Each of the leading publishers in the US offers a choice of ad placements with different sizes and shapes accompanying almost every item of content they produce. This is the same ad-based business model that has served news media since Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette began including "new advertisements" in 1729.

Today the top 100 media publishers in the US work with an array of ad networks to make sure those placements are filled with relevant and clickable ads. Each publisher works with multiple ad networks, and the way the distribution of their outgoing ad traffic fluctuates over time reveals market trends and preferences that may be helpful for any publisher.