The digital advertising agency is launching a new product and new business unit called Cargo Fabric. Founder and CEO Harry Kargman explained that Fabric is a content management system designed for the modern needs of publishers and integrated with Cargo’s advertising technology. Kargman suggested that he sees it as part of a larger mission to “save publications.”
This may sound like a long order for any advertising business, but he said the company has “tried to do it through extraordinary advertising experience and monetization.” Yet, he realized, “it’s not enough.” In particular, Kargman realized that many websites had “too much weight” and loaded too slowly (to put it bluntly, he loaded the TechCrunch homepage, and it was relatively slower than mine was). This pushes readers away and has a detrimental effect on Google search rankings.
Therefore, the goal with Fabric is to create a “lightning” web experience that you can see for yourself on the OK Magazine website. Fabric says one of the key steps to achieving this speed is eliminating the need for third-party trackers and plugins – in fact, Kargman described the plugins as “the death of the Internet” and told me that he often asks publishers, “Do you want to make money and do you a lot.” “We made it for Google’s best practice and original web vitals,” added COO Michael Shaughnessy. “We are very strategic about how we load items that will really slow us down.”
This introduction comes at a time when many publishers are exploring business models outside of advertising, such as subscriptions and subscriptions. Shaughnessy suggested that the fabric complements that effort, as it “simplifies the foundation”, thus freeing teams from the focus on new commercial ventures. As for the advertising side, Kargman said, “We think we’ve made our adtech directly into the fabric in such a way that there’s no reason not to use cargo – but of course, you don’t just have to use cargo.
We expect publishers to monetize their own sites, cut down on branded entertainment businesses, and do all the good things they do.” And as mentioned earlier, the plan was to become a separate business unit of the fabric under Kargo’s corporate umbrella, its own customer and its own CEO – Kargman said he was talking about a possible lease, but it was “not ready enough to announce yet.”
