• GroupM Drops New Evidence of Disconnect Between Economy and Ad Spending

While analysts, pundits and media continue to focus on negative signals in what is expected to be a recession, “we’re still not there,” GroupM’s Brian Wieser points out in this week’s installment of the “This Week Next Week” podcast he co-hosts with Kate Scott-Dawkins, who added that while there are some negative signals coming out of recent big marketer earnings calls, “consumer balance sheets” remain “relatively healthy” and above pre-pandemic levels, and U.S. jobless claims are “still quite low.”

• ‘News publishers expect revenues to more than double this year’: World Press Trends 2022-23 Preview

In a presentation at the World News Media Congress 2022 held in Zaragoza, WAN-IFRA’s Dean Roper gave an insight into the key trends that are emerging as part of the research into the forthcoming World Press Trends 2022-2023 report… Whilst the news industry is encountering strong headwinds, publishers are expecting significant growth in revenue in 2022, spurred on by investment in new revenue streams. Of these, publisher events are leading the way … and yet … advertising still remains king.

• Ad Spend Declines for Fourth Consecutive Month in September, Report Finds

Ad spend continues to reflect tightening budgets and economic uncertainty, according to Standard Media Index’s September 2022 Core Data report, which found that ad spend was down 5% in September year-over-year (YoY), continuing a four-month downfall.  The report also found that ad spend by channel in the third quarter YoY is down 6%. Coinciding with the lows, major media companies including Disney, Comcast, Paramount Global, Meta and Google all saw revenue fall in September YoY.

• Overcoming ‘Data Desperation’ As the Deprecation of the Third-Party Cookie Looms

The digital privacy landscape has shifted dramatically in recent years, forcing publishers to exist in a constant state of experimentation. Condé Nast (CN) has navigated these new contours of digital advertising while simultaneously reinventing itself for the modern era. Pamela Drucker Mann, global chief revenue officer at Condé Nast, joined Adweek’s senior media reporter Mark Stenberg at Publishing Week to discuss how the publishing giant has balanced the needs of brands with the privacy of readers through a multi-pronged approach.

• Reevaluating Open Rates and Email Marketing Success One Year After Apple’s Privacy Changes

It’s been just over a year since Apple implemented its much-discussed-about, much-fussed-about Mail Privacy Protection feature, and the initial first-year findings confirm many of the impacts that email marketers predicted. Apple’s intent was to provide iPhone iOS15 users who wished to opt-in with “even more transparency and control over the data users provide to apps.” To those third-party marketers, Apple’s feature would prevent them from knowing whether their emails had been opened by automatically impacting the open-rate and thus upending one of the most important metrics for email-marketing success.

• Build Resilience to Stay Competitive in a Cookieless World

Performance marketing inherently promises results—and practitioners rely on customer data to satisfy the expectations set. But the increasing restrictions around privacy has forced brands need to find alternatives to cookies and third-party data sources to build digital resilience and stay competitive in a privacy-first marketing ecosystem… Here’s how marketers can adapt to changing privacy regulations and develop digital resilience for a cookieless world.

• ‘Durable growth and stability’: Subscription Business Revenues Grow 9% More Than S&P 500, Zuora Reports

Times of economic uncertainty can favor recurring revenue businesses, which appears to be playing out today, based on an analysis of SEI companies in the first half of 2022. Subscription Economy businesses continued to show resilience, growing at faster rates compared to the S&P 500 and U.S. retail sales. Churn also remained lower than pre-pandemic levels, demonstrating that these companies are retaining subscriber relationships at higher rates compared to before the pandemic.

• Google Announces First-Party Solution for Publishers

Google officially unveiled PAIR (or Publisher Advertiser Identity Reconciliation), its latest option for publishers and advertisers using Display & Video 360 to “securely and privately reconcile their first-party data for audiences who have visited both an advertiser’s and a publisher’s site.” In contrast to the walking-dead phase-out that Google is giving third-party cookies, its PAIR processes would be founded upon first-party data, or information that customers have willingly agreed to share through their direct relationships as opposed to pooled data.

• Marketers Find First-Party Strategies Easier Said Than Done

Despite rhetoric from advertisers about investing in first-party data as privacy laws erode traditional means of targeting — the reality is much more difficult, according to a recent survey on programmatic attitudes. “Whilst 2021 showed first-party data was the priority for advertisers, agencies, and publishers in 2021, this is now ranked third behind second-party data (the most popular priority averaging 57% with agencies leading at 60%) and third-party at 49%,” reads the report from IAB Europe.

• Google Steps Up Automation to Create Assets for Ads From Website, Existing Ads

Google now automatically pulls in relevant creative content from a company’s landing page, website, existing ads, and keywords in ad groups to complement the creation of responsive search ads (RSAs). The new setting — which is being tested with some advertisers but not all — gives Google the ability to automatically create additional advertising assets such as headers and descriptions.

• ‘You don’t want to put things that are commodity content behind a paywall’: How Publishers Are Growing Subscribers Via Free Content

Soft paywalls allow readers to experience the quality of your content and may over time inspire them to sign up for a paid subscription. Research done by American Press Institute’s Media Insights Project found that 47% of new subscribers signup after running out of free articles on a site they like and respect.  Metered paywalls are the most popular form of soft paywalls. They let readers access a set number of articles for free before requiring them to pay. Wired allows readers to consume four articles a month for free before asking them to subscribe for unlimited access.

• Publishers: How to Identify Your Real SEO Competitors

An effective search optimization strategy means knowing who is targeting the same keywords and audiences. Effective SEO is all about getting as close to the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs) as possible. A key component of that optimization effort is researching the companies that compete with you, and a recent post from SEO experts MOZ points out two ways to assess competition for keywords, audiences and solving consumer needs.

• Google Search Expansion Could Be Wake-Up Call for Publishers

Google shared greater detail on how it’s broadening search beyond the traditional text bar at its third annual Search On event Wednesday. Richer offerings related to visual, language and multimedia-based search are meant to create a “natural and intuitive” experience that’s more in line with the ways people actually think, executives said… Time will tell how much Google’s newfangled ideas stick, but the company owns a suite of products, from Maps to its Lens camera technology, that could be powerful when combined for search purposes. For marketers that have continued to prioritize text-based tactics, Search On could serve as a wake-up call.

• Publishers’ “efforts will pay off in 2022 with markedly increased total revenue”: World Press Trends Survey

With inflation rising, possible recessions looming and the ongoing situation in Ukraine, the short-term business sentiment in the news publishing industry has taken a downturn, according to the first results of WAN-IFRA’s global industry survey. That said, publishers have managed to adapt and innovate during the pandemic and those efforts will pay off in 2022 with markedly increased total revenue – critically, developing new revenue streams..

• Server-side Tagging 101: What Publishers Need to Know

The future without third-party data is imminent… It is cause for concern, as third-party cookies are a rich source of information that have propped up digital revenue streams for years.  This transition, however, could spell disaster—if businesses don’t rethink their data collection strategy. That’s where server-side tagging comes in. A creative solution to data capture challenges, server-side tagging is a means of collecting valuable data without worrying about privacy concerns. Read on to find out everything you need to know about server-side tagging.

• Why Online Search Is Fundamental for a Post-Cookies Environment

From the shift to online-only life in early 2020 to the frantic Googling for new hours, policies, and stock updates in the first phase of reopening, consumers turned to the internet and relied on it in new ways. Meanwhile, marketers have also been contending with the ever-impending demise of the cookie, as Google extended its deadline to 2024. This means that in an increasingly digital world, marketers can no longer rely on one of the primary tools that dominated conversations about personalization and customer experience over the past decade.  What else is certain is that digital adaptability and agility will be required for the long haul, especially in search — an essential way to stay relevant in the cookieless future.