How to grow publisher revenue when overall traffic is largely in decline was top of the agenda at Press Gazette’s Future of Media Trends event in London on Thursday.
Delegates were brimming with ideas and while the discussions were held on a Chatham House basis I can reveal a few key takeaways from our sponsored roundtables.
Around 50 delegates took part in a series of discussions aimed at solving key industry revenue challenges.
1. Let’s take back control of programmatic advertising
While publishers were generally a little gloomy about the prospects for programmatic advertising, Sherzod Rizaev of sponsor Assertive Yield B.V. made a strong case for taking back control of advertising tech stacks.
Publishers don’t have to be passive in the face of dwindling market share and in particular they can make better use of data to get a real-time view of how much ad revenue is being made by each piece of content.
2. Trust, heritage and value could be a willing paywall formula
“Saving the free internet” was the title of a discussion chaired by Admiral: The Visitor Relationship Management Company, represented by global head of sales Trevor Abbott.
Nevertheless, lots of publishers still saw paywalls of some description as the answer – with many leading towards framing them as memberships rather than subscriptions.
Brands need to harness their trust and heritage to compete in the world of ChatGPT and ensure they are providing readers with valuable information worth paying for.
As an aside, Abbott told me he was surprised to see publishers at the event did not report massive traffic falls in the face of competition from LLMs but he warned that if the US market is anything to go by, this could be happening soon in the UK.
3. Use AI for efficiencies but don’t join ‘race to the bottom’
Newspublish and Layout International sponsored the table on how to make cost savings in response to the rise of zero-click AI-powered searches (featuring founder Jean-Michel Habis).
Publishers agreed that joining a “race to the bottom” by publishing AI-generated content was not the way forward. Humans must control the content because readers are investing in trust.
But there was agreement that AI can be used to streamline content when it comes to marketing, newsletters, video, image alt text, tags and even page layouts.
4. Invest in human talent
The FT Strategies sponsored table with director Adriana Menezes Whiteley agreed on the need to “double down on human-led content” but also heard that AI can be used to drive volume and new delivery mechanisms for journalism.
Publishers talked about leaning into talent-led, or personality-led, content as well as community and events. But questions were raised around who pays for the establishment of facts and old-fashioned reporting in the world of LLMs.
5. Sharing the right data is key to building a loyal audience
WordPress VIP sponsored a roundtable discussion about how to turn fly-by readers into fans. This table concluded that getting the right data to journalists was a major priority as was making sure staff are focused on key tasks (rather than doing lots of things at the same time).
Publishers reported that, so far, negligible traffic is coming to them from the LLMs.
6. Have a clear mission and a galvanising north star metric
And finally, the table sponsored by Q5 chaired by Graham Page discussed where the accountability should sit for attracting high-value audiences.
This can be with a strong editor-in-chief who can be a “galvanising force for the whole organisation”.
But Page said product, audience and commercial teams can all be involved in this if they are “all engaged with one mission which has to be encapsulated in a north star metric”.
When it comes to subscriptions businesses, Page said a metric based around returning readers and building habits tends to be the most effective.
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