A forum for the print and
digital publishing industries

Sign-Up Sweeteners: What Your Newsletter Needs To Offer In Exchange For Emails

As publishers, we always believe our content to be the best.

But as publishers, we also know our content quality can’t do it alone.

To build an audience, publishers need more. And a new survey about the much-beloved email newsletter shows how willing consumers are to sign up for these audience-developing godsends … if, as LiveIntent says, “there’s value on the table.”

 

Search Saw Consistently Higher Clickthrough Rates Than Social And Retail Media Worldwide In The Last Year

In Q2 2024, worldwide clickthrough rates (CTRs) for search was 1.63%, more than double that of social (0.66%) and quadruple that of retail media (0.39%), according to a July 2024 report by Skai.

 

Better On Weekends: B2B Leaders Often Consume Content On Their Days Off

B2B marketers trying to reach high-level decision-makers should do so when they are available: on weekends. There has been a 23% surge in weekend web traffic from CEOs, CFOs, CIOS, CMOs and VPs of sales, DesignRush reports. The report specifically covers web traffic, but the uptick in weekend involvement presumably includes email. 

 

2024 Retail Media Pulse Report

While satisfaction with retail media is positive, we also found a growing demand for innovation within the space. Marketers and brand owners are looking to leverage AI, real-time targeting, and programmatic solutions to infuse efficiency and effectiveness into their retail media operations.

AI Data Drought? News Sites Leading Pack Of Platforms Preventing Data Harvest

“You are what you eat” is no longer just a warning to heed as we kick into high football-watching gear.

It’s been a fundamental concern for anyone who’s given AI technology more than a minute’s thought, and a recent study by Data Provenance Initiative of the training data AI models use shows a pattern to which, well, junk-food bingers might relate.

… As Kevin Roose says in The New York Times, the study not only showed that data is “drying up,” but it “discovered an ‘emerging crisis in consent,’ as publishers and online platforms have taken steps to prevent their data from being harvested.”

 

Publishers Remain Focused On Alternatives Despite Google Cookies U-Turn

Commercial staff at leading publishers have told Press Gazette they’re still set on transitioning to first-party data despite Google’s landmark decision in July not to proceed with its long-promised deprecation of third-party cookies. Although the tech giant’s about-face caused grumbles in the news industry, executives at Press Gazette’s Future of Media Technology Conference agreed the threatened death of cookies on Google‘s dominant Chrome browser provided the impetus necessary to get their houses in order on user data. That change, they added, appears to already be reflected in increased ad sales.

 

How Privacy Laws Are Impacting Targeting

While first-party data ranks as the [No. 1] tactic being used by ad decision-makers to target consumers in response to restrictive data privacy laws, contextual data is a close No. 2, according to findings of an ad industry survey released this morning by Proximic by Comscore. The findings, part of a just-released “State of Privacy in Advertising Report,” are based on surveys of 200 advertiser, agency and publishing execs conducted July 11-21, including the one above, which asked respondents how they were adapting their ad targeting strategies in response to restrictive data privacy laws.

 

Personalization in the AI Era

Given the clear reported benefits of personalization more broadly, it should be no surprise that nearly 9 in 10 (88%) of all respondents plan to use AI to help with their personalization efforts. However, there is one factor that has a significant influence on perceptions of AI’s potential — specifically, whether AI is already being used or not.

Red (News)Letter Days: Why Publishers Continue To Count On Newsletters

Fashion another feather for newsletter’s cap.

New data is showing that the tried-and-true standby of audience outreach — the email newsletter — is not only holding its own in 2024, but growing in publisher use and effectiveness.

Lion Publishers broke down how its members were reaching audiences in its Sustainability Audits program, and found that while organic social media and word of mouth both grew slightly in 2024 from their 2023 numbers (after larger drops from 2022), email newsletter and direct search both saw continued growth as effective audience builders. 

 

Nearly All U.S. Browsers Could Become Cookieless In The Future

Less than 1 in 5 (17%) U.S. consumers say they always accept third-party cookies when given the choice, per a July 2024 EMARKETER survey. If that holds true under Google’s new consent-based model and Microsoft Edge deprecates cookies by the end of 2024 as planned, only about a tenth of US browsers will be trackable via third-party cookies, according to our Chrome’s New Path for Privacy report.

 

Conversion Touchstone: Marketers Are Urged To Simplify Their Copy

Landing page copy works best when it’s simple. Content written for a fifth- to seventh-grade reading level converts at nearly twice the rate of that aimed at people with professional reading skills, according to the 2024 Conversion Benchmark Report from Unbounce. 

 

The Future of Content Creation with GenAI

Content demand is surging across channels. Budgets are tightening. Marketing teams are facing relentless pressure to produce high-quality content at breakneck speed. If utilized effectively, generative AI (GenAI) could exponentially accelerate content deployment while also serving as a cost-effective alternative to traditional content creation methods into the foreseeable future.

How AI’s Creative Boosts Can Help (And Hurt) Writers And Publishers

As AI continues to carve out a place in publishing, the best journalists are asking themselves how AI tools can help newsroom processes and improve their work, all while listening intently to the public about their readiness and ultimate preferences. 

Unfortunately, it might not be the best writers who are making headlines (or using LMMs to workshop headlines and story ideas, as it were). A recent academic study published in Science Advances wanted to look at the creative boosts that generative AI might provide, and as NPR said during its exploration of the results, there’s a “plot twist.”

 

The Future of Programmatic 2024: Five Key Trends

Recent reports have shown advertisers are spending millions of dollars on low-quality ad placements that violate brand safety standards. More than half (60%) of the advertisers and agencies we surveyed highlighted this issue as one of their biggest causes for concern, with 56% selecting improved ad verification capabilities as a top priority. 

 

Meta’s Ad Share Is Nearly 3 Times The Share Of Time Spent On Its Platforms

Meta will nab a far bigger share of US digital ad spend (21.3%) than YouTube (5.6%) or Netflix (0.3%) this year, despite accounting for a nearly equal share of US time spent with digital.

 

Marketers Double AI Usage In 2024

Nearly 3 out of 4 marketers are using some kind of AI tool at work. The most popular use cases seem to have one thing in common—unification. Seventy-four percent of marketers say that the addition of AI capabilities to the tools they already use (particularly CRM and productivity tools) has increased their AI usage.

Big Tech Bargain: Google, California Deal Commits $250 Million To Journalism, AI Initiatives — But At What Cost?

The Magazine Manager blog has followed California’s journalism bill since it was introduced last March as a measure to force Big Tech companies to pay a usage fee to publishers for their local-based content. In the contentious months since, the California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA; AB-886) has seen threats by one tech company to remove news from feeds, delays in legislation, similar efforts by other states, the actual removal of news by another tech company, and, most recently, a successful passing by the state’s Senate Appropriations Committee earlier this month.

Last week, an agreement was reached between the state and Google, who will commit a combined $250 million to California newsrooms over the next five years for journalism initiatives and AI development.

“As technology and innovation advance, it is critical that California continues to champion the vital role of journalism in our democracy,” said Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, who originally authored the bill. “This partnership represents a cross-sector commitment to supporting a free and vibrant press, empowering local news outlets up and down the state to continue in their essential work.”

 

Digital Media Makes Up Nearly Two-Thirds Of Consumers’ Total Time Spent With Media

Digital will make up 63.7% of the 12 hours and 37 minutes (12:37) per day US adults spend with total media in 2024, per our forecast. Time spent with mobile will hit 4 hours (4:00) per day among US adults, making it the most popular media access point in 2024, according to our US Time Spent With Media H2 2024 Update report.

 

Planet Email: 9.7 Billion Messages Are Sent In The U.S. Every Day

Email is a dominant channel worldwide, especially in the subscription and fintech verticals. But it falls short in other areas, judging by Unraveling The Cross-Channel Marketing Strategy, a study by CleverTap. In the Fintech sector, email, push, in-app, and App Inbox contribute to 31% of conversions.

 

PR And Betting Companies Have Articles Indexed In Google Top Stories

PR services, government websites and even betting companies are getting their content listed in the Top Stories box provided by Google for news-related searches. USA Today was the domain most likely to appear in Google’s Top Stories box in the first half of 2024, according to data shared with Press Gazette for Google searches across the web.

Push The Right Buttons: Publishers Leaning More Toward Mobile, Apps, Push Notifications (New Report)

Publishers looking to expand their audiences — a classification that could just as easily be shortened nowadays to “Publishers” — would do well to consider the doors and opportunities that mobile publishing opens, according to Pugpig’s latest report.

“Pugpig data shows that publishers have better success in engaging young audiences with their apps than their websites,” says the State of Mobile Publishing Market Report, which surveyed 72 publishers that use its platform to better illustrate mobile publishing’s potential and digital publishing’s future. With mobile’s consumer time and attention either rising or holding steady across the globe, what apps can do to attract and engage audiences (particularly younger audiences) is worth publishers’ time.

 

Readers Flock To Top US Newsbrands In July

Most of the world’s biggest news website[s] saw strong growth in July in what was a bumper month for news. July saw an assassination attempt against Donald Trump, Joe Biden announcing he would not stand for re-election as US president and the start of the Paris Olympics. The fastest-growing English language news websites in the world were mainly based in the US with Newsweek, ABC News and AP News all up more than 100% year on year. 

 

Who’s There? Retailers Can’t ID Visitors And Prospects

Retailers are letting up to 85% of their potential customers disappear because they can’t identify them, judging by the 2024 Customer Growth Benchmark from Bluecore. Identification is the ability to “recognize an anonymous visitor by email address or phone number and match them to previously collected behavior,” the study notes. But the success rate varies by vertical sector. … The average is 21.1%.

 

Dentsu Creative 2024 CMO Report

Key insights include 79% of respondents agreeing that marketing is a key driver of business transformation, with 83% of CMOs believing that creative ideas can transform businesses and 81% seeing creativity as more important to their business than ever.

Better Results: New Survey Shows Nearly Half Happier With AI-Assisted Search Results

I’ve written quite a bit recently about AI’s place in search, from the competitors running up on Google heels to the takeaways that marketers can learn from the result-outputs themselves.

Against the backdrop of the U.S. Justice Department now reportedly considering breaking up Google because of last week’s antitrust ruling that the company created an online search monopoly, a recent Tinuiti report is showing that, among the 1,000 U.S. adults surveyed, almost half (48%) who’ve seen AI summaries in their Google results say it’s made search results better. On the other end, 15% say the results have gotten worse.

 

New Industry Report That Sees Concrete Growth Opportunities Through AI

This [“State of Commerce Advertising”] report captures the industry’s sentiment and identifies top themes to provide actionable recommendations for the future. … The implementation of generative AI is seen as the second-greatest opportunity for revenue growth in the next six months (by 32.6% of the respondents), only surpassed by increased investment in partnerships (41.9%). The industry index shows that respondents view AI as a growth driver in nearly all areas of Commerce Advertising.

 

Follow The Bounce: Some Of The Worst Bounceback, Click Rates Are In Marketing

Email deliverability rates have jumped and bounce rates have fallen. But some sectors are doing better than others, judging by a new benchmark report from Selzy. Which one is doing the worst? Why, our own industry — marketing. The bounce rate for marketing is 3.21%, compared to an overall average of 1.98%. Tourism & Travel has the second highest rate — at 2.73%. 

 

Generative AI’s Rapid Growth Moderates As Users Assess The Technology’s Potential

Generative AI’s (genAI) user growth rate in 2024 is 28.6%—still strong, but more than 30 times slower than last year’s meteoric rise of nearly 900% from a relatively small base of users. Despite a moderation in adoption, the technology is expected to reach 100 million US users in 2024, or 29.3% of the population. For context, Facebook took four years to reach the 100 million-user milestone.

Programmatic Potential: Retail Leading All Industries In Alternative Programmatic Ad Buys

Just before Google’s recent about-face — not Google’s rollback-of-AI-Overviews about-face, but Google’s keeping-of-cookies about-face following years of promising to kill the third-party tracker — 33Across released its Programmatic Cookie Alternative Trends Report for Q1 2024.

Just because Google changed its mind doesn’t mean publishers should simply throw away all the work they did putting priority on privacy and seeking out cookie alternatives.

 

How Trade Media Fuels Business Growth And Industry Influence

Drawing from a survey of over 150 B2B industry leaders, including C-level executives, managing directors and senior vice presidents, [Broadsheet’s] report demonstrates trade media’s pivotal role in the business environment. Trade media is not just about staying informed — it is a significant factor influencing decision-making, even at the highest levels. 

 

The Cost Of Undelivered Email? Try $59.5B Per Year

Undelivered emails cost U.S. brands a massive $59.5 billion per year, according to a new analysis from Mailtrap. … To come up with these sums, Mailtrap analyzed the relation between recent data on average email deliverability, average daily revenue per sent email and average number of emails sent every day, based on internal and outside studies. 

 

The Engagement Equation: How B2B Tech Marketers Are Captivating Audiences in 2024

Content was once considered just one tool in the marketing toolbox, but now it is taking center stage based on its ability to support lead generation efforts and influence buyer decisions. It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it — and it turns out that the delivery and the platform matter! Spoiler alert: Sticking to one channel, one format or posting just once a month (or even once a week) means you are falling way behind.

Send In The Search Team: Can SearchGPT Dethrone Google Search?

When we first met Google’s AI Overviews, it was recommending some dangerous pizza ingredients as well as striking immediate fear in the hearts of publishers who saw their content further depreciated by an already cluttered and seemingly compromised Search Result page.

The News/Media Alliance quickly expressed its concern in a letter to the Department of Justice and FTC, calling out “Google’s misappropriation of digital publishers’ content to power its generative artificial intelligence (“GAI”) products to enhance its monopoly power.”

With Google facing the initial heat and reportedly reducing the overall presence of AI Overviews in its results, what better time than now for OpenAI and Microsoft to throw their hats into the generative search ring? 

 

2024 Zero-Click Search Study: For Every 1,000 U.S. Google Searches, Only 360 Clicks Go To The Open Web

Zero-click searches are defined as those that end without clicking on any of the results presented. It includes searches that end with the searcher satisfied, frustrated, or changing their search to perform a new one. In the United States, just under 60% of mobile web and desktop searches in Datos’ panel ended this way.

 

SMBs Think AI: They Are More Likely To Adopt The Technology Than Larger Firms

Smaller businesses are leading the way in adopting artificial intelligence (AI), judging by Pipedrive’s State of Sales and Marketing Report 2023/2024. The study shows that 42% of respondents at companies with 10 employees or less are using AI. In contrast, 37% at firms with 11-100 have adopted AI, versus 23% of those at firms with more than 100 employees. 

 

Which Industries Still Rely On Cookies The Most

Food and drink and travel are the most reliant on cookies for US programmatic ad buys, according to Q1 2024 data by 33Across. In both industries, 86% of programmatic ad buys still used the legacy identifiers.

Tough Cookies: Google Is Keeping Cookies, So Now What?

All that planning and spending.

All that worrying and reevaluating.

All of it, and for what? To keep photographers who specialize in capturing laptops and baked goods in business?

Ever since Google first announced in 2020 that they’d be killing off third-party cookies, those tiny bits of data-collecting code that tracked user activity and helped customize Chrome browsing experiences, publishers and advertisers have been preparing for the looming cookieless future. And as the tech company rolled out initiatives like Privacy Sandbox while issuing continuous stays of execution over the years, companies responded by paying attention to — and lots of money for — alternative plans. Keeping up with the potential seismic shifts and the possible salvaging solutions was a full-time focus for publishers, advertisers, tech leaders, industry experts, bloggers, and those (like me) who’ve long been dead-center in the eye of that Venn diagram storm … and on Monday, Google said nevermind. 

 

Google Cookie U-Turn Could Be Another Meteor Heading For Publishers

The future funding of journalism on the open internet remains in question despite news that Google will not kill off third-party cookies on its Chrome web browser after nearly five years of promising otherwise.

 

The SMB Channel Divide: Consumers And Businesses Are Split On Preferences

Consumers and small businesses are at odds over how marketing should be done, judging by The state of small business marketing in 2024, a two-part study by SimpleTexting. Of the consumers polled, 38% prefer receiving marketing communications from SMBs via email, while 34% cite social media as their preferred channel. 

 

Consumer Vision 2035: The Era of the Insight to Foresight Pivot

In the next decade technology will completely envelop our experience of reality. At the same time, constraints created by what’s happening with the environment and the global population will force [us] to re-examine tenets of our culture and how we think about economic growth. In response to these pressures, consumers will increasingly lean on their mood states when making their shopping decisions and expect brands to be able to anticipate their emotional states and offer proactive solutions.