A forum for the print and
digital publishing industries

Cancel Culture: More Consumers Would Subscribe If Canceling Was Easier

A study by Toolkits and National Research Group recently asked consumers about their subscriptions to digital publications, and 67% said they’d be more likely to purchase a new subscription if the cancellation process was easier.

“Converting new subscribers is becoming increasingly challenging for many publishers as competition for consumer attention intensifies and they begin to search for growth beyond their most engaged and loyal audience segments,” writes Toolkits’ Jack Marshall. “The data suggest that easier cancellation processes could actually help publishers drive incremental conversions and revenue: If consumers are confident they can easily cancel subscriptions, they might be more likely to subscribe in the first place.”

 

Publishers Forecast To Lose $54B In Revenue From Ad-Blocking

Publishers are estimated to lose $54 billion in ad revenue globally due to ad blocking in 2024, representing about 8% of total ad spend, according to data released Monday.

 

ANA Programmatic Media Supply Chain Transparency Study

Knowledge is power. With programmatic media, data drives knowledge and is the enabler that allows marketers to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their campaigns. Access to data, pulling insights from data, and then acting on those insights provides a pathway for marketers to optimize their programmatic media investments.

 

84% of B2B Deals Are Decided Before Marketers Even Know About Them

B2B selling teams are at a disadvantage, according to the 2023 B2B Buyer Experience Report released from 6sense. The report indicates that marketing efforts play a critical role in the B2B buying journey with 84% of deals decided upon first contact – made by buyers. These insights come at a time when sales and marketing executives agree that revenue generation has become increasingly difficult.

Sign Of The Times: NYT Hires Editorial Director Of AI Initiatives

As the hand-wringing around AI and its place in the newsroom continues, The New York Times is taking a giant leap forward with the announcement of its first editorial director of Artificial Intelligence Initiatives.

And while the human filling those shoes is plenty important — in this case, Zach Seward, a former reporter and Quartz founding editor who NYT leaders described as “the rare journalist to also serve as chief product officer, then C.E.O., and finally editor in chief” — it’s the mere existence of shoes to fill that makes this so newsworthy.

 

Cookie Draw-Down: How It Will Affect Advertisers And Publishers

Digital advertisers are facing a looming crisis — the phasing out of third-party cookies. Publishers would be well advised to help them prepare, emphasizing contextual advertising and first-party data. Senior digital marketers are confident that they are ready for the change. But not junior executives, who are in the trenches, according to Navigating the Privacy-First Landscape, a study by Fyllo. 

 

Retail Media Ad Spend Will Reach Over $100b By 2027

US retail media ad spend will more than double between 2023 and 2027, reaching a total of $109.40 billion, according to our forecast.

 

Why Is The Holiday Period So Important For Advertisers?

What makes the ‘golden quarter’ just so golden? And why are advertisers still missing out on key opportunities over the holiday season?

AI Evaluations: The Lessons Readers Are Telling Publishers

ChatGPT turned a whole 1 year old last week, and proud parent OpenAI rounded out that inaugural year in the spotlight with enough boardroom drama to fast-track a Netflix series.

In that first year, study after study has come out revealing how individual businesses and entire industries are either tiptoeing or cannonballing into the AI waters. I’m of the belief that publishers have much to gain from harnessing a wide variety of AI’s current capabilities, and with the launch of Google’s Gemini, I can’t wait to see what 2024 has in store for the technology.

AI within the confines of journalism, however, still seems to be eluding acceptance.

 

Most Readers Want Publishers To Label AI-Generated Articles — But Trust Outlets Less When They Do

An overwhelming majority of readers would like news publishers to tell them when AI has shaped the news coverage they’re seeing. But, new research finds, news outlets pay a price when they disclose using generative AI.

That’s the conundrum at the heart of new research from University of Minnesota’s Benjamin Toff and Oxford Internet Institute’s Felix M. Simon. Their working paper “‘Or they could just not use it?’: The paradox of AI disclosure for audience trust in news” is one of the first experiments to examine audience perceptions of AI-generated news.

 

Marketers Use Affiliate Strategies Across The Purchase Funnel

U.S. marketers are using affiliate strategies throughout the purchase journey, including upper-funnel awareness (56%), mid-funnel consideration (58%), and lower-funnel conversion (50%), per June 2023 Gen3 Marketing data.

 

The B2B Perspective on Multi-Channel Marketing

Today’s top B2B marketers employ a multi-channel strategy to unlock insights, engage customers, and win faster. But how effective is this approach? Where are the biggest opportunities for growth?

ZoomInfo, in collaboration with research firm Ascend2, surveyed 101 B2B marketing professionals about their experiences with multi-channel strategies — the good, the better, and the possible.

Paying Their Dues: Google Agrees To Pay Canadian Publishers For Content

This time of year, they say it’s the thought that counts.

Well, as good as $70+ million a year does sound, it’s as much the thought that Google is even willing to pay for news that’s making publishers worldwide particularly jolly.

Google has agreed to pay Canadian publishers an annual fee of CA$100 million so that the tech giant may keep their news content in its search results. This follows the passing of Canada’s Bill C-18, known as the Online News Act, this summer, which Google responded to by threatening, “when the law takes effect, we unfortunately will have to remove links to Canadian news from our Search, News and Discover products in Canada.”

 

Google Starts Deleting Gmail Accounts That Have Been Inactive For Over Two Years

Any chance there’s a Gmail account that you all made years ago that you have not been using? Well, it may soon be toast, if it is not already. Google began deleting old Gmail accounts yesterday — old meaning inactive for more than two years. It’s not just Gmail though. It’s Google Drive, Google Docs and Google Photos.

 

Wrong Ads Serve To The Wrong Consumer 1 In 3 Times

Agencies report that the wrong ad creative is served to the wrong consumer nearly one in every three times, according to new research. The joint study from Advertiser Perceptions and Claravine fielded in August analyzed the impact of not having a data standards and a strategy in place. It showed how advertisers and agencies struggle with brand safety and in the process, found a connecting line between data standards, brand safety and ad targeting.

 

B2B Buyer Report 2023

Simply going digital won’t cut it anymore. Faced with economic uncertainty, inflation, and increased interest rates, today’s B2B buyers have complex demands, high digital expectations, and strict budgets. A deep understanding of your prospects’, customers’, and clients’ unique needs is critical to success.

Programmatic Advertising 101: A Beginner’s Guide For Advertising Sales Reps

In publishing, the addition of digital advertising has opened a new world of revenue opportunities as well as many challenges. And the technological transition has brought with it opportunities for publishers that did not exist as publishers gain the ability to sell advertising inventory across the entire internet. It’s a challenge for many sales reps to understand how programmatic digital advertising works so they can take advantage of these opportunities.

 

Turmoil at OpenAI: Now That Sam Altman’s Coming Back, What’s Next For The Creators of ChatGPT?

After some haggling, it’s official: Sam Altman is returning to his post as CEO of OpenAI. How did the world’s hottest generative AI company go through three CEOs in under a week? This is what we know so far.

 

Follow-Up Folly: Many SMBs Fail To Send Emails After Holiday Rush

Most small businesses depend on holiday sales to make their numbers. But too few have strategies in place to retain new customers, according to Holiday Trends For SMBs, a study from Constant Contact, conducted by Ascend2. Only 49% of the consumers polled receive an email after making a purchase, and 27% never hear from the business again. Yet 81% are open to receiving messages from a small business they have visited or bought from during the holidays.  

 

B2B Marketers Are Taking A Cautious Approach Toward Data Investments

After years of stronger growth during the pandemic, increases to marketing data outlays are slowing thanks to tighter marketing budgets, privacy regulations, and a need to show ROI. The YoY growth rate in 2023 will be roughly half of what it was in 2022. Macroeconomic conditions, shifting buyer dynamics, and privacy concerns will contribute to this slowdown. We expect the YoY growth rate to increase to 3.8% in 2025 as the economy improves and other concerns are mitigated. That year, marketing data spend will be just shy of $4 billion.

New Study Estimates How Many Billions Google & Meta Owe Publishers

The response time of a Google search result is less than a tenth of a second. For some reason, that’s the first measurement I thought of when I read the recent study of what Google and Facebook might owe U.S. publishers for their content. Using that near-instantaneous micro-metric of a search response, the total tab for the two tech giants comes out to somewhere between $37.73 and $44.07 every tenth of a second. Or, as the study’s more-rounded estimate puts it, between $11.9 billion and $13.9 billion a year.

The Power Of Partnership: How The CEO–CMO Relationship Can Drive Outsize Growth

Amid a challenging macroeconomic environment and rapid change, CEOs are searching for the next engine for growth. The answer may be right in front of them: a redefined and reinvigorated relationship with their CMO.

Big Bucks Martech: Spend Is Expected To Hit Almost $700B This Year

Martech now accounts for 30% of all marketing budgets, and the total spend on martech and sales tech is estimated at $669.3 billion this year, a 31.5% over the $508.9 billion posted in 2022, according to State of Martech and Marketing, 2023/24, a global study by LXA, sponsored by Tealium. Moreover, 83% of CMOs expect increases this year. Still, budgets are getting squeezed and CMOs face numerous obstacles to fully achieving marketing efficiency.

The 2023 B2B Influencer Marketing Report: Elevate & Ignite

The question is no longer, “Does influencer marketing work for B2B?” We already know the answer. The question is, “How can we get the best results from B2B influencer marketing?” Or even better: “What are the most successful B2B brands doing that the rest of us are missing?” For this year’s third annual B2B Influencer Marketing Report, we surveyed over 400 B2B marketers to find out. Our respondents shared their successes, frustrations, accomplishments and best practices.

Branding Exercises: What Publishers Can Do To Improve Trust 

Content is king, as they say, but recent research by Toolkits and National Research Group has found a hierarchy even on that tier. 36% of consumers surveyed said they trust brand-published content more than content from traditional media sources and organizations. That includes newspapers, magazines, TV, and news sites.

 

Ad Duopoly Looks Over Its Shoulder As Amazon Ad Revenues Jump 26%

Amazon’s ad business is now one of the company’s fastest-growing sectors. Ad revenues enjoyed a 26% increase in Q3, totaling more than $12 billion — double Amazon’s 13% overall revenue growth. Amazon’s ad business has grown impressively over the last several years after a 57.6% boost from the coronavirus pandemic, per our forecast. We expect worldwide ad revenues to grow 18.9% to $44.88 billion this year and to reach $67.59 billion by 2025.

 

Study: Blogs Appear Most Often In Top Google Positions

Blog posts are the most common content type found in the top 5 Google positions, a new study has found. Multiple CTR studies show most organic clicks go to the top 5 positions on Google Search (around 69% to 74%). So prioritizing the types of content Google rewards with more visibility is only logical.

 

Report: US E-Retail Media Market Will Double To $85 Billion By 2026

Havas Market is out with a new report about retail media that examines the five most advanced western markets including the U.S., UK, France, Germany and Spain. … Havas cites Statista, IAB and SRI data indicating that e-retail media ad spend is growing at a rate of 15% to 38% across all markets. “This represents a growth rate 3 to 4 times larger than other digital media investments,” which also are still growing significantly. 

Risky Business: Should Publishers Preemptively Offer More Consent Choices?
Two out of three digital publishers in the United States don’t offer their consumers consent choices, according to a new report from Compliant and Peer39. And though, as Ray Schultz writes, U.S. publishers don’t have to contend with the same regulations as EU publishers, this absence of choices is “dangerous considering that the states are passing ever-tougher laws — for example, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).”

Data Disruptor Dilemma: Brands Face Increasing Challenges To Quality
Businesses are being rocked by changes in technology and other shifts. And 88% think their discomfort is going to intensify over the next year, according to Mastering Tomorrow’s Markets: The Data Quality Revolution, a study by Experian. The biggest market disruptors are technology advancement in AI (33%), increased operational costs (32%), [and] depleting skills (29%).

Emerging Technology Trends
“One of the most astounding things about these technologies is that they are pushing the frontiers of economic growth. If we put generative AI together with the basket of automation technologies, we’re looking at a potential of $4.4 trillion of GDP growth globally. That is larger than the size of the United Kingdom.”

Announcing The Growth Report 2023: Special AI Edition
What once was material right out of Sci-Fi is now a part of daily life. From personalized product recommendations to ChatGPT, people are more curious about artificial intelligence than perhaps ever before. Despite some of the pessimistic rhetoric surrounding AI, like the innovation before it (the printing press, the computer, the internet, the cell phone anyone?), new technology brings new opportunities and 2023 is the year that AI exploration has begun to take root.

Agency Uncertainty: Is The Current Media Agency Model Working?

Most marketers feel their current media agency model either needs to improve or is unfit for the future, according to a new study by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and MediaSense. The report, entitled “The Future of Media Agency Models,” found that just 11% of the 70 multinational brands surveyed believe their current model fits their future needs, with 45% saying they are looking for more flexibility and 37% looking for simplification through fewer and better integrated partners.

State of the Digital Marketing Agency in 2023: Our 10 Biggest Takeaways

Our data shows that the hybrid billing model has grown in popularity over the last few years. In our 2020 report, flat fee and hybrid billing models were about equally common, but this year, almost half of all agencies we surveyed are using a hybrid billing model. “There are lots of options for how agencies can price their services. We’ve seen hybrid billing models grow in popularity because they provide the flexibility for agencies to price their services in a way that benefits both their clients and their own bottom line.” said Erin Rose, Sr. Director of Partner Development for LocaliQ.

Google Search: A Gross Margin Framework For Generative AI Modeling

Global search revenue estimates from New Street Research forecast that the market will reach $316 billion by 2030, suggesting a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.5% from 2023 until the end of the decade. … The research firm published in a note on Thursday, estimating that search growth will be driven by continued momentum in mobile, growing at a CAGR of 8.6% from 2023-2030, and representing about 92% of total search revenue by the end of the decade. Desktop will see a decline of 6.1%. Global search revenue today is nearly 80% mobile.

Marketers More Optimistic Even As Budgets Fall
Marketers are feeling much more optimistic this quarter, according to the CMO Survey from Deloitte. Nearly half (49%) reported feeling “more optimistic” about the U.S. economy, up from 30.1% in the spring survey. The Marketer Optimism Score, which measures marketer sentiment on a scale of 0 to 100, went from 58.3 in the spring to 66.5 currently. By sector, B2C Services companies report the highest rate of optimism, with 72% reporting feeling more optimistic. It was followed by B2B product marketers at 67.1%, B2B services at 66% and B2C products at 64.5%.

More Than Three-Quarters Of Newsrooms Using AI In ‘News Value Chain’

Earlier this summer, when Google gave The New York Times a sneak preview of its news-story-generating AI product, the presentation went over like a lead balloon.

Perhaps that reaction had more to do with the reported tone-deafness of Google’s “unsettling” pitch than it did the receptiveness of newsrooms to AI technologies, however, as more than 75% of news organizations are using AI in “at least one of the areas across the news value chain of news gathering, production, and distribution,” according to a new survey.

 

Gen AI Powers Content Marketing Advantage For Early Adopters

Great content generates powerful business results — and marketing leaders know it. Across B2C and B2B industries, 8 in 10 surveyed leaders say that content marketing is very or extremely important to their company’s overall digital marketing strategy — and 9 in 10 say that importance grew between 2022–2023.

 

More Than 2 In 5 U.S. Marketers Most Commonly Transact On First-Party Data

43% of US marketers and agencies use proprietary identifiers like first-party data when transacting with media sellers, per Advertiser Perceptions. A quarter of US marketers and agencies are still using third-party cookies, even though Google says it will deprecate them in 2024.

 

Flush With Emails: A Third Of Consumers Say They’re Overwhelmed

A recent study by Sequel Response is being publicized because it shows that a majority of companies have increased their email marketing budgets in the past 12 months — more than any other channel. That’s a great vote of confidence in email. But these accounts overlook the next set of charts in the study. Consumers themselves were asked how overwhelmed they are by the amount of advertising they receive. Guess which channel fared the worst?