Meanwhile, USA Today Co. (recently rebranded from Gannett) and Ziff Davis seemed to downplay the negative consequences of referral traffic in general, reporting traffic increases, albeit small ones. 

Execs from five different publishers detailed how they’re future-proofing against traffic erosion, investing in video, direct-to-audience strategies, and AI licensing plays. 

“Even in an environment where the moves of big tech companies are leading to less and less traffic for publishers, we see large and persistent demand for what we do,” said New York Times CEO Meredith Kopit Levin during the company’s earnings call on Nov. 5.

Digital advertising rose YoY in Q3 (unless you’re BuzzFeed)

IAC’s People Inc. (formerly Dotdash Meredith) was the most transparent about how much Google AI Overviews has eaten not just traffic — but programmatic ad revenue.

Google search traffic dropped from 54% to 24% of total traffic and led to a decline in programmatic ad revenue, and an overall 3% drop in digital ad revenue in the quarter, People Inc. CEO Neil Vogel said during the company earnings call on Nov. 4.

While the programmatic ad market continues to be a struggle for some publishers, numerous reports are citing that marketer spend is ticking back up in the third quarter. 

That was reflected in the third-quarter results. Digital advertising revenue grew year over year for most of the media companies that publicly report their earnings, with People Inc. and BuzzFeed the notable exceptions.

New York Times CFO Will Bardeen said digital advertising growth came from “strong marketer demand and new advertising supply.”

• BuzzFeed’s ad revenue fell 11% to $22.2 million.
• People Inc.’s digital ad revenue declined 3% to $161 million.
• Digital ad revenue at News Corp’s Dow Jones business (which includes The Wall Street Journal) was up 2%. Total advertising revenue was $85 million.
• The New York Times’ digital advertising revenue grew 20% year over year to $98 million.
• USA Today Co.’s digital ad revenue grew 2.9% to $87.2 million.
• Ziff Davis’ advertising and performance marketing revenue (the company combines the two in its report) grew 5.9% to $205 million.

However, BuzzFeed saw a drop in direct sold ads and programmatic ad revenue despite focusing on the programmatic business this year. CEO Jonah Peretti called it the company’s most “profitable” and “resilient” part of its overall business in May.

“The decline in direct sold advertising revenue reflects broader macroeconomic headwinds, reduced advertiser demand, and a shift in our strategy to focus more on programmatic advertising,” reads BuzzFeed’s third-quarter earnings report.

Some publishers more insulated from traffic challenges

USA Today Co.’s CEO Mike Reed said the company had 187 million average monthly unique visitors in Q3, a 3% increase from Q2. Digital ad revenue grew 2.9% year over year.

Ziff Davis CEO Vivek Shah claimed AI Overviews also hadn’t hurt the business much, due to limited exposure to search volatility in its health and wellness category and its martech business, for example. Advertising and performance marketing revenue (the company combines the two in its earnings report) grew 5.9%.

“This whole AI Overview narrative really hasn’t been relevant to our businesses,” he said during the company earnings call on Nov. 7, crediting the phenomenon to winning over interest from buyers. “AI Overviews currently appear in 29% of the queries that drive the lion’s share of our traffic, which is actually a tick down so the prevalence of AI overviews with respect to the queries that are valuable to us, is relatively stable.”

Shah said 35% of the company’s total revenue is traffic-dependent, half of which comes from search, amounting to roughly 17.5% “revenue exposure,” he said.

What was more concerning to Shah was overall Google search volatility. (These worries were echoed by Daily Mail director of SEO and editorial e-commerce Carly Steven at the Digiday Publishing Summit Europe last month.)

“I think there’s a lot of experimentation going on right now in the Google search experience. We’re feeling some of those chops and some of those bumps,” he said. 

BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti said direct traffic, internal referrals and app visits now account for 63% of BuzzFeed’s site traffic, up from 61% in Q2, in an earnings call on Nov. 6. He didn’t reveal further detail.

Traffic-erosion insulation tactics

Publishing execs outlined how they’re trying to insulate themselves from further search traffic volatility in the recent earnings calls, such as investing in their direct audience engagement channels — emails, apps, push notifications — and subscription products.

People Inc’s off-platform audiences (such as Apple News, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok) grew 66% year-over-year, according to the company. 

Reinvesting in video

The New York Times, USA Today Co., People Inc. and Ziff Davis all said they were planning to produce more video content going forward to grow audiences on and off platform and to reduce their reliance on referral traffic. These video strategies ranged from live event coverage to social-first franchises.

“Video is undeniably the most critical format for our future as Americans increasingly turn to video platforms for their news and information,” USA Today Co. president Kristin Roberts said during the company earnings call on Oct. 30.

People Inc. and USA Today Co. are planning to produce more social video content to boost engagement. Publishers are increasing their vertical video production to try to appeal to younger audiences and capture more attention on social platforms. (Meanwhile, The Times and People Inc. are integrating more vertical video into their own apps as well.)

Roberts and Shah noted their focus on video was also an effort to add more advertising revenue opportunities. 

Locking in AI licensing deals

People Inc., News Corp and USA Today Co. touted the importance of AI licensing deals to make more money from platforms.

USA Today Co. announced last month that it was joining Microsoft’s pay-per-use AI content marketplace. It also has a revenue share deal with AI company Perplexity. 

“The whole model of answers on AI search platforms is they get the full answer on that platform. The Google model of the blue links clicking back to the publisher site is not the same model inside of the AI platform. That’s why we’ve been so focused on these monetization deals, these licensing deals, because we don’t see the traffic coming back,” Reed said.

Meanwhile, People Inc. has an AI licensing deal with OpenAI and is also a Microsoft AI content marketplace partner. The publisher is expecting more of these to be on the horizon, per Vogel. 

News Corp also has a licensing deal with OpenAI, reportedly worth a $250 million deal over five years. And it’s open to doing deals with other LLMS.

During the company earnings call on Nov. 6, News Corp CEO Robert Thomson said he was seeing a vibe shift from AI companies, which were becoming more willing to pay to license publisher content. 

“Our wooing and suing continues apace, but thankfully, the wooing has gained traction, and we expect to announce further partnerships in the near future. We anticipate these deals will have a positive impact on our results,” Thomson said.