In the first eight months of 2024, digital channels captured $107 billion in media spending, or nearly two-thirds of all available advertising dollars in the U.S.
Is it the end of the road for legacy advertising channels like print, TV, radio or out-of-home?
Keeping track of media spending
I’ve spent the past 20 years working in advertising, on the buy side, sell side, and right in the middle as a third-party data provider. I can’t recall a time when the industry didn’t predict that digital advertising would one day overtake traditional advertising. In the U.S., that threshold was reached in 2019 — to no one’s surprise — and digital media now accounts for 65% of all media spend around the country. But over the past year, I’ve noticed a fascinating new dynamic at play.
It appears that new digital channels aren’t stealing media dollars from traditional channels like they might have done in the past, but from other digital channels.
At MediaRadar, we monitor millions of brands around the clock and keep track of their day-to-day media investment decisions. We help advertisers understand what their competitors are up to and publish regular public reports on the state of the industry. We just released a new comprehensive report that shows that digital channels are continuing to grow, but at uneven rates, and that some traditional channels are surprisingly resilient, against all odds. For media executives looking to stand out in an incredibly crowded media environment, the strategic implications are momentous.
Digital channels dominate media spending budgets
There’s no question that digital media still dominates media budgets across most industries — from CPG to department stores, automotive, quick-service restaurants (QSRs), tech, or financial services. Digital channels like paid search, mobile, or paid social offer advertisers superior targeting capabilities, immersive user experiences, and a direct link to crucial outcome metrics like sales and new subscriptions.
Paid Search, for instance, grew 6% for the Jan-Aug 2024 period compared to the same period in 2023. Mobile grew 9% and display advertising 20%, buoyed by their versatility along the whole consumer journey (from top-funnel brand awareness campaigns to bottom-funnel sales conversions) and a mature programmatic ecosystem.
Traditional channels show resilience
Traditional channels aren’t growing as fast but they’re holding their ground. Linear TV, for instance, experienced a 3% increase in spending in 2024, driven by the continued appeal of high-profile sporting events and record-breaking political ad spending. These events draw large, engaged audiences to linear TV, and that won’t stop anytime soon now that TV rights for the NFL and NBA have been renegotiated.
Local radio remained relatively stable too (it declined by 1% in 2024), offering consistent reach for both local and national advertisers. Its ability to target specific geographic areas with tailored messaging continues to make it invaluable for local businesses.
Where to draw the line?
What should we make of new media channels like over-the-top (OTT) streaming, podcasts, or retail media? Are they new digital channels or digital reincarnations of traditional media channels with a different distribution method?
We’re starting to see some evidence that much of the money being poured into OTT these days isn’t coming from linear TV budgets anymore but from other digital channels, like online video. Similarly, podcasts aren’t cannibalizing local radio, and retail media isn’t growing at the expense of in-store advertising. Those new channels are as much a threat to digital media dollars as they are to traditional media dollars.
Traditional media channels are reinventing themselves for the digital age, and the line is starting to blur between traditional and digital media. At the Upfronts and NewFronts this year, streaming will be a central part of the conversation, not just a sideshow, and it will be crucial for media executives to offer combined audience packages that integrate the reach of traditional media with the targeting capabilities of streaming platforms.
Cross-channel synergies are the future
With so much fragmentation in the media environment, it’s become extremely difficult for brands to reach their target customers and prospects. Omnichannel marketing has become a top priority for them, which means that media companies need to collaborate more with one another to present a united front — from planning to activation and measurement.
Now more than ever, a well-balanced media mix is crucial for advertisers to maximize reach and engagement. Digital channels like paid search (24% of total media spend), mobile (14%), or paid social (10%) are leading the charge. But traditional media like linear TV (23%), radio (3%), and even print (6%) still hold significant value, especially near the top of the funnel. It’s time to develop more cross-channel synergies so that advertisers may curate a consistent and engaging user experience across all the touchpoints in their media mix, captivate consumers, and nurture long-lasting relationships with them. AI and advanced analytics can help, but only if the strategy is clear.
So yes, after years of digital channels hijacking media dollars from legacy channels, legacy channels are now flipping the script and reinventing themselves on the back of digital channels. In 2025 and beyond, let’s not talk about who is stealing what share of voice from whom anymore. Rather, let us focus on working together to meet advertisers’ objectives and deliver a better all-around consumer experience. The advertising pie will take care of itself.
The value proposition of streaming may once have been ad-free experiences. However, today’s media companies seek to have as many viable revenue sources as possible. And, for streamers, that inevitably means showing commercials. However, there’s a balancing act between offering a streaming service worth subscribing to and advertising experiences worth paying for.
There are lessons to be learned throughout the streaming ecosystem. One thing that experts agree on is that improved targeting is critical to attract brands and advertisers. Providing the insights that marketers want is essential for getting them to spend their ad dollars on streaming platforms.
Mixed revenue moves to the fore
The shift to a mixed model didn’t all happen this year, but these last 12 months feel like a point from which there is no turning back, not least because Amazon Prime Video joined Netflix in having an ad-supported offering. Other services have had them from the outset—a smart move given the high sign-up rates for ad-supported streamers.
Adding a cheaper ad-supported tier into the mix helps streaming services bring in the last holdouts and retain more of those that may be tempted to quit. To some extent, the companies actually want their customers to drop into the advertising tier because the more people seeing adverts, the more the streamers can charge for the spots.
Amazon faced a particular backlash when it launched its ad-supported tier on Prime Video this year. Unlike equivalent offerings on Netflix and Disney+, which make such tiers cheaper, Prime Video subscribers get adverts by default at the existing price and have to pay extra to not see them. To encourage retention when introducing an ad tier, companies must avoid making users feel like they are getting a degraded service or having a price rise forced upon them.
For Netflix, the addition of an ad-supported tier seems to be working. In the third quarter of this year, it added 5.1 million subscribers. The company said that in countries where the Basic with Ads tier is available, it accounted for over 50% of those taking out a subscription. This growth is crucial to Netflix because, while it might be the biggest streamer overall, it needs to find a way to bring that heft to its advertising offering.
A course correction
This is all despite the fact that, for years streamers (and Netflix in particular) worked hard to convince the audience that they wanted subscriptions instead of adverts. As Tom Harrington, Head of Television at Enders Analysis puts it: “Netflix had been telling its subscriber base for basically a decade ‘ads are the worst thing. You don’t need ads. Just pay us money.’”
However, after two bad quarters, the streamer changed its tune and launched the Basic with Ads tier in 2022. Harrington describes this as a “kneejerk” reaction. He believes that the Netflix ad product is not innovative. He also argues that traditional ratings arbiters produce more reliable data and provide a better understanding of who is actually seeing the adverts.
The lack of granularity remains a key problem among streamers as they try and draw in brands. Harrington explains that “Netflix doesn’t really know that much about its subscriber base” and argues that Netflix “is not set up” for advertising and rather rushed out its product.
The ad tools from Netflix and other streamers remain rather blunt and old-fashioned. These firms know which account played a show and which ads were served, but seemingly very little beyond that. Ollie Beckwith, Head of Digital Engagement at consultancy Sodali & Co. shares a similar view to Harrington. He argues that other digital platforms might still be more useful to advertisers, despite the popularity of streaming.
“Even in an evolving cookie-less world, social channels like LinkedIn have grown to reach users based on highly detailed demographic variables,” he said. “On the flip side, despite Amazon owning Amazon Web Services (AWS), a platform that collects and delivers data and insights, the targeting capabilities on Amazon Prime Video are too broad to have a meaningful impact on corporate individuals, the same can be said about advertising on Apple TV.”
Thus, it is critical that streamers work to improve their targeting capabilities to stay competitive in the digital ad space. AI is likely to play a significant role in this. Spotify has already incorporated it and other platforms need to focus on an effective rollout of ad-related AI technology for everything from operations to creative.
Offer meaningful advertising opportunities
Jayesh Rajdev, Controller of Advanced Advertising at ITV, a Public Service Broadcaster (PSB) in the UK, pushes back against the narrative that streaming ads are inefficient. He says that the partnerships his company has with credit ratings agency Experian and major supermarket Tesco help it provide its advertisers with meaningful targeting.
He explains that ITV has “a really well-established partnership with Tesco where we’ve matched [streaming service] ITVX users to Tesco Clubcard holders at a registered user level. So, you’ve got the biggest viewer graph, if you like, matched to the biggest shopper graph.” Ultimately, the ITV ad innovator argues that the “ability to build an almost funnel centric approach to how you use or deploy your TV advertising has become really powerful.”
Things are moving forward too. “We’re evolving from attributes to attributes plus intent,” he says. I.e., instead of just knowing characteristics of the person with the account, they can identify some shopping intentions too. This is going to be another crucial thing for any streaming platform to develop moving forward.
Streaming advertising opportunities ahead
Given the developments we’ve already seen over the last 12 months, the year ahead in streaming advertising is likely to be a fascinating, and rapidly evolving, one. Making advertising more interactive will be one area of focus for the industry.
Mike Caprio, SVP, GM Global Advertising at unified video tech platform JWP Connatix believes that in 2025 we will see “the fusion of commerce and video as payment processors like PayPal and eCommerce platforms like Shopify enter the fray. Shoppable video—with seamless purchase integrations—emerges as a critical tool for performance-driven campaigns.”
Rajdev reveals that ITV is “about to launch our own really pioneering lead gen ad format that is all remote control initiated for the viewer, and a really slick experience that enables our to convey interests in an ad on ITVX really, really quickly and in a super, super slick way.”
Another key area of opportunity is sports, where viewers are generally used to, and accepting of, advertising. “Sports will serve as a huge opportunity for the growth of ad-supported streaming in 2025,” according to Keith Bedford, General Manager EMEA of streaming tech company Wurl.
“As studios and sports broadcasters struggle to tie in major upfront deals and connect with younger audiences, new models for revenue and content discovery will be required,” adds Bedford. “Short-form video could be one way we start to see sports content companies garner interest and boost engagement for their long-form and TVOD [transactional video on demand] businesses.”
One thing is clear, from adding interactivity to improve targeting, those offering ad-based streaming platforms are going to have to keep innovating if they want to draw in marketing dollars from big brands. Despite the fact that streaming seems to edging closer to classic television experiences (and business models), today’s brands expect to know their money is being spent wisely, and streaming platforms will need to prove it.
In 2024, the publishing and broader digital landscapes faced seismic shifts, many of which were beyond publishers’ control. New privacy regulations, continued identifier loss, and Google’s indecision on third-party cookies have left publishers grappling with uncertainty when it comes to how they translate their audience relationships into meaningful, monetizable ad experiences. That uncertainty will follow the industry into the new year and beyond.
Yet, amid this turbulence, publishers can still chart their own course toward sustainable revenue growth. The key lies in leveraging new tools and strategies to improve monetization while still staying true to editorial missions. Let’s explore four promising opportunities for publishers in 2025.
Tapping into AI for better ad experiences
The implications of generative AI extend well beyond content. New capabilities are also changing the way publishers approach ad experiences. With AI-driven tools, publishers can enable their advertisers to create tailored creative that aligns with individual audience preferences, increasing engagement and commanding higher premiums.
Dynamic ad creative has long been an underused tool. Now, with advancements in AI, publishers have a growing array of options for implementing real-time adjustments to ad content. With OpenAI revamping Sora and other text-to-video AI tools hitting the market, generative AI will increasingly extend into the realm of video ad customization based on the surrounding content or the visitor’s interests.
Native advertising is also poised to benefit significantly from AI. By generating and testing multiple headline variations, optimizing ad copy, and ensuring contextual relevance, AI empowers publishers to elevate native ad performance. These tools not only boost returns for advertisers but also streamline content creation processes, making premium advertising formats more accessible for advertisers and lucrative for publishers.
Using predictive modeling to unlock new revenue
For publishers, any unique signals they are able to draw from their first-party data and pass along to buyers are key to growing revenue. The importance of being able to package this first-party data and pass it into the bidstream to DSPs cannot be overstated.
When it comes to deriving value from first-party data, the increased sophistication of predictive modeling represents a game-changer for publishers seeking more-sustainable revenue growth. Using their valuable first-party data, publishers can create sophisticated models that anticipate user behavior and use the insights from those models to improve both content and ad delivery.
One of predictive modeling’s most compelling applications lies in audience extension. By analyzing their existing audience’s attributes and behaviors, publishers can identify similar audiences beyond their platforms. These audiences can be targeted off-site, with a portion of the resulting ad revenue feeding back to publishers.
Additionally, combining first-party data with contextual and engagement signals allows publishers to predict ad performance with greater precision. This approach enhances the value of inventory by ensuring ads resonate with the intended audience, thereby driving higher yields.
Finally, beyond immediate monetization, predictive modeling helps publishers expand their audience base. By leveraging data to attract and retain new users, publishers not only grow their first-party data assets but also position themselves for longer-term revenue gains.
Building profitable commerce media partnerships
The paths of digital publishing and commerce media are becoming more deeply intertwined as we move into 2025—and that’s a good thing for both sides. Strategic partnerships between publishers and commerce platforms can unlock new revenue streams across the board while enhancing the consumer experience. It’s one of those notorious but rare win-win-win scenarios.
Consider the partnership between Best Buy and CNET, through which curated CNET editorial content complements the Best Buy shopper journey. By integrating expert reviews and recommendations into its platform, Best Buy offers a richer user experience without having to develop content capabilities internally. Meanwhile, advertisers can share ad spaces across Best Buy and CNET, “allowing them to see the impact of their advertising campaigns through a full-funnel, closed-loop media solution.” For CNET, this means new valuable audience insights and ad revenue are being unlocked simultaneously. This isn’t terribly dissimilar from the benefits Yahoo sought to unlock with its partnership with Lowe’s back in 2022.
Publishers are uniquely positioned to provide the educational and inspirational content commerce platforms need to engage customers at the top and mid-funnel stages of their journeys. By joining forces, publishers and commerce platforms can deliver cohesive advertising solutions that cater to performance-driven and branding objectives alike, while also aligning with the needs of their respective audiences.
Unlocking the underleveraged mid-funnel
All three of the previously mentioned opportunities point toward a broader pivot that publishers should be making in 2025: deepening their focus on monetizing the mid-funnel, where consideration is born. The mid-funnel represents a crucial, often-overlooked stage of the customer journey that is a natural fit for publishers looking to derive the greatest possible value from their audiences and content.
By analyzing behavioral patterns and preferences, AI and predictive modeling can empower publishers to target audiences in the mid-funnel—those who are aware of brands but have yet to establish their consideration set—with greater precision. Likewise, commerce media partnerships further enhance mid-funnel monetization opportunities by spotlighting and placing value on publishers’ ability to create engaging, informative content that complements commerce platforms’ transactional focus.
Finally, as an important new piece of the puzzle, emerging mid-funnel measurement tools are not providing unprecedented visibility into mid-funnel performance. These solutions allow publishers to easily quantify the impact of content-driven campaigns on brand consideration, pre- and post-campaign, offering insights that can inform campaign enhancements around this important metric of success.
As publishers navigate the evolving digital landscape in 2025, they’re more in control of their own destinies than it might sometimes seem. By embracing generative AI, predictive modeling, commerce media partnerships, and a deepened focus on the mid-funnel, publishers can unlock sustainable new or improved revenue streams. These strategies not only enhance monetization but also preserve publishers’ ability to produce the vital content that informs and enriches society. In this regard, the above strategies aren’t just opportunities—they’re responsibilities.
Media companies are increasingly exploring innovative revenue models as a strategic element of ongoing efforts to reduce their reliance on advertising and subscriptions. This is significant because, although the global advertising market continues to grow, the proportion of these revenues coming to publishers has long been in decline. Similarly, despite the fact that the media industry has seen numerous subscription success stories, research suggests that the opportunity may be leveling off.
Given these financial realities, revenue diversification is essential. Fortunately, there are many ideas out there to learn from. Here are five alternative – and well-established – revenue sources that are poised to become more prominent, and important, for publishers in the year ahead.
As Generative AI continues to gain traction, many media companies are signing licensing agreements with the companies behind these technologies.
There are pros and cons to this, with several publishers currently litigating against their content being used by these platforms. However, for some media companies, AI licensing agreements offer an alluring mix of copyright protection and monetization opportunities.
Examples that we have seen in the past year include:
Hearst’s partnership with ChatGPT which promises “appropriate citations and direct links.”
Reuters, Axel Springer and the USA TODAY Network are featured content partners for a voice delivered summary of the news and weather that is built into Microsoft’s Co-Pilot product.
Reuters also agreed a multi-year deal with Meta, supplying content for queries asked about the news in Meta’s AI chatbot.
However, not all publishers are ceding the AI opportunity to tech companies, which could offer licensing revenue closer to home. One major publisher, Dow Jones, recently signed up nearly 4,000 news publishers for Factiva Smart Summary, a new Generative AI feature in its business intelligence platform. These licensing agreements span more than 160 countries and 29 different languages. Partners include The Associated Press, Swiss News Agency AWP Finanznachrichten AG, News Corp Australia, and The Washington Post.
As Generative AI continues to expand, expect more of these partnerships and products in 2025.
2. Live events and experiences
Pre-pandemic, live events offered a major source of revenue optimism for publishers. Post-COVID, this has morphed into a mix of in-person, online, and hybrid models. To draw sponsors and sell tickets, events work best when aligned with your brand and the content you are known for, an approach that a growing number of media outlets are leaning into.
Forbes has capitalized on its 30 Under 30 list by wrapping a live multi-day event around it. Their 2025 program includes a private concert, networking opportunities, industry-focused excursions, as well as sessions with speakers.
Condé Nast leveraged one of its best known brands to launch Vogue World in 2022, which are going strong. Hosted in global fashion capitals like New York and Paris, these annual one-day events are also live streamed. Hollywood is the location for their 2025 event. The company is also hosting an immersive exhibition in London, narrated by Cate Blanchett, which explores the history of the modern runway show.
The Innovation Consulting Group notes that some publishers derive up to 20% of their income from events. Events, they observe, can “help hike circulation, attract advertisers who might not advertise in the magazine’s media,” as well as “give magazines “face time” with their subscribers and potential subscribers.”
Given these strategic and financial benefits, we can expect more publishers to explore the burgeoning events market in the year ahead.
3. Podcasting revenue innovation
Podcasts have been a bright spot for many publishers for a while, with many doubling down on the medium despite wider financial challenges. For the biggest shows and brands this can be a particularly profitable space.
Continued optimism for this medium means that some publishers are looking to expand their podcasting portfolio and innovate on the ways they monetize.
Meanwhile, the merging of events and podcasts is growing in prominence and revenue potential. Fans can connect with hosts and each other, deepening loyalty to brands and shows. All the while, podcasts offer media companies multiple monetization opportunities that go beyond advertising and subscriptions.
This summer, The Ringer hosted a residency for six of their podcasts at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles. “As an audience engagement tool it takes fandom to a different level,” says Geoff Chow, Head of Podcast Studios & Managing Director for The Ringer.
The Wall Street Journal’s recent dive into “The Rest Is History” podcast revealed that its hosts were netting nearly $100,000 a month, through a combination of their podcast, monetizing clips on YouTube and live events. “History professors struggle to get students excited about the past,” the Journal wrote. “Yet at a recent live show in London, Holland and Sandbrook drew a raucous Gen Z audience with a rock-concert vibe.”
Wondery is similarly looking to create live tours for some of the most popular podcasts. With more than 200 active shows, over a quarter of which hit No. 1 on Apple Podcasts, they have a potentially large paying audience to tap into. Participants in their membership plan, Wondery+, get early access to these live events, a membership benefit deployed by Slate and others.
As podcasts continue to evolve, these types of live events and tie-ins with wider memberships programs, will only become increasingly intertwined.
4. E-commerce and affiliate partnerships
With e-commerce now worth nearly $1.2 trillion in the USA alone this year, this is too big a market for media companies to ignore. In response, media entities are progressively integrating e-commerce into their platforms, selling merchandise and other products directly to consumers.
The Daily Wire generated over $22 million from commerce in 2023. nearly 10% of its revenues. Axios reports that much of this derived from its Jeremy’s Razors products, which produced $19 million in sales. Their merchandise store made up most of The Daily Wire’s remaining commerce income.
Recommendation sites are another area of e-commerce that media players continue to explore. The Associated Press partnered with Taboola in March to launch AP Buyline, offering how-to guides and reviews in areas such as fashion, beauty and wellness, tech, pets and Black Friday deals.
This launch came against a backdrop whereby some of AP’s core business is being squeezed. Local publishers Gannett and McClatchy ended their long-standing partnerships with AP, due to a desire to cut costs and invest elsewhere. As the AP themselves note, fees from U.S. newspapers were at one point responsible for “virtually all of its revenue.” However, diversification means “U.S. newspaper fees now constitute just over 10% of its annual income.”
Across the pond, The Independent, a UK newspaper, reported a 26% increase in revenue from e-commerce in the past year. Although review sections have potentially been impacted by recent changes to Google’s site reputation abuse policies, some publishers are growing their e-commerce revenues, despite inflationary pressures and a cost-of-living crisis.
Such initiatives highlight how publishers can leverage their editorial authority to benefit from reader’s purchasing decisions. Effectively creating affiliate partnerships can assist audiences and a publishers’ bottom line.
5. The games people play
The last piece of our revenue puzzle for 2025 sees publishers continuing to invest in games.
As twipe explains, games “engage readers differently than traditional news content.” “They provide a mental break, foster daily engagement, and satisfy psychological cravings… forming daily habits crucial for subscriber retention.”
Subsequently, games can be a valuable plank in helping to drive loyalty. Jonathan Knight, head of games at The New York Times, says that “when we see subscribers engage with both games and news in any given week, we’re seeing some of the best long-term subscriber retention from that pattern.” Subsequently, the Gray Lady has expanded their portfolio of games. They’ve also made games more prominent on their app, encouraging audiences to “come for the games, stay for the news.”
In that vein, French outlet Ouest-France publishes a game called “mystery photo of the day”. Readers must match the photo with the article in which it featured. “It’s a way to get them to discover our articles,” says Emmanuel Chevalier, head of Ouest-France’s digital acquisition department. Meanwhile, Hearst’s acquisition last year of Puzzmo is another example of a publisher flexing their financial muscles to expand their games offering.
Games can offer an escape from an often bleak news agenda, providing a means for audiences to come back every day, and thereby create a deeper connection between readers and publishers. Because of this, games are poised to play an even more critical role in engagement in revenue strategies in 2025 and beyond.
Looking ahead at the importance of revenue diversification
From AI licensing to live events, e-commerce, podcasts, and games, publishers are actively diversifying their income strategies in response to shifts in markets and consumer needs. While advertising and subscriptions remain critical components of the media revenue landscape, media companies continue to experiment and innovate to leverage their brand strengths to create other revenue streams.
Through these efforts, publishers are finding new ways to connect with audiences and drive revenues. In doing this, they are also trying to lay long-term foundations, with several of these strands focused on fostering loyalty, deepening engagement, and connecting with audiences in innovative ways.
As we head into 2025, the challenge will be scaling these initiatives in an increasingly competitive landscape. When many publisher peers are doing similar things, distinctiveness, brand value and relationships, as well as pricing points, will be paramount.
At the same time, given the need to reduce reliance on traditional revenue models, diversification remains more important than ever. Doing this successfully requires flexibility, creativity, and a willingness to experiment.
If this is executed well, like some of the examples that we have seen here, then innovative strategies to create income offer more than just means for survival. After all, revenue diversification offers perhaps the only pathway to long-term growth and resilience in an ever-evolving media ecosystem. As such, the need to explore some of the types of ideas outlined in this article, and to actively move away from a reliance on advertising and subscriptions, is non-negotiable.
As 2024 comes to a close, it’s clear that this year has been defined by transformative shifts in how publishers and broadcasters approach digital media monetization. From advancing privacy-first strategies to adapting to the dominance of Connected TV (CTV), the industry has shown resilience and innovation.
Looking back, these pivotal moments offer valuable lessons, while also pointing toward the priorities for 2025:
1. Brand safety took center stage
In 2024, publishers prioritized brand safety, recognizing its essential role in maintaining trust with advertisers and audiences. Advanced contextual targeting tools, coupled with stringent editorial standards, helped build confidence in ad placements. As content environments become more complex, this focus on safety and transparency will deepen in 2025, with publishers investing in more precise, AI-powered brand safety solutions to enhance advertiser confidence.
2. Sustainability became non-negotiable
This year saw sustainability move from a “nice-to-have” to a “must-have.” Publishers adopted greener technologies and committed to measurable ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) goals. Advertisers partnered with eco-conscious media outlets, aligning campaigns with consumer demand for responsible practices. In 2025, sustainability metrics like carbon impact will become more sophisticated, and partnerships around ethical advertising will deepen.
3. Subscription models found their groove
2024 solidified the role of subscription models as a key revenue driver. Publishers balanced subscription growth with ad-supported strategies, creating hybrid models that appealed to a broader audience base. Enhanced user experiences, including personalized content and seamless interfaces, became the standard. Heading into 2025, these strategies will be refined to further integrate advertising and subscription revenue streams without sacrificing user satisfaction.
4. The Cookieless landscape remained in transition
Despite Google cancelling the phaseout of third-party cookies, publishers prepared diligently for a cookieless future, which–regardless of the future of cookies–was not a bad thing. First-party data ecosystems matured in 2024, with publishers focusing on fostering direct relationships with audiences to enhance consented data collection. Contextual targeting gained momentum as a privacy-compliant alternative to behavioral targeting. In 2025, publishers will double down on these efforts, enhancing collaboration within industry consortiums to scale identity solutions and ensure consistent audience addressability.
5. Algorithms challenged publishers yet again
Platform algorithm changes disrupted referral traffic and revenue streams throughout 2024, prompting publishers to seek greater independence from big tech. Many pivoted to direct traffic strategies, premium content offerings, and diversified revenue streams. Looking ahead, 2025 will likely see media companies make an increased push toward leveraging first-party data for direct monetization and strengthening collaborations with advertisers on transparent revenue-sharing models.
6. CTV dominated the monetization landscape
Connected TV (CTV) solidified its role as a top revenue driver for broadcasters and publishers in 2024. With programmatic capabilities maturing and advertisers shifting budgets to CTV, the sell side capitalized on high-impact formats and premium inventory. Heading into 2025, cross-platform measurement tools will gain prominence, addressing fragmentation and unifying reporting across linear, CTV, and digital platforms to maximize revenue opportunities.
7. Interactive and video content drove engagement
Interactive and video content stood out as key formats in 2024, delivering higher engagement and monetization opportunities for publishers. Shoppable video, gamified experiences, and dynamic storytelling resonated strongly with audiences and aligned with advertisers’ goals. In 2025, publishers will explore more immersive formats like augmented reality (AR) and metaverse integrations to maintain their competitive edge and deliver differentiated ad experiences.
8. Privacy-first innovations gained momentum
Stricter global privacy regulations spurred publishers to adopt privacy-by-design strategies in 2024. Building robust consent management frameworks and exploring privacy-preserving technologies, such as federated learning and differential privacy, allowed publishers to continue providing actionable insights while protecting user data. In 2025, these innovations will become integral to the sell-side toolkit, as publishers work to balance data privacy with advertiser demands for precision targeting and measurement.
9. Commitment to supply path optimization (SPO) grew
Publishers focused on providing greater transparency into their inventory through tools like ads.txt and sellers.json, bolstering trust with advertisers. Supply path optimization (SPO) became a cornerstone strategy for reducing inefficiencies and maximizing revenue. In 2025, publishers will continue to refine their SPO strategies, emphasizing collaboration with trusted partners and leveraging advanced fraud detection tools to ensure quality ad experiences.
10. Enlisting support for quality journalism became critical
In 2024, publishers emphasized the critical value of quality journalism, recognizing its role in fostering trust, user loyalty, and timely access to reliable news. With global elections drawing attention, traditional news sites stood out for delivering brand-safe environments, engaged audiences, and measurable performance.
Teads’ “Value of Traditional News” study highlighted a strong correlation between ad attention and upper-funnel brand outcomes, revealing a 77% lift in brand outcomes when ads appeared alongside trusted news content. As we move into 2025, supporting journalism must remain a cornerstone for advertisers and publishers, driving long-term value and reinforcing the vital role of trusted information in democracies worldwide.
Looking forward to 2025
As we turn toward 2025, the themes of trust, sustainability, and innovation will remain paramount. Publishers and advertisers who focus on privacy-first strategies, advanced contextual advertising, and cross-platform collaboration will be well-positioned to navigate the challenges and opportunities ahead.
Expect to see further advancements in AI-driven creative optimization, more sophisticated approaches to audience addressability, and a continued push for transparency across the entire digital advertising ecosystem. By building on the lessons of 2024, industry leaders can drive meaningful connections with audiences while maximizing monetization opportunities.
As digital publishers seek to expand their revenue streams, strengthen their data capabilities, and keep pace with evolving adtech, data collaboration platforms (DCPs) have emerged as powerful allies. According to recent market research, DCPs benefit not only marketers and agencies but also publishers. They equip publishers to enhance their first-party data, gain valuable audience insights, and offer advertisers high-quality data—all while maintaining a competitive edge in the open web vs. walled-garden debate. Here, we explore how DCPs can transform digital publishing in an increasingly data-driven world.
Data Collaboration Platforms as a key solution for publishers
For publishers, data collaboration platforms are becoming invaluable. DCPs unify data silos, expand reach, and provide deeper consumer insights, making them essential tools in today’s data landscape. Publishers with strong first-party data can offer advertisers unique, high-value data and insights through collaboration, further enhancing the advertiser’s ability to reach relevant audiences.
Recent research Lotame conducted, fielded by Cint, shows that 44% of marketers and 40% of agencies currently use collaboration technology, not including clean rooms. Publishers have an opportunity here to build strategic partnerships with advertisers because then can help them fill in gaps in audience data, improve targeting precision, and create unique insights unavailable elsewhere. By leveraging DCPs, publishers can maximize the potential of their data assets. They have the ability to facilitate more accurate cross-screen measurement, bolster audience targeting, and deepen advertiser understanding of reader interests.
Shift in programmatic spending between open web and walled gardens
One of the report’s most surprising findings is the near-equal division of ad spend between walled gardens and the open web. While it may seem that walled gardens dominate the advertising market, 50% of marketers plan to spend equal amounts on open web and walled gardens, which amounts to 25-49% of their budgets. This balanced spend is promising for independent publishers, as it reflects a renewed interest in high-quality inventory and a move away from a reliance on walled-garden platforms.
As advertisers diversify their spending, publishers on the open web have a chance to attract higher ad spend by offering valuable, targeted inventory that rivals walled gardens. DCPs play a critical role here, allowing publishers to better target and measure their audiences, making the open web a more viable option for advertisers looking to connect with audiences outside of walled gardens.
Adoption of new technologies among publishers
Investment in data technology is at an all-time high, with data collaboration platforms leading as a priority. While traditional query clean rooms are being phased out by some—25% of marketers and agencies plan to retire these due to high costs and limited scale—data collaboration platforms are gaining popularity. They offer a flexible, scalable approach to data integration and collaboration, without the technical challenges or expenses associated with clean rooms.
For publishers, this shift toward DCPs offers a streamlined and cost-effective way to handle collaboration. With DCPs, publishers can more easily collaborate with brands and other entities without the high barriers or technical limitations of clean rooms, enhancing data fluidity and maximizing revenue potential. By adopting DCPs, publishers can stay technologically agile, ready to meet evolving advertiser needs without compromising on data quality or scalability.
Budget priorities and transparency needs in Real-Time Bidding (RTB)
Transparency and ease of doing business are critical to open web spending. According to the research, the top priority for marketers when considering increased spend on the open web is the ease of curating deals with publishers on high-quality inventory matched with data—a priority shared by agencies. Publishers can capitalize on this need by simplifying deal structures and ensuring transparent, high-quality inventory offerings.
By addressing these transparency needs, publishers can make it easier for advertisers to allocate budgets to the open web. DCPs help publishers align their inventory with advertiser data needs in real-time, facilitating seamless, data-driven deals. This transparency can enhance trust between publishers and advertisers, making the open web a more attractive alternative to walled gardens for RTB ad dollars.
Benefits of DCPs beyond targeting: attribution and personalization
Beyond improved targeting, DCPs offer benefits in personalization and attribution. This aligns well with publishers’ goals to provide a valuable user experience.
For publishers, these capabilities translate into higher engagement and monetization potential. By tapping into the personalization and audience segmentation features of DCPs, publishers can not only serve relevant content but also ensure that their audience experience is enhanced, leading to longer engagement times and better monetization. These capabilities resonate with the needs of modern advertisers, allowing publishers to meet demands for high-quality advertising in a competitive digital ecosystem.
There is a promising landscape for publishers seeking to stay competitive and capitalize on new data technologies. By investing in DCPs, publishers can address limitations in first-party data, build stronger relationships with advertisers, and offer transparent, high-quality inventory on the open web. As the balance of ad spend shifts toward a more open ecosystem, DCPs offer publishers a path to optimizing programmatic revenue and delivering a personalized, high-performing audience experience. With these tools, publishers can thrive as critical players in the evolving ad landscape.
As we barrel into the new year and all that awaits, the media industry is at the nexus of technological disruption, regulatory upheaval, and changing consumer sentiment in terms of media and expectations for it. From the rise of artificial intelligence to intensifying antitrust enforcement and the shifting stance of dominant platforms, the stakes for publishers and content companies have never been higher.
Here’s a look at five critical trends in the media landscape and what they may mean in the future.
1. AI disruption triggers both innovation and legal challenges
Artificial intelligence is reshaping content creation and distribution with breakneck speed. AI-generated search results are increasingly the norm, while the fate of the underlying articles and video remains murky. Publishers are leveraging AI to scale production, personalize experiences, and streamline workflow. However, while this boom propels media forward, the underlying AI models are contentious in their devaluation – or outright dismissal of – property rights, IP, and the fair value of content, not to mention debate around the quality and accuracy of AI generated search results and source attribution.
In 2025, marquee copyright cases are slated for trial. Courts will tackle questions about how intellectual property laws apply to works created or transformed by AI rather than humans. At stake are the legality of using copyrighted material to train AI models and the extent to which those models can monetize their output while risking, if not entirely supplanting, the clear licensing opportunity for publishers. These rulings will set precedents and could rewrite the rules of the road for both AI developers and publishers.
Joining the groundswell, Canadian media orgs jumped in last week by collectively suing OpenAI, alleging unauthorized use of their news reporting to train its models. Similar lawsuits are expected to continue globally as publishers push for enforcement against misappropriation and/or copyright violations of their work.
Media companies must once again prepare for these shifts by walking and chewing gum at the same time. As ever, publishers must safeguard their media content while continuously experimenting. The challenge will be striking the balance between embracing AI’s potential and ensuring accountability with their strategic technical platform partners.
2. The role of a free and plural press amid political threats
In this era of heightened political tensions, the role of the press as a democratic watchdog is paramount. In the U.S., the new administration brings with it a wave of uncertainty. Media leaders watch with a wary eye as leadership nominations roll in.
Concerns about surveillance, legal pressures and expense, and erosion of journalistic protections here and around the world are intensifying (to say the least). Globally, authoritarian regimes are leaning on tech to suppress dissent and control narratives, challenging the resilience of independent media.
For publishers, protecting and promoting a pluralistic media ecosystem is essential. This means investing in news reporting, supporting press freedom initiatives, and maintaining commitments to accuracy and integrity despite political pressures. As threats to press freedom grow, a robust fourth estate remains critical to the industry’s long-term viability as well as to democracy itself.
3. Social platforms: shifting sands in distribution
Social media’s dominance in content distribution is being reshaped by user migration. Elon Musk’s tumultuous leadership of X (formerly Twitter) has alienated advertisers and much of its user base, notably journalists. This has fueled the rapid rise of Bluesky, a decentralized alternative designed to resist the power of billionaires and governments. Remarkably, Bluesky is approaching or has surpassed Meta’s Threads in certain usage metrics. Bluesky’s embrace of open-web principles and support for journalism – very different from the current suppression of links on X and Threads – has further endeared it to journalists and publishers.
These platform shifts come amid the FTC v. Meta antitrust trial, scheduled for April 2025. Although the legal complaint focuses on the relevant market of social media built around the personal social graph (thereby excluding X, Bluesky, Threads, and LinkedIn), the dynamics of platform competition remain crucial for publishers to connect with new audiences where they want to be reached. It is also as yet unclear how the incoming Trump administration will respond to a potential ban of TikTok, which is set to hit a key milestone the day before his inauguration.
For media companies, platform diversification has long been a requirement. Relying too heavily on any one distribution channel leaves brands vulnerable to algorithm changes, shifting user sentiment, and unpredictable policy shifts. Building owned-and-operated platforms, prioritizing direct relationships with audiences, and leveraging multiple distribution channels are essential strategies to ensure resilience in this fragmented ecosystem.
4. Regulatory and court interventions reshape big tech
2025 is shaping up to be a watershed year for antitrust regulation and enforcement. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has already won its search antitrust case, calling for the divestiture of Google’s Chrome browser and potentially its Android operating system. Meanwhile, the DOJ’s Virginia adtech case (expected to result in another major win) foreshadows broader changes to Google’s dominance in digital advertising. Next up: the Texas adtech trial in March, followed by the previously mentioned FTC antitrust case against Meta.
Beyond the U.S., Canada’s competition regulator called for the breakup of Google’s adtech business last week, with the European Union likely to follow suit. These developments could significantly reshape the global ad market, which would offer publishers an opportunity to regain control over their data and revenue streams.
However, it also introduces uncertainty. Navigating new partnerships, technologies, and regulatory frameworks will require adaptability and leaning into a long-term strategy while bearing short-term headaches (read: costs). Building strong first-party data capabilities and exploring alternative adtech solutions will be crucial for growth in this evolving environment.
5. Advertising reinvented: privacy, AI, and accountability
Advertising is undergoing a transformation driven by consumer privacy concerns and regulation. The death of third-party cookies and the rise of privacy-focused technologies have elevated the importance of first-party data. This means that publishers’ direct relationships with audiences and the high-quality content they provide are more valuable than ever.
Google’s antitrust challenges are also poised to reshape the future of advertising. The cases brought against the company globally allege manipulation of ad auctions and abuse of its monopoly power to harm publishers and consumers alike. If successful, these actions could reinvigorate competition and enable publishers to negotiate better terms, which would have been available for the past 10 years if it weren’t for Google’s behaviors. The greatest fruit of Google’s abuses across search and adtech may well be YouTube where Google has been able to marry its unparalleled access to search, location, web-wide browsing, and adtech data with the largest pool of streaming video inventory on earth. It will be interesting to see if this attracts regulatory scrutiny in 2025.
At the same time, AI is accelerating the evolution of advertising strategies. Predictive targeting, on the fly ad creative, and more advanced tech to control ad campaigns are helping large platforms capture new dollars from offline retail media while better maintaining privacy. For publishers, a dual focus on consumer trust and innovative monetization will be critical for success if they want to peel off some of these dollars.
Outlook: shaping the future of media
In 2025, the media industry is defined by rapid change and high stakes. From AI-driven innovation and platform fragmentation to regulatory challenges and shifting consumer expectations, content companies face a complex and evolving landscape. Success will require a commitment to trust, adaptability, and creativity.
As DCN has long advocated, publishers prepared for these shifts – whether through diversifying revenue streams, strengthening first-party data, or doubling down on audience relationships – will be well-positioned to survive if not thrive. In this new era of accountability and competition, it’s not just about outlasting disruption; it’s about shaping what comes next.
The digital publishing industry is navigating a complex transformation. Organic traffic, once a cornerstone of success, is steadily declining due to changes in search engine algorithms, the rise of AI-driven content, and shifts in consumer behavior. To address this challenge, a growing trend we’ve seen among publishers, especially those with premium content and audiences, is to adopt performance marketing—a highly data-driven approach—as a means to both acquire new readers as well as enhance the performance of sponsored content.
This shift represents a departure from the traditional reliance on organic reach. Performance marketing requires a results-oriented strategy, leveraging insights and analytics to optimize campaigns and allocate budgets effectively. Its rise signifies an evolution in how publisher leaders may want to think about growth and monetization in today’s competitive landscape.
Reasons to consider embracing performance marketing
Addressing declines in organic traffic: Search engine algorithm updates and the growing dominance of AI-generated content are reducing the visibility of publishers’ articles. Performance marketing allows publishers to regain control over how their content reaches audiences by targeting specific demographics and optimizing spend for measurable results.
Effectively promoting sponsored content: Brands now expect measurable outcomes from their partnerships with publishers. Performance marketing enables publishers to deliver targeted sponsored content to the right audiences, increasing engagement and ROI for brand partners.
Enhancing reader acquisition strategies: Through precise targeting and retargeting, performance marketing helps publishers attract subscribers who are more likely to engage deeply with their content, driving sustained revenue growth.
Key data-driven methods to adopt
Adopting performance marketing requires publishers to implement robust, data-driven techniques to maximize results. Some key methods include:
Incrementality testing: Using incrementality testing to measure the actual impact of campaigns. By turning campaigns on and off strategically, they can observe the effect on conversions, providing a clearer picture of whether advertising efforts are driving measurable outcomes.
Advanced attribution models: Traditional attribution models, such as last-click or platform-based metrics, often overestimate the contribution of specific channels. Exploring alternative methods like multi-touch attribution or data-driven attribution to capture the full customer journey can help ensure a more accurate representation of campaign performance.
Leveraging first-party data: First-party data has become a critical asset for publishers. By encouraging readers to share their email addresses or engage with content through subscriptions, publishers build a more direct relationship with their audience. This data is instrumental to creating more personalized marketing campaigns and refining targeting strategies.
Adopting strategies for success
For publishers looking to integrate performance marketing into their strategies, the following steps can serve as a roadmap:
Build a data infrastructure: Invest in tools and platforms that enable robust data collection and analytics. These may include customer data platforms (CDPs) and marketing automation systems to streamline targeting and reporting. Breaking down data silos and creating a unified, single source of truth shared across teams is essential for effective collaboration and visibility.
Experiment and optimize: Start with small-scale campaigns and use insights from incrementality testing and attribution analysis to optimize future efforts. Treat campaigns as iterative processes, constantly refining strategies based on performance metrics.
Focus on first-party data: Launch initiatives to collect first-party data, such as newsletters, exclusive content offerings, or gated access. Use this data to segment audiences and deliver highly targeted campaigns.
Balance acquisition and retention: As subscription bases grow, retention strategies become as important as acquisition efforts. Provide an exceptional user experience and foster ongoing engagement through personalized content recommendations and value-driven communication.
Looking ahead: building sustainable digital businesses
While there are no silver bullets, digital publishers that embrace performance marketing and data-driven methodologies can position themselves for long-term success. By breaking down data siloes, diversifying marketing channels, focusing on first-party data strategies, and continually refining user experiences, publishers can create sustainable business models while meeting the evolving needs of their audiences.
In an industry that demands constant adaptation, performance marketing offers actionable steps forward—one rooted in measurable impact, audience insights, and a deeper connection with readers.
About the Author
Ju-kay Kwek is a leader in creating enterprise-scale data analytics products. Before co-founding Switchboard Software, Ju-kay launched Google BigQuery and was a founding product executive for Google Cloud Platform. Ju-kay uses his expertise in media and audience data to help companies like Spotify, Target, DISH, and Dotdash Meredith to accelerate their revenue.
Digital publishers are under the gun to scale faster, monetize smarter, and do it all with fewer resources. The knee-jerk reaction? Automate everything. But here’s the kicker: not all automation is created equal. Off-the-shelf AI tools promise quick fixes. However, they often fall short when it comes to optimizing the complex Order-to-Cash (OTC) process in ad operations.
Despite widespread investments in AI, our research has found that 69% of ad operations professionals still struggle with ineffective or outdated tools. The fact is that simply automating isolated tasks doesn’t solve the whole problem. In an increasingly competitive landscape, relying on generic solutions is no longer enough. Digital media companies must rethink how to strategically align automation with ad operations to drive real growth.
It’s time for the media industry to embrace a purpose-built, integrated approach that transforms ad operations from a cost center into a dynamic growth engine. It starts with a focus on refining the OTC process in ad operations. This way, you can identify—and rectify—inefficiencies that can lead to lost revenue and missed opportunities.
The OTC process: breaking down complexity
The OTC process—which spans pre-sales, pre-launch, post-launch, and post-campaign—often suffers from a variety of inefficiencies. Fragmented data, multiple platforms, and siloed teams lead to misalignment and delays, which can impact both client satisfaction and revenue. Our research revealed that 55% of ad operations professionals cite inefficient workflows as a major barrier to scaling operations. The need for a sophisticated approach to ad operations automation is clear. It must addresses the intricacies of each stage of the OTC process to drive efficiency, scalability and growth.
The automation gap: why generic solutions miss the mark
The buzz around AI is hard to ignore. Therefore, many publishers start their automation journey with basic AI tools. These tools can deliver quick wins, but often fall short when it comes to optimizing the entire OTC process. Our research found that 79% of ad operations teams say that their current tools don’t scale to meet today’s fast-paced demands.
This challenge is compounded when companies rely solely on internal RPA teams to handle everything. They may automate isolated ad operations tasks, but they’re not equipped to align automation across all stages of the OTC. To do that effectively and maximize ROI, publishers need to embrace a strategic, integrated approach.
Beyond AI hype: leveraging an integrated technology framework for real impact
A truly effective strategy requires an integrated technology framework that brings together multiple capabilities to optimize the entire OTC process.
RPA handles repetitive, rule-based tasks freeing up valuable time for more strategic tasks.
Machine Learning analyzes data patterns to optimize campaigns on the fly.
Large Language Models (LLMs) extract insights and streamline content moderation.
Generative AI drives hyper-personalization and predictive analytics for better targeting.
Each of these technologies play a specific role in optimizing a specific part of the OTC process. This transforms ad operations into a more efficient, scalable system. By using an integrated toolkit that is purpose-built for the OTC process, publishers can streamline workflows, reduce errors, and improve overall campaign performance.
It doesn’t stop there though. The real power of purpose-built automation lies in its ability to shift ad operations from being reactive and cost-driven to proactive and growth-focused.
From cost center to revenue driver: the impact of purpose-built automation
By integrating these technologies into a cohesive framework, companies can turn the OTC process into a data-driven system that not only reduces operational costs but also unlocks new revenue streams.
For example, companies that have adopted advanced RPA for trafficking have cut manual workloads by 30-50%, depending on the complexity of trafficking instructions. This shift not only speeds up processes but also frees up teams to focus on higher-value strategic work that drives revenue. The result is faster campaign execution, fewer errors, and a significant boost in revenue recognition.
This kind of tailored automation strategy enables digital publishers to optimize their existing resources, turning ad ops from a cost-heavy department into a powerful growth engine. But this transformation doesn’t happen overnight. It requires a thoughtful and strategic approach.
Scaling smart: a practical blueprint for automation success
The benefits of automation are clear, but successful implementation demands more than just adopting new technology. For digital media executives, it’s about aligning automation with long-term business objectives to achieve sustainable growth. Here’s how to do it effectively:
Audit your existing OTC process: Review your workflows to find bottlenecks and inefficiencies, especially where manual processes slow down pre-sales or post-campaign tasks. Focus on areas where automation can have the most impact.
Prioritize a unified automation strategy: Focus on creating a cohesive strategy that integrates automation seamlessly into your existing processes. Instead of layering on disparate tools, look for solutions designed to address the unique challenges within your ad operations. The goal is to streamline workflows, reduce manual tasks, and optimize performance holistically, rather than piecemeal.
Start with targeted pilot projects: Start small by automating high-impact tasks like reporting or trafficking. Test the results, refine based on feedback, and scale up gradually to ensure smooth adoption and visible ROI.
Align automation with long-term goals: Focus on sustainable growth, not just short-term fixes. Ensure automation aligns with your strategic objectives to enhance scalability and unlock new revenue streams.
The future of ad ops is purpose-built, strategic, and scalable. By embracing a holistic automation approach, publishers can transform their ad operations into a true growth engine. The message is clear: scale smart, automate strategically, and turn your ad operations into a competitive advantage.
Capturing consumer attention has always been fundamental to effective advertising. In its 2003 Media Model, the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) emphasized “Advertising Attentiveness” as a critical step between “Advertising Exposure” and “Advertising Communication,” highlighting attention’s essential role in advertising’s communication objective.
Recently, attention measurement has gained significant momentum. Media agencies are partnering with attention data suppliers and brands are integrating attention metrics into their media planes. Publishers are using this data to assess inventory quality and, in some cases, guarantee campaign performance. Outcome-based attention metrics in particular have gained traction given their direct connection to the bottom-line results marketers care about—and their ability to help media owners increase revenue.
What are attention metrics?
In advertising, attention measures a person’s focus on a creative message and is driven by three key inputs: media quality, creative relevance, and audience.Attention metrics focused on media quality offer advertisers a tool to plan and optimize campaigns for better outcomes while providing publishers a way to accurately evaluate and price their inventory.
However, attention metrics weren’t always effective in delivering meaningful results. It wasn’t until fourth-generation attention metrics emerged that they became powerful tools for media buying, trading, and optimization.
The evolution of attention metrics
Generation one: verification metrics
The shift from analog to digital media introduced a vast array of new channels, causing significant variance in media quality. Advertisers could no longer rely on the relative homogeneity of TV, radio, and print. Viewability and VCR became the standards for measuring online media quality.
However, treating all viewable impressions as equally valuable led to cluttered web pages and an influx of low-quality inventory, including Made for Advertising (MFA) sites. Premium publishers struggled to differentiate themselves, as an ad could be 100% viewable on both a cluttered web page and a high-quality environment.
Generation two: enhanced viewability
The second generation added nuance with metrics like “viewable duration,” which tracks time-in-view beyond one second and incorporates engagement data.
In “politely interruptive” formats like skippable YouTube ads, enhanced viewability reflected the duration of attention and provided insights into creative resonance. However, most environments don’t offer viewers control over the ad experience. Therefore, these metrics incentivized unpleasant formats like interstitials with countdown timers.
They also struggled in untagged channels like Walled Gardens and environments unsuited to viewability measures, such as TV, audio, and cinema, where ads can’t be scrolled out of view.
Despite offering more granularity, enhanced viewability still lacked a direct connection to outcomes and provided little guidance on driving real-world impact.
Generation three: gaze duration
Advertisers sought to predict attention beyond politely interruptive formats, leading to gaze duration metrics. Sometimes called duration-based metrics (DBAMs), they use eye-tracking and viewability data to predict how long people will look at any ad.
However, several issues emerged when using them for buying and optimizing media:
Paradox of Attentive Audiences: Gaze duration is heavily influenced by audience demographics, risking biases toward older or overexposed audiences. Research by Meta showed that people over 25 spend 70% longer viewing ads than younger audiences.
Creative Incentives: Creative that captures the most attention may be entertaining or sensational but not necessarily aligned with a brand’s objectives.
Platform Variability: Three seconds of attention on YouTube isn’t the same as three seconds on Facebook; context affects how attention translates into outcomes.
Diminishing Returns: The first second of attention often delivers the most value. Chasing longer durations may lead to inefficient spending without proportional returns.
The biggest challenge with DBAMs arises with guarantees. Due to the link between gaze duration and creative quality, third-generation metrics can’t serve as reliable media currencies. No publisher can (or should) guarantee that their audiences will pay attention to ads.
Generation four: outcome-driven measurement
Fourth-generation metrics use attention as one input among others—such as placement position, page velocity, and clutter— to measure any placement’s probability of attention. Crucially, they tie this to business outcomes like ad recall, consideration, and sales, enabling advertisers to optimize for results, not just attention itself.
Key differences in fourth-generation metrics include:
Attention as an Input: Attention is one part of a broader algorithm designed to optimize for outcomes—not the dependent variable.
Placement-Level Measurement: Focusing on placement quality gives buyers and sellers a shared understanding of media value before an impression is served, facilitating more strategic trading.
Focus on Media Quality: By isolating media’s impact from creative and audience, fourth-generation metrics provide a consistent quality measure to guide investment decisions, avoiding the pitfalls of maximizing attention duration across all inputs.
Attention: How publishers use fourth-generation metrics to fuel demand
Publishers are increasingly adopting attention-based media quality metrics instead of viewability and gaze duration measures. This approach offers media owners a trusted way to demonstrate media quality to clients and price inventory accordingly, without being held accountable for factors like creative.
Examples of how publishers leverage these metrics include:
Understanding Quality: Through comprehensive inventory audits, publishers can evaluate ad slots and placements to identify those most likely to drive outcomes.
Campaign Measurement and Optimization: Leveraging attention data, publishers can design campaigns designed to achieve client goals or optimize in-flight to improve performance.
Programmatic Monetization: Creating high-attention packages within supply-side platforms (SSPs) allows publishers to charge premium prices for top-quality inventory.
Attention Guarantees: Publishers can guarantee that campaigns will perform above industry attention benchmarks, thanks to insights into their inventory’s ability to deliver attention and impact.
As advertisers leverage attention metrics to measure media quality and justify investments in more premium placements, demand for high-quality media will rise. Publishers can charge more for their premium inventory and clearly illustrate its value. In the long term, this shared understanding of quality fosters a more equitable and transparent market, leading to business outcomes for all. Outcome-based metrics represent a significant step forward, aligning media quality measurement with real-world results.
Every year, poor data quality costs organizations an average $12.9 million, according to Gartner. These companies are actively looking for ways to eliminate that waste and the market has responded. Gartner also reports that by 2025, 90% of data quality technology buying decisions will focus on ease of use, automation, operational efficiency, and interoperability as the critical decision factors to mitigating the data quality problem.
Data accuracy is the lifeblood for digital publishers
Losing revenue due to inaccurate data is particularly painful for digital publishers and media companies whose business models largely depend on their ability to leverage high-quality data to deliver for advertiser outcomes. Fresh, accurate data is the foundation for effective segmentation, targeting, and business intelligence. It’s essential for optimizing content, improving user experiences, and ultimately maximizing revenue.
Inaccurate, poor-quality, older data can lead to missed opportunities and loss of credibility among ad partners. These costly mistakes show up in multiple ways, including:
Misaligned content strategies: Targeting the wrong audience can result in wasted resources and low engagement.
Ineffective advertising campaigns: Poor data can lead to targeting errors, resulting in lower click-through rates and conversions.
Poor user experience: Inaccurate data can lead to personalized recommendations that are irrelevant or worse, driving users away from your content.
Data accuracy is directly tied to revenue
Inaccurate data can have a direct and significant impact on a media company’s bottom line. Decreased ad revenue from targeting errors can result in lower ad impressions and clicks. A poor user experience due to inaccurate data can lead to subscriber churn. Without an ability to harness fresh data, publishers may not be able to quickly capitalize on the news cycle by jumping on trends and creating new opportunities to serve advertisers. Publishers will also have challenges measuring the ROI of their campaigns and reporting results to advertisers.
Know the signs of data accuracy issues
Even publishers who think their data is accurate, know that data quality can deteriorate over time. This is due to various factors, including human error, system failures, and changes in data sources. It’s well worth the time and effort to conduct periodic checks to make sure your data pipeline is running smoothly and your data is as accurate as possible.
Here are five signs to watch for:
1. Inconsistent or conflicting data
One of the most common signs of data accuracy problems is inconsistencies or conflicts between different data sources. For example, you may find discrepancies between data from your first-party systems, analytics tools, and ad platforms. These inconsistencies can make it difficult to get a clear and accurate picture of your audience, campaigns, and performance.
2. Missing or incomplete data
Another red flag is missing or incomplete data. This can occur due to data collection errors, system failures, or changes in data ingestion methods.
3. Outdated data
Data can become outdated over time, particularly in rapidly changing industries like media. Using outdated data can lead to inaccurate insights, ineffective targeting, and wasted resources.
4. Data quality issues
These issues can arise due to errors such as gaps, inconsistencies, problems with validity, latency, or a lack of data normalization across systems.
5. Lack of data governance & reliability
Without proper policies and procedures in place to manage data, it can become fragmented, inconsistent, and unreliable. In addition, media companies may be working with dozens of first-party and third-party systems that organize data differently. A single source of truth is essential to truly optimize campaigns.
Limited engineering resources exacerbate data quality problems
Despite the critical importance of data accuracy, some media companies simply don’t have the engineering resources to ensure their data is consistently accurate. With millions of pieces of data constantly arriving from dozens of sources, managing that data at scale all day, every day becomes a monumental, ongoing challenge.
Traditional data engineering approaches often fall short in meeting the specific needs of publishers. These challenges typically fall into some combination of these categories:
Data Silos: Data is often pulled directly from content platforms and dumped into data warehouses without proper structuring or enrichment, making it difficult to use immediately.
Manual Reporting: Some publishers still rely on manual methods like exporting data to Google Sheets for reporting, which is time-consuming and error-prone.
First-Party Data Integration: Integrating all first-party data securely and efficiently into the data pipeline is painful.
Prioritization: Revenue teams often struggle to get their data engineering needs prioritized. In many cases, data engineers simply don’t want to perform the mundane tasks associated with maintaining and updating APIs. Revenue teams are then forced to create DIY workarounds that are time consuming, frustrating and not as effective as they hoped.
Selecting a data operations platform
The current demand for skilled data engineers far exceeds supply, making it difficult to allocate sufficient time and expertise to data quality initiatives. Media companies that leverage no-code or low-code data engineering tools that can automate data pipelines and workflows, can drastically reduce the need for extensive engineering expertise.
Here are some qualities to look for and questions to ask when selecting a data operations platform to overcome your data quality issues:
Automation and Speed: Look for platforms that offer automated data pipelines and ETL processes that can streamline data management and reduce manual effort.
Scalability: Make sure the platform can handle large volumes of data and scale as your needs grow.
High-Quality Data: Find out how the platform ensures reliable and trustworthy data. Do they consolidate data from various sources, (e.g. first-party data, agency data, and data from different channels).
Domain Expertise: Is the platform backed up by a team of experts in digital publishing who can ensure that data is handled and transformed correctly for optimal analysis?
Customization: Can the platform be customized to meet your specific requirements and business logic?
Comprehensive Measurement: Are your essential metrics built in for effective campaign evaluation?
Privacy and Security: What kinds of security measures have been taken to protect your sensitive data and ensure adherence to data privacy rules and regulations?
Publishers and media companies simply cannot ignore the impact that inaccurate data has on their bottom line. By investing in data operations platforms, quality control processes, and governance, you can unlock the full potential of your data and drive sustainable growth for your business.
About the author
Manny Balbin, a seasoned veteran with over 15 years in digital media and advertising, currently shapes vision and strategy for BI products at Switchboard Software. Switchboard’s data engineering automation platform aggregates disparate data at scale in real-time for better business decisions. Prior to Switchboard, Manny led Product, Ad Technology, and Revenue Operations at Freestar, PMC, and Quantcast.
Direct-sold advertising is a win-win for publishers and advertisers. Publishers get more control of how to package and price their inventory without as many intermediaries taking a cut. And advertisers know exactly where their brand will be featured and not be as creatively hemmed in by standard programmatic ad units. Media sales teams that proactively drive the ad sales process with their clients stand to more effectively generate revenue, versus a reactive approach.
Here are three strategies that publisher ad sales teams can use to make their teams and processes more effective in order to drive direct-sold revenue.
Curate ad formats and features that match campaign goals
When brands or agencies issue a request-for-proposal (RFP), they are in essence asking publishers to propose the advertising solutions that will best align with their marketing goals. But too often, brands ask publishers to supply responses via a templated, “fill-in-the-blank” spreadsheet listing ad units, pricing, and impression volumes.
Smart publisher sales teams dig in and ask questions about an advertiser’s campaign goals, creative direction, budget, and success metrics to help shape their response. Direct sold ads allow for far more campaign customization, and RFP responses should reflect that.
Publishers must take the time to consider the advertiser’s stated goals. Then, they need to select not just ad formats but specific creative features within the ad that will deliver engagement and results. This way, they can deliver a unique, tailored campaign plan that goes well beyond programmatic.
Here are some ways publishers can optimize their offerings:
If the campaign is focused on a date (movie or show premiere, product availability, registration deadline), include a live countdown in the ad creative.
If the campaign can be localized, show how you can include features in the ad creative like embedded maps, language detection, or dynamic text.
If you as a publisher can bring a unique data angle to the campaign, show how your data and the advertiser’s can be combined to develop more personalized, more impactful creative. Show dynamic elements within a creative execution that can change at run time based on data like geography, demographics and more.
Of course, this all assumes that a publisher has a suite of ad products with robust features and the ability to quickly rotate in new options without a lot of technical upheaval. That’s one reason having the right creative platform partners is crucial.
Rethink your approach to RFP responses
It’s true that many RFP responses require a set format when submitted (and unfortunately that format is too often an Excel file). However, publishers should still take the opportunity to propose ideas that could be a bit out-of-the-box.
An accompanying presentation (and not just a completed spreadsheet of line items) can bring a proposal response to life. It should describe the basics like campaign flight dates, impressions, and costs But most importantly, it should showcase what you’re selling.
Publishers who include live ad mocks of creative executions in their proposals make it easy for advertisers to say, “Yes, I want that.” Even better: use the advertiser’s existing assets in mocks and run them on test pages, so they can truly see the power of their brand in your execution and see real examples of how their brand would look on your site(s).
A presentation is also a means to opening up a further conversation with a brand or agency. That’s where creativity can really start flowing. Maybe a proposed mock won’t be exactly what they are after, but it can spark an idea that leads to something greater.
Sometimes ad sales teams can find themselves out of their depth technically and unsure whether an idea for an ad unit is truly feasible. Publisher sales teams should always be sure that they’re getting the help they need from their partners to help them manage these questions so that they can close business and be successful.
Sell synergistically across your revenue sources
Sales teams that think holistically across revenue streams can be successful by packaging multiple opportunities into one proposal and creating synergies between different products. When pitching an advertiser on branded content partnerships, like a podcast or video, include display ads in the overall proposal that excerpt the content to play directly in the ad unit and drive users to the campaign landing page. Create additional value for event sponsorships by including ad units that livestream keynotes or sessions from the event directly within the ad.
The key thing to keep in mind is that brands and agencies are seeking out your publication because of its premium status. If you lack premium inventory, premium ad products, and premium service, they will believe that they are better off rolling the dice on impressions on the open programmatic marketplace. Showing advertisers that you have multiple avenues for their campaign to reach your highly coveted audience helps reinforce the value you offer.
Direct-sold advertising is challenging, but worth it
Direct sales certainly isn’t as turnkey as placing all your ad inventory up for bid programmatically, but the gains are worth it. Higher CPMs and more control of inventory and advertiser relationships are better for publishers over the long haul. And while ad sales teams may have been breathing a sigh of relief earlier this year after yet another delay in the deprecation of third party cookies, ad operations teams are still planning for the continued decline of options to target audiences in ways that aren’t owned by the publisher or advertiser directly.
A strong direct sold advertising sales team works collaboratively with its internal colleagues, external partners, and its advertisers to develop creative solutions that go beyond the most basic requirements of an RFP. The right mix of inventory, audience, data, and creative formats – packaged and presented elegantly and in concert with other products – will help publishers maintain premium, preferred status among advertisers.
