To say the digital publishing industry is in flux is an understatement. Over the past year, publishers have faced a wave of challenges. We’ve seen revenue impacts from emerging technologies, watched Google’s on-again, off-again approach to cookie deprecation, observed shifts in consumer behavior that required quick adaptation, and much more.
To gain a deeper and more systematic understanding of how media companies and publishers are navigating these changes, we conducted focus group-style survey interviews with 31 industry leaders.
In this blog, we cover the fourth factor: Declines in Search and Social Referral Traffic.
Publishers face a stark reality: traditional referral traffic is declining and may never return to previous levels. We asked our participants to identify key strategies for adapting to this new reality. On the whole, this is an area rife with opportunity: publishers say the path to sustainability lies with building stronger relationships with existing users and expanding the services offered to them. Whether these measures will recover total lost revenue from traditional sources remains to be seen.
| Increase online engagement, like driving more page views per user | 61% |
| Diversify revenue with tactics such as newsletters, eCommerce, and events | 87% |
| Redouble efforts to boost direct traffic and app usage | 65% |
| Other | 19% |
Opportunity: Engagement Over Growth
Our panel of experts had near-unanimous agreement that the “era of scale” is over. The emphasis now, they told us, is on deepening relationships with existing audiences rather than finding a way to replace search referral traffic.
“Continuing to grow is a lofty goal, and I wouldn’t suggest it as the primary objective. Instead, the focus should be on deepening engagement with your existing customers and experimenting with new distribution opportunities.” — Anonymous (Jay Glogovsky)
“I believe the most impact will come from increasing engagement and time on site for the traffic publishers already have and that will hopefully entice users to come back more directly.” — Matt Barsomian, Director of Digital Partnerships, Ad Ops, and Revenue Strategy, NESN
“It’s all about engaging users. Publishers that count on just giving information with no ongoing engagement are going to lose out very quickly.” — Andrew Quixote Kraft, On a Listening Tour, Former President & Chief Operating Officer at The Arena Group.
Opportunity: The Future is with Direct Audience Relationships
With referral traffic on the decline, publishers must focus on building direct relationships with users. Success requires moving beyond page view, and building stronger connections by encouraging them to join communities, attend events, subscribe to newsletters, and pay for premium content. Publishers that don’t focus on direct relationships will become irrelevant.
“Page views only matter if you can sell ads, and Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft now have all the ads, so page views are not a measure of economic success. Publishers need to regain their 1:1 harmonious relationship with their readers through every method they can; events, newsletters, podcasts, audio and more.” — Ricky Sutton, Founder, Future Media
“Foster a strong community around your brand by encouraging user-generated content, comments, and social media interactions.” — Sherrick Chavda, Group Director of Audience & Data Strategy, Initiative
“It’s all about engaging users. Publishers that count on just giving information with no ongoing engagement are going to lose out very quickly as the search engines themselves become the place you ask core questions… the publishers behind them become encyclopedias on the shelf: there for reference, but nobody ever goes there. — Andrew Kraft, On a Listening Tour
“Publishers must act quickly to maintain the stickiness that they have created with their loyal audiences over time. The more the publisher can keep the users on their site and with their brand the less they will be affected by the change in referral traffic.” – Steven Golberg, SVP, Partner Success, OpenWeb
Opportunity: Multi-Format Content is Table Stakes
The importance of multi-format content was raised again by our participants, this time in the context of diversifying revenue in response to declining search referral traffic. Publishers need to meet users ‘where they are’ in terms of format if they are to continue to grow.
“Relying too heavily on the written word could be a slow death sentence for traditional publishers. Audio, as well as both long and short-term video, have far lower barriers to entry from a production standpoint than they ever have, and younger consumers are being very explicit in their choice of preferred formats.” — Pete Beeney, SVP US Country Manager, Factor Eleven
Mixed Outlook: Search Strategy Evolution
As Google traffic declines, publishers face two challenges: maintaining SEO performance requires more effort than ever, while AI answer engines fundamentally change how people seek information online. Our panel told us that success requires both optimizing for traditional search and adapting to this new paradigm.
“While Google traffic is drying up faster and faster, it’s important to remember that organic search traffic is still the number one source of traffic for most news publishers. We’ve seen success through dramatic increases in effort, proving that it is still possible to rise to the top of search results. But it’s felt like a Sisyphean task” — Jeremy Kaplan, Content Director, Future PLC
“LLMs like perplexity.ai are not search engines but answer engines. Answer engines change the way we interact with the world. Change can mean opportunities for publishers.” — Matthew S Goldstein, Consultant & Media Expert
Potential Downsides: Revenue Diversification
While 87% of respondents emphasized the need for revenue diversification through subscriptions, events and premium content, there’s growing skepticism about whether these alternatives can replace declining search and ad revenue.
“I’m not sure revenue diversification tactics will be able to keep pace with decline in ad money.” — Anonymous (Steve Mummey)
Publishers who rely on delivering accurate news and information are at risk. LLMs will take a bigger chunk of their traffic than even blogs and social media did over the last decade. Investments will likely move even further away from news gathering and more toward opinion. Revenue streams will need to be diversified, but I don’t see how most sites overcome these losses.” — Anonymous (Michael Wargo)
You can download the full 5 Factors for 2025 report on our website.
