisers, and because of the “economic model for Discord,” for the member , who said that the price was “moderately in. the series of special prices but remains below the high price level.”

Although the announcement was a successful revenue stream for Discord, it is clear that the business model remains the same for the company heading into 2025. Currently, most of Discord’s revenue is comes from Discord Nitro, the platform’s exclusive subscription plan.

“A group of all the leaders in Discord’s work care deeply about the value of Nitro and the player at the root of that business experience,” said Shumaker. “I’m definitely not responsible for Nitro; as the chief business officer, it’s not my direct line of sight. But, it’s not direct, it’s in my view.”

On strategic plans to continue recruiting sales teams and Discord partnerships

Jules Shumaker: “It’s a very small team, which hasn’t focused my needs on a number or speed of recruitment. Note: This is very new to Discord, so have a business-to-business approach to community development. This is a great opportunity for us to develop relationships; how can we help them succeed in their business?

[Discord vp of sales] Adam [Bauer] and I’m a complete helper, right? He is more than capable of doing the advertising campaign, and I will focus more on the kinds of things that are important to game publishers and developers. He quickly built a team that felt appropriately resourced and felt deeply involved in the opportunity.

Digiday: Although Shumaker emphasized that he does not have a specific brand for 2025, Discord is building its advertising team. Currently, its team in sales and partnerships is about 40 members, according to the Discord rep. Discord currently employs at least five distinct media-related roles, including a four-person media account manager. aims to “build and grow a new business line rapidly in Discord.” Other job openings at the company include senior software for advertising and media development, as well as product marketing manager for advertising solutions and lifestyle marketing leader.

https://digiday.com/?p=565705

#Discords #advertising #campaign #continues #Discord #CBO #Jules #Shumaker

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top