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AI is so deeply entrenched in our everyday lives that it has paradoxically become almost invisible – a recent report by Reddit, GroupM and WPP found that only 1 in 6 consumers can often tell when they’re using AI-enabled tools. At the same time, AI’s rapid rise and widespread integration has sparked apprehension about its potential to disrupt various sectors of the workforce. For publishers, these concerns are particularly acute.

Publishers face the dual challenge of embracing AI’s efficiencies while safeguarding the integrity and quality of human-authored content. The rise of AI-powered search, referrals, and summaries, threaten to draw viewers – and advertisers – away from publisher domains.

The fear is not just about the displacement of journalists, but the erosion of creativity, engagement, and the authenticity that readers expect and that brands invest in. Having already contended with multiple pressures on their monetisation model, including the rise of walled gardens and social media platforms, AI presents a complete fracture.

Nevertheless, publishers can’t turn back the clock – the AI age is here and it’s here to stay. So they find themselves at a crossroads, needing to balance preservation of their core values with a competitive imperative to innovate.

The only way for publishers to truly overcome the challenges being presented by AI is to wield it themselves.

The AI content questions

Of course, the big question is: can AI itself produce quality journalism? If it can, does it matter whether the content belongs to a human or a machine? Right now, that’s a big “if.” We’re still some way off from AI delivering the kind of investigative depth, nuance, and narrative understanding that great journalism demands. In the short term, AI-generated content poses a greater threat than a substitute for human reporting.

Look no further than the proliferation of low-quality, ‘made-for-advertising’ (MFA) sites. These are designed to game search algorithms and drive cheap traffic, with the models behind these sites becoming more capable of mimicking tone, structure, and even editorial voice but ultimately serving terrible user experiences.

On the other hand, AI also has the potential to distinguish between good and bad content. It can analyse whether a page is useful, well laid out, or overwhelmed by intrusive ads.

If AI can make those distinctions and prioritise better experiences in rankings and referrals, it could actually reward publishers who invest in quality over clickbait.

Harnessing AI in ways that deliver results

Indeed, as it applies to attracting viewers and so ad spend, AI presents a transformative tool — understanding the types of creative and content that will resonate most with audiences and drive performance.

This also marks a departure from the linear targeting model publishers have relied on for years, where a user is assigned to a basic segment and monetised accordingly. In contrast, AI unlocks nuance, empowering publishers to make better decisions and build environments where quality journalism propels genuine value for advertisers.

We’re talking about deeper insight into content, context, sentiment, interest, intent, and suitability. These are not abstract ideas; they are actionable data points that advertisers expect, and AI can process at scale, transforming how ads are served and how users experience content. The result? A hyper-relevant experience for users—and higher-yield ad opportunities for publishers.

Advertisers are leaning into this technology to step up relevancy to unprecedented levels but also scale, optimise, and automate ad production. This includes creating ad copy and product descriptions and automatically augmenting images based on performance and granular audience data. Whether it be live product discounts, the weather, or sports scores, tailoring ad content in real-time to heighten relevance and enhance impact. What would take a team of designers and media buyers to orchestrate, AI does in seconds.

A full embrace of the future

Ultimately, this debate expands far beyond the media. It’s not just about whether AI will replace humans. It’s about whether humans who use AI will replace those who don’t.

For publishers, the choice is clear: adapt and learn to harness the technology, or risk falling behind. The opportunity isn’t just to automate—it’s to augment. AI can help editorial teams make smarter decisions, craft better content strategies, and deliver hyper-relevant ad experiences that drive both engagement and revenue.

The tools are here. The challenge is to use them without compromising the values and standards that make journalism worth protecting in the first place.

Thomas Ives, Co-Founder, RAAS LAB

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At the same time, publishers are motivated to drive strong advertising performance across multiple channels, made more critical as referral traffic from social and search continues to decline from 2024. 

While real-time data collaboration and brand identity solutions help maximize ad revenue, a common problem preventing publishers from gaining the 360-degree audience insights key to high-impact campaigns is data fragmentation across growing or ill-matched tech stacks.

Glide Publishing Platform (GPP), a headless CMS and CDP (Customer Data Platform) designed for media, sports, and publishing, has made significant strides in tackling this challenge. 

By balancing the management of existing identity systems with the adoption of new technologies, the Glide Nexa identity, entitlements and first-party data product allows a simpler way of unifying user access and experience across differing platforms, improving efficiency and the possibilities of personalization and engagement.

To learn more about Glide Nexa, GPP’s audience management solution, and their approach to data consolidation, State of Digital Publishing (SODP) spoke with co-founders Denis Haman and Richard Fairbairn. Below is a lightly edited version of the conversation.

What are the main challenges publishers face in technology consolidation?

Denis Haman
CEO
Glide Publishing Platform

How can publishers balance innovation while managing identity and access?

Richard Fairbairn
CPO
Glide Publishing Platform

How should vendors adapt to market conditions, and what led you to take on this challenge?

Richard Fairbairn
CPO
Glide Publishing Platform

Is AI important as a feature or a publishing tool for managing identity and access?

Richard Fairbairn
CPO
Glide Publishing Platform

How does Glide Nexa compare to other IDAM, CDPs and Audience Management Platforms?

Denis Haman
CEO
Glide Publishing Platform

If a publisher hasn’t started a first-party data strategy, where should they begin?

Denis Haman
CEO
Glide Publishing Platform

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This article is based on the summary of key learnings of a presentation by Liam Andrew, Former Chief Product Officer at The Texas Tribune (currently, Technology Lead, Product & AI Studio at American Journalism Project) and Pete Pachal, Founder of The Media Copilot.

The dramatic rise of large language models like ChatGPT and Midjourney has brought AI and automation to the mainstream. Publishers are actively embracing AI tools to increase productivity and cut costs. How is this highly disruptive technology impacting the field of journalism, and what does it mean for the future of journalists?

The Immediate Impact of ChatGPT on Journalism

Liam Andrew

One of the first things they did at Texas Tribune was to develop and publish an AI ethics policy to clarify the limits of what they will do with AI. This is important because most journalists have concerns about the implications of AI for their work and livelihoods. 

“We do get a lot of questions from our members, both small and big donors, about making sure that we are not causing harm to journalism with the work we are trying to do with AI.” 

With the ethics policy as a base, the Texas Tribune is moving forward in multiple directions of AI experimentation in repurposing, analyzing, summarising, and transcribing content. 

Pete Pachal

Most publications including Coindesk tried to go down the content generation path with AI, trying to figure out if the software could actually write articles. But they all quickly came across major limitations, including hallucinations, highly generic content, and lack of necessary specialization. 

“Creating articles with AI is kind of like trying to drive in a NASCAR race with an old Volkswagen Beetle or something – the AI is not really equipped to do that. It can sort of do it, but you need to do a lot of things around that particular application to get anything out of that.”  

At Coindesk, the team looked at other use cases besides writing articles – tasks like copy editing, adapting and reformatting existing content, and assistance in converting interview transcripts to articles. AI also has the potential to suggest headlines and story ideas, and document research. 

Examples of Successful Integration of AI into Journalism

Pete Pachal

In its current state, generative AI can at best produce article content that is earlier than the first draft of a journalistic article. You need a human in the loop. Semafor is a publication that is doing this well right now. 

Semafor Signals is an AI tool that looks out on the web in multiple languages on the topic and creates summaries of news stories. A reporter can then take that, put it together, and clean things up. That looks like the future of reblogging or aggregation.

Liam Andrew

The Texas Tribune hosts over 50 public events every year. They want to give insights from these events to their digital audience without forcing them to watch the entire thing. Currently, the team is experimenting with AI-generated transcripts and summaries of these events, for both one-on-one interviews and larger panel discussions that often involve elected officials. 

Ethical Considerations in LLMs, Like Bias, and Diversity

Pete Pachal

A more immediate practical ethical consideration is the potential impact of AI on the economic and labor ecosystems surrounding content creation. The market for stock imagery is the best example. With a $20 subscription, you can get images from Dall-E faster and cheaper. 

However, these images are created by diffusion models trained on stock imagery. Now these models are poised to replace the very industry that helped create it and disincentivize people from creating further original content. 

Liam Andrew

The Texas Tribune does not create images with AI. They rely on photo teams and contractors to take stock photos. There is a heightened risk of misinformation with AI, either intentional or accidental. 

“We feel pretty strongly that there is no excuse for us as a news organization to be generating pixels or images from scratch.”   

The Possibilities of Using AI Within Journalistic Workflows

The panelists identified the following examples of AI tools embedded into the workflows of journalists and publishers: 

• Reporters using AI as an advanced form of Google Search
• AI tools to generate summaries and first drafts to begin the writing process (for service journalism)
• Training in-house chatbots on media archives for faster archival research/search]
• WordPress plugins to abstract and automate repetitive tasks on websites

The Direction of AI 

Liam Andrew

The importance of tone in journalism cannot be overstated. Media organizations have to project a voice of expertise to inspire trust in the audience. That voice is right now missing in LLMs like ChatGPT because they have the wrong tone. 

While an LLM may improve in this area, they can never truly replace a human in this field. While journalists will continue to use more AI tools, it is important to highlight that it is humans who are powering news organizations. 

Pete Pachal

In the 2010s, you had to be more than just a good journalist or editor. You also needed to be a good content marketer to some extent, to write bespoke content for new platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and SEO for blogs. 

Now AI is slowly but surely taking over some of that. Rather than being a content marketer, journalists need to be better product managers and be more product savvy. Understand the best automation systems and tools you can use in your line of work.  

“In a future AI-mediated ecosystem, what people get from media and news is going to be much more malleable. That would require a new level of cooperation between content and product side of things.”

Watch the full session:

Download the ebook of learnings from WP Publisher Success Week here.

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This article is based on the summary of key learnings of a panel with Susanne Sperling, Founder of Stratech Media, and Radu Tyrsina, CEO of ReflectorMedia.

Publishers have faced some hard questions in 2024 with the changes in the industry and dwindling traffic (and revenues). What are the different ways in which monetization can be optimized in this new market? Our panel discussion with Susanne Sperling and Radu Tyrsina explored divergent experiences about building and upgrading monetization teams, with a special focus on in-house teams vs outsourcing.

The Opportunities and Gaps Currently Facing Publishers

Susanne Sperling

A shortage of skilled professionals is a major issue facing publishers in Denmark and other markets. With adtech evolving so rapidly, many publishers simply cannot catch up despite being good at content creation and strategizing.  

“There are not enough people who are educated in the ad tech space, because this is not something that you can get anywhere. It actually has to be taught – how to do programmatic, what does it mean, how to optimize, and so on.” 

Publishers are forced to hire skilled talent from their competitors most of the time while training a few individuals in-house. 

Radu Tyrsina

The biggest fear since 2023 is that there is no long-term reward for producing quality content.  Independent publishers have to pivot towards new areas of growth and find properties with longevity. Producing traffic for monetization has become more challenging than ever before. 

“Producing decent content alone is not enough, even if you are producing content that is considered decent by your long-time readers. We now feel that this is simply a monopoly where you can no longer control what you are doing. It is one thing to monetize traffic that you have, but it is another thing to struggle to get traffic.“

While there is still room for growth for existing publishers, the market is incredibly challenging for anyone who is planning to start a new business. 

Determining How to Best Setup a Resilient Team

Susanne Sperling

It is hard because you need many different skill sets to succeed in this space. With the ongoing struggles with getting traffic, pageview is a key metric for growth these days. Getting users who are already on your site to visit more pages and view more banners is a good way to boost revenues. 

“It may be a lot harder to get traffic in, but I would mainly focus on finding people who are really good at keeping your audience on your platforms once they are there.”

Radu Tyrsina

Before 2023, ReflectorMedia followed the same standard operating protocol for 10+ years – the content team would create articles, and the monetization team would step in once the articles gained some traction. With the recent HCU update, things have changed. 

“Now we have to sift through the existing personnel and see if they are fit for the new reality.”

For newer projects like forums, the company needs operators who can identify and promote topics that boost engagement. Reflector Media is also adopting a new business model by gaining a minority stake in software companies, to engage in content production and affiliate management on their properties.

To optimize the teams, the company focused on finding mutually beneficial partners, through affiliate networks, sponsored posts etc. Monetization teams were expanded according to the requirements and objectives of partnerships. 

“In our case, we are 100% guerilla, always grinding. It was never an easy business for us. There hasn’t been a single week where things didn’t change, in the last five years. We always change things. Those that remain in our teams are the most versatile employees and managers, the ones that can adapt to the changes that are coming.”

The Ideal Time to Hire New Members/Adjust Existing Teams

Susanne Sperling

“The way of making money has changed so many times over the years. Website, mobile, apps – at  some point I only hired direct salespeople, at other times I only hired programmatic specialists because that was the way it was going.”

Susanne highlights the following questions that can help you decide when and whom to hire: 

• How are you monetizing?
• What areas are you monetizing?
• Are you doing it in-house?
• Is there anything you can do differently to improve things?
• Are there any areas you are not monetizing?

”If programmatic occupies the vast majority of your revenue streams, hire more direct people since there is room for improvement there, and vice versa.” 

It is not easy in this field to quickly replace employees who leave on short notice. It is always a good idea to have at least one person extra who is well-trained and capable of filling in when people leave.

Radu Tyrsina

Once ReflectorMedia pivoted to its new business model, the company had to hire people to fill new roles and new monetization teams. To handle new models like affiliate and direct deals, they created new roles like a Chief Monetization Officer (CMO) and new monetization teams.  

“We created roles that were clearly defined, and they were defined in such a way that as soon as we were planning to buy a new property, we would basically start monetizing before publishing new content.” 

With this approach, the company created separate roles and structures for content creation and monetization, with separate managers and SOPs for each. 

“While we were creating content everything was very clear. Hire more people to produce more content etc. But once it stopped growing, and we had to partner with software companies, we had to learn how affiliate management works. So we had to create new roles and operate as a SaaS. We defined roles that were adhering to the (new) SOPs.” 

Download the ebook of learnings from Monetization Week here.

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This article is based on the summary of key learnings of a fireside chat with Stephanie Solomon, Chief Revenue Officer at Foreign Affairs Magazine.

Foreign Affairs Magazine is a 100-year-old publication launched in 1922 by the Council of Foreign Relations, a prominent think-tank based in New York City. The magazine acts as the public arm of the think-tank, publishing a wide range of articles by leading thinkers and experts in the field of international relations. 

The USP of Foreign Affairs Magazine is its ability to provide a window into the thinking of the best minds in the field in a very accessible way. The magazine publishes long-form articles that can be up to 10,000 words in length. They have the following products: 

• A print magazine published 6 times per year
• A website that provides access to published articles, archives, and daily analysis
• An app for podcasts, audio articles, and other content

A small but powerful audience

Foreign Affairs Magazine is a relatively small magazine brand with a circulation of around 225,000. The audience is split evenly between US-based readers and international visitors.  Instead of doing billboards and other mass branding strategies, their customer acquisition is focused on two strategies:

• By reaching the right people who share the articles
• By getting larger platforms to cite their articles

The thought leadership approach is sustainable for the magazine because of its unique brand appeal. The subscriber base includes a lot of Congress members, world leaders, and other policymakers. Consequently, there is no shortage of high-quality contributors who want to get their articles published in the magazine. 

Content Strategy

Foreign Affairs is a small team that doesn’t have the resources to maintain huge video teams and teams that develop product extensions. In such situations, the best option is to focus on the following things: 

• Put all your resources into producing the best content possible
• Make sure that the experience of accessing that content on platforms is of the highest quality
• Building a direct connection with the audience (through apps, newsletters, etc)

The important thing is to build a direct connection with your audience, instead of relying on third-party platforms. Foreign Affairs started moving its content away from third-party platforms a long time ago. They actively invested in the development and refining of a mobile app. 

“I am glad we did that,” explains Stephanie, “because, at this moment, three out of our top-four traffic channels are ones that we own. And that’s valuable in this day, looking at how rapidly the landscape is changing for search, and how social media has shunned news.”

Directly connecting with your audience through in-house channels like mobile apps, newsletters, magazines, and websites is more stable and long-lasting than trying to build connections with distributed audiences on third-party platforms. 

For publishers dealing with long-form articles, audio is a very useful option. The Economist started the trend in 2012 as a retention tool to catch people who did not have the time to read long articles. Many Foreign Affairs readers use the audio feature, particularly on the mobile app.

Retention vs Acquisition

“I like to start with retention,” explains Stephanie. “Because if you start by getting your retention tools tight, it makes it easier to acquire subscribers.” 

Streaming giants like Netflix and Disney+ built up a huge list of subscribers without thinking about how they keep those customers. They are now hemorrhaging subscribers without any mechanism to stifle that or figure out why they are leaving. 

At Foreign Affairs, it took Stephanie one year in the beginning to get the basics of retention set up the right way. And it is worth taking that effort as acquisition is so much more expensive than retention. This way, when you start acquiring new subscribers, you are actually growing, instead of replacing the ones who are leaving. 

Acquiring customers is way more expensive than retaining the ones you already have. Focusing solely on acquisition without addressing issues with retention is like trying to build something on quicksand.  

Engagement and Retention Metrics

Retention is the key metric – the number of subscribers who stick around on an annual basis is the North Star metric for a subscription business. The other important engagement metrics worth chasing include: 

• How people are interacting with your articles? 
• How many audio files are people listening to, and for how long?
• How are people logging into the app or website? 
• When was the last time they logged in? 

Subscribers who have not logged in for two months are probably at a high risk of churn. The important thing is to discern various patterns of behavior that can indicate whether people are more likely to churn. And then create re-engagement strategies based on those indicators to prevent churn.

“Retention to me is a very deep and very long tunnel, and a lot of your acquisition problems can be fixed if you bring back existing customers in an effective way.” 

Watch the full session:

Download the ebook of learnings from WP Publisher Success Week here.

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This article is based on the summary of key learnings of a panel discussion with Mili Semlani, Head of Content and Community at e27, and Binoy Prabhakar, Chief Content Officer, Hindustan Times Digital.

Digital Transformation in Newsrooms

The news industry is one of the slowest to embrace change, and rightfully so. Newsrooms have a lot of responsibility and must be cautious about how new tools impact them.

To effectively integrate new tools into editorial processes, publishers should:

• Make learning a dedicated part of newsroom culture. That means allocating time consistently to new tools and technologies. Some make it a part of their KPIs. Not every tool needs to or should be integrated. However, it is important for newsrooms not to become insular and keep tabs on the tech ecosystem around them.

• Minimize risks by starting small. To ensure technologies function as intended, publishers should start by applying them to lighter processes, where the output of technologies can be manually verified.
• Determine which business areas will benefit the most. Publishers should be selective about which tool they apply for which unit. For example, AI content creation tools can be a good fit for “dry” business news – e.g., live blogs related to the stock market. For other types of content pieces, it’s better to limit the assistance of AI content tools to creating summaries, helping determine headlines, etc.

Rolling Out AI Tools

Typically, the roll-out of AI tools is driven by product, technology, and data science teams. However, it is important to establish a close collaboration with editorial teams when integrating AI tools into the operations of a newsroom.

The end goal of integrating AI tools should be to improve the lives of the editorial staff and the newsroom, which, in turn, should translate into benefits for the audience. Therefore, when selecting which tools to add to the tech stack, teams in charge of the roll-out should be highly selective and make sure that the tools meet actual needs and are not implemented for the sake of implementing them or because others are using them.

Every new tool should be monitored and the results should be assessed regularly to determine whether it should remain a part of the tech stack.

Content Commoditization in the Age of AI

AI is democratizing content creation and research, inevitably leading to more content commoditization. However, we are still in the early stage of AI. AI tools are not sophisticated enough yet to replace the individual voices and opinions of writers and content creators (e.g., there are independent journalists and individual journalists within newsrooms who have strong voices and a large following because of their unique voice on social media platforms via newsletters, etc.).

Publishers that want to minimize the risk of content commoditization should encourage and empower journalists to develop their individual voices. AI should be used to make processes easier, not to replace the unique voice of journalists.

Changing News Ecosystem

Diminishing engagement with news has been happening worldwide for a while now. That, combined with the new technologies, is forcing publishers to rethink the entire ecosystem of their business and how to engage their audiences:

• The news side is often supplemented with products and services to engage with readers outside news pieces and secure revenue.
• There is a larger focus on communities. Technology has made it possible for readers to engage not only with a publisher via a comments section but also with each other.
• Publishers are increasingly trying to provide readers with a larger context of a content piece instead of just presenting an article in isolation.

Watch the full session:

Download the ebook of learnings from PubTech2023 here.

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‘The 2024 Gen AI x Comms Industry Impact Report’ charts media and communications professionals’ fast-evolving relationship with generative AI (Gen AI) in their work.

This year’s 41-page report produced by Media Collateral in partnership with State of Digital Publishing (SODP) documents an industry in a state of flux, with adoption, use cases, fears, hopes and frustrations rapidly evolving since the inaugural report in December 2023.

Snapshot Findings

• SEO Disruption: 76% of respondents believe Gen AI will significantly disrupt or even make SEO obsolete, highlighting the need for adaptation in the digital landscape.
• Increased Adoption and Deeper Integration: Gen AI adoption has risen to 80% in 2024, with a significant shift towards full integration into daily tasks (from 18% in 2023 to 24% in 2024). 
• Future of Work Optimism: Fears of job losses have subsided. 22% of respondents now believe Gen AI will create more job opportunities, a 12% increase from 2023.
• Shifting Sentiments: Marketers’ initial enthusiasm has tempered, with many scaling back from deep integration and returning to the experimentation phase. In contrast, journalists show signs of overcoming initial resistance to Gen AI, with a significant increase in the exploration phase (from 15% to 33%).
• Evolving Use Cases: Content generation remains the primary use case, but there’s a notable surge in using Gen AI for video and design creation, as well as more tactical applications, such as audience sentiment analysis and predictive content targeting.
• Persistent Challenges: Fear of inaccuracies (72%) and ethical concerns (50%) remain top challenges, underscoring the need for responsible AI governance and transparency.

Authors’ Insights

Andrew Thompson, Lead Author, Manager and Editorial & Research, Media Collateral said the latest study provides an important snapshot of the impact of Gen AI on the industry, while providing the opportunity to benchmark sentiments and document the evolving nature of the shift. “While usage has increased, we can see that some of the immediate hype—both hopes and fears—has settled as the tech’s practicalities and limitations become clearer. However, it’s evident the industry is bracing for substantial evolutions that will further alter the landscape. Some are expected to democratise and enhance human connection, while others threaten to cause misinformation and division.”

Vahe Arabian, Co-Author and Founder & Director, SODP said media and communications professionals must stay proactive, focusing on integrating market-oriented information to navigate shifts. “We hope the Gen AI x Comms Impact Report provides a valuable resource in this regard. By offering practical examples and benchmarks, we aim to help professionals apply Gen AI tools effectively to maximise the potential of these technologies.”

Industry Contributors

This report includes qualitative insights from a diverse range of APAC media and communications professionals, providing unique perspectives and actionable insights.

• Binoy Prabhakar – Chief Content Officer, Hindustan Times Digital
• Scott Purcell – Co-founder, Man of Many
• Dr Lisa Dethridge – Senior Research Fellow, RMIT University & Media & Technology Academic
• Jaemark Tordecilla – Nieman ’24 Fellow, Harvard University
• Rachel Chitra – Journalism Consultant, TrueInfo Labs
• Karen Rebelo – Deputy Editor, BOOM Live
• Alicia Kokocinski – General Manager – Marketing & Communications, Equity Trustees
• Josh Mann – Senior Art Director, Consultant
• Shreya Kapdi – Founder, SAVAI

Survey Overview

Conducted from April to July 2024, the digital survey received 301 respondents across Asia Pacific, consisting of journalists, marketers, PR practitioners, content creators, and advertisers.

Access the Report and Q&A Industry Webinar

Download the full report and find details of the upcoming Q&A webinar here.

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This article is based on the summary of key learnings of a presentation by Aslam Multani, Co-Founder and CTO at Multidots, and John Levitt, formerly General Manager of Parse.ly – acquired by Automattic.

WordPress has one of the biggest libraries of plugins and add-ons. However, using too many of these can cause a website to bloat, eventually impacting performance.

The solution is for publishers to take a minimalist approach to building their tech stack, such that they can effectively track performance without impacting performance.

To do this, they need to focus on the following areas:

• Performance
• Usability
• Security
• Extendability

Building a Tech Stack

Plan from the Beginning

Publishers need to keep in mind the following pointers at the planning stage:

Needs assessment: Be clear about the problem you are looking to solve, and the outcomes you expect when expanding your tech stack.

Keep in mind that adding new plugins or integrations can also have unexpected unintended consequences and benefits. For instance, a monetization solution can impact editorial workflows and/or end user experience in both positive and negative ways. Be as clear about these potential impacts as possible to avoid surprises later on.

Collecting baseline data: Baselines are important for measuring progress. Baseline data includes metrics such as active engagement time, search traffic, recirculation rate, conversion rate, etc. Start collecting baseline data from the planning stage itself rather than waiting till the launch or integration of the proposed change to the website. This helps with getting a clearer picture of the before and after situations.

Research: This includes taking in the opinions of all the related stakeholders involved – end users, readers, customers, etc. The advantage here is that it highlights the areas on which the proposed project will have an impact.

Set goals and outcomes: Set measurable goals before the start of the project. While doing this, it is vital to understand that not all outcomes will move up or increase in a desired direction. For instance, a change implemented to improve page speed may have no change on newsletter signups. It is still important to set down this “no change” goal at the outset to ensure that even if newsletter signups are not increasing, they’re not being negatively impacted either.

Tools and Execution

Three things publishers need to focus on:

Evaluate current tools: Talk to your partners and team members to assess the current state of tools you’re using. Software gets updated fast, and it is easy to miss an update that could do the job but which you aren’t aware of.

Create a plan: Create a plan on how to achieve your goals. Set timelines and assign tasks to relevant stakeholders.

Execute, measure, iterate: Remember that the task is not done once the project is launched. You need to continuously evaluate the impact of what you’ve achieved, then iterate till the desired outcome is achieved.

Editorial Workflow

Highly technical projects have impacts across the organization and it is important to be mindful of this. For content-based websites, editorial is at the heart of the publishing process, and is often the department with the least familiarity with tech. For this reason, ease the transition for those departments and users who may not have much exposure to the new tech. This can be done using the following means:

• Provide context for the new changes that have been implemented along with the expected outcomes.
• Provide continuous training.
• Implement new solutions to tech stacks that users are already familiar with to avoid abrupt transitions.

Tips on Choosing Wisely

We’ve had a top-level view on how to build a strategic plan for implementing changes to your WordPress tech stack.

We now get down to looking at the nuts and bolts of things in a little detail.

Themes

Make a decision on whether you’d require a custom theme or a ready-made theme.

Page Builders

Take the following features into consideration:

Theme compatibility: Since WordPress is open-source, many different developers have contributed to its library of themes and page builders. This means that not all page builders are compatible with all WordPress themes.

Community support: Good page builders have thriving support communities where other users and developers help troubleshoot the most common issues.

User interface: The page builder should have an intuitive, easy-to-use interface.

Plugins

Validate authenticity: Make sure all plugins you download are authentic and do not contain any malicious code. There are a couple of ways to do this. The WordPress Authenticity Checker is a plugin that does it automatically. Other options such as Jetpack Protect and WPScan can scan an entire website including plugins and themes to detect vulnerabilities.

Those with coding knowledge or with a coding team at their disposal can implement it manually.

Minimum plugins: As a general rule, keep plugins to a minimum to avoid bloating your website. Further pay attention to the following factors:

• How old is the plugin? Outdated plugins can negatively affect a website’s performance.
• How many reviews and active installs does a plugin have? The more reviews and active installs, the more it is trusted by its users.
• Who are the developers? If you see a developer you’ve never heard of listed under a plugin, it would be good to do a quick Google search to make sure of their credentials.
• How often is the plugin updated? Needless to say, the more frequently a plugin is updated, the better it will perform.

Content Architecture

Content architecture refers to the way content is structured on a website. Good content architecture allows content to be easily discoverable and shareable across platforms and devices on the internet.

Here are some content architecture best practices and plugins that can be used for them.

• Use of WordPress multisite: WordPress multisite allows users to manage multiple sites that share the same theme, plugins, and installation files. This is beneficial for businesses who run multiple websites as all websites can be managed and updated from a single dashboard. Examples of multisite plugins include User Switching and InfiniteWP.
• Custom post types: Post types are identifiers that WordPress uses to classify content. It has certain in-built post types such as Posts, Pages, Attachments, Revisions, Navigation Menu, Custom CSS and Changesets. Users who find these inadequate can create their own custom post types using plugins such as Custom Post Type UI.
• Taxonomies: Taxonomies are ways of grouping WordPress posts together. Taxonomies can be hierarchical or non-hierarchical. An example of the former is a table of contents, while an example of the latter are tags. A plugin for easily adding taxonomies is Simple Taxonomy Refreshed.

To the extent possible, it is advisable to go with native plugins that operate from a website’s own server and are not dependent on third-party services.

Hosting Platform

When choosing a good hosting platform, keep the following in mind:

• The platform should be enterprise ready
• Managed WordPress is better in the long term as it provides greater security and better uptime.
• Make sure the hosting platform offers SSL/HTTPS for enhanced security along with guaranteed uptime of 99.9%.
• CDNs or content delivery networks are a group of servers that complement a good hosting platform that enable additional servers to deliver a website’s content faster to its users. Cloudflare and Sucuri are among the most commonly used CDN services among WordPress users.

Hiring Engineers

If you envisage the proposed tech integration to be too complex to handle in-house, you might want to consider bringing on external help.

A few things to consider when you hire engineers to implement changes to your tech stack:

• Do they have relevant experience and subject knowledge with the specific plugin, theme or page builder?
• Are they familiar with WordPress Coding Standards?

Download the ebook of learnings from WPPS here.

The post Building a Tech Stack as a WordPress-Based Digital Publisher: Tips and Best Practices appeared first on State of Digital Publishing.

This article is based on the summary of key learnings of a presentation by Radu Cotarcea, Managing Editor of CEE Legal Matters.

CEE Legal Matters (CEELM) is a print/online B2B publication that caters to the legal industry in Central and Eastern Europe. They publish news, analysis, and opinions that are of interest to lawyers. They also host offline events including conferences and round tables. Radu Cotarcea has been working in this industry for 10+ years.

Working as a publisher in the legal industry is particularly challenging in terms of monetization for CEELM due to the following:

• Their market is spread across 24 different legal jurisdictions
• The industry is very conservative and has limited marketing expertise
• Numerous regulations prevent lawyers from effectively advertising their services

Despite being an authority publisher with excellent online engagement and traction, monetization remains a challenge. This is why the publication started focusing on offline corporate events for the legal industry as an alternative route to monetization.

The Role of Subscriber Segmentation

Segmentation is critical for success in B2B niches like corporate legal services.

The target here is to identify the sellers and buyers. If you can fill the room with enough buyers, the sellers will follow, making your event a success.

In CEELM’s case, they identified the two main categories of subscriber base:

• In-house readers– subscribers who are lawyers working in large organizations and Fortune-500 companies (the “buy side”.
• Law firm readers – subscribers who work in dedicated law firms and other legal service providers (the “sell side”).

The segmentation allowed CEELM to effectively control the composition of attendees at their General Counsel Summit, through the following tweaks:

• Buy-side subscribers can attend the events for free
• No registration for the sell side, have to sign up as a partner

Nurturing a Community Through Events

Community building is also crucial for the long-term success of offline events and summits. To sustain audience interest and participation, CEELM adopted the following tactics:

• Hosting events in various cities based on audience surveys
• Publishing audience contributions on the platform
• Hosting award galas and other networking opportunities

Leveraging Event Content to Build Brand and Community

Due to industry regulations, CEELM is limited in its ability to record and publish content from summits. To overcome this, they rely on a team of staff writers to take notes and report on all the content being shared at the events. The reports are used to generate articles on the CEELM platform.

This process also allows CEELM to stay in touch with attendees, ask for quotes to be published in the articles, and so on. These articles can strengthen the brand and provide continued visibility and marketing opportunities for future events.

As Radu explained: “These micro-interactions allow us to constantly stay in touch with our audience and stay on top of their minds. So that when we invite them again 12 months later, they will not just remember us, but will be willing to travel to a whole new country for the sake of it.”

Watch the full session: 

Download the ebook of learnings from Monetization Week here.

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This article is based on the summary of key learnings of a presentation by Angelo Paura, Global Editorial Director at Blasting News.

Founded in 2013, Blasting News is both a tech company and publishing platform with a focus on social journalism. Originally based in Europe, Blasting News has expanded its operations to five main markets – the United States, the UK, Brazil, Italy, Spain, and France. 

Currently, it publishes around 16,000 news articles and videos each month, providing news to around 30 million monthly readers. This content is created by a network of 2,000 freelance writers and editors.

As a meritocratic organization, Blasting News shares ad money revenue with its independent contributors. In the last 10 years, they have distributed €39 million to contributors who are called “blasters.” 

“Our journalistic ethos is inspired by Jeff Jarvis’s insights which emphasize that journalism revolves around communities and is more of a service than a product. We are a community, what we want to do is create a service for the (wider) community. This idea is at the very core of our work,” explained Angelo Paura, Global Editorial Director at Blasting News.

As of 2024, Blasting News is also a member of the International Fact Checking Network (IFCN) and Eunomia as part of a stance against misinformation. The platform follows The Trust Project quality standards and has a perfect (100/100) NewsGuard score on transparency and credibility.

The Editorial System

Blasting News uses both human curation and algorithms in its editorial process to create original content, spot misinformation, and conduct performance tracking. The editorial system has the following components for a smooth workflow:

• A team of 100 freelance editors
• 10 content managers inside the newsroom
• A proprietary CMS
• Multiple algorithms used before and after publication
• 100+ documents and a comprehensive set of rules

The Workflow Process

As Angelo explained: “We try to publish an article in 30 minutes for more than 90% of articles, with a maximum cap of 3 hours. We don’t want to have articles lying unattended on our platform, without anyone to control or edit them for more than 3 hours.”

To ensure maximum efficiency and content quality across, Blasting News relies on strict adherence to the following process:

• Using Blasting News’ proprietary algorithm, their community managers daily review and distribute a series of topics and ideas to our authors.
• The writers – or “blasters” – craft articles using the internal text editor of the platform. Blasting News requires reliable and fresh sources, not older than three days.
• Each article undergoes automatic SEO standard checks.
• The blaster submits the article for editing, where it appears in a list reviewed by the editors for the first edit. Editors have two options:
  1. They can send it back to the blaster with a comment for revisions.
  2. They can approve the article and forward it to the content manager of the respective country.
• If the article is sent back, the blaster can make corrections and resubmit it. After the third submission, the editor can only choose to publish or discard the article.
• Once approved, the article undergoes a final check in the control room by content managers – integral members of Blasting News’ internal newsroom. Only after this final check is completed does the article get published on the site and social media platforms.

Following the completion of the editorial process, another significant aspect of the workflow comes into play: Blasting News’ internal platform called BX. Here, the micro influencers, also known as social blasters, have the opportunity to decide whether they want to share the article and on which platforms. If they choose to share the articles on social media, they are eligible to share potential revenues with the author.

For additional quality control, after this entire process, Blasting News implements a randomized check to identify any errors that may have been overlooked. “We have a rigorous corrections policy in place to address any issues that arise promptly and efficiently,” explained Angelo.

Watch the full session:

Download the ebook of learnings from WP Publisher Success Week here.

The post How Blasting News Approached Optimizing Workflow Processes appeared first on State of Digital Publishing.

This article is based on the summary of key learnings of a presentation by Matt Lawson, Publisher Success Manager at Ezoic.

Being a publisher has become more and more involved over the years. Between CMP, SSL, Site Speed tools, ad inserters, specific ad types, SEO strategies and more, publishers must rely on more third-party technologies to get the job done. This can be costly and result in an ever-growing CSS and JS code surplus on sites across the industry. 

Can the rise of AI reduce this third-party reliance, slowing sites to a crawl and allowing publishers more time to focus on content?

The Rise of Plugins

There are currently 55,000 WordPress plugins available to install. This goes to show just how massive the plugin industry is. The industry experienced such successful growth because it offers a user-friendly way to customize and extend the capabilities of websites.

However, this dependency on plugins can also be costly – especially for smaller publishers. Plugins tend to come with additional software, premium subscriptions, and monthly fees. With an average monthly price at $20-$30 and a website using, say, 15 plugins, the publisher ends up paying over $5,000 in yearly fees. That’s before domain, hosting, SSL, and email service fees.

This can cause smaller publishers that are teetering on the edge of profitability to no longer be able to stay in this game because they’re completely priced out by the very tools that they rely on to have a functioning site. It might also not be a choice. These themes can be costly and make it very difficult to switch out of.

That’s compounding the problem we’re facing with these plugins: publishers find all-in-one solutions too expensive, but going with individual solutions with multiple plugins also adds up over time.

AI vs Plugins

Content Creation

Manual workloads are something that AI is really useful for and good at. Tools like ChatGPT can assist in brainstorming and content creation. Ezoic offers a solution called Wordsmith – a free AI tool that helps create not just content but articles – that means it includes headings, sub-headings, focuses, different styles, etc.

Website Builders

Passing Core Web Vitals (CWVs) is incredibly important for publishers, especially for small publishers and solo webmasters trying to get their site off the ground. Passing CWVs will improve search engine ranking and organic traffic. Very often, it’s the page builders that prevent publishers from passing CWVs. While they enhance the aesthetics, they do so using extra Javascript and CSS code inserted in the page. 

Similarly, contact forms can load additional code and negatively impact CWVs. This dilemma between creating a nice-looking website and not wanting to compromise the organic traffic prompted many publishers to look into simpler setups.

Ad Implementation 

Monetization can seem overwhelming for small publishers. Monetization plugins offer an easy way to integrate advertising monetization channels. Unfortunately, over time, we’ve started to see that a lot of these monetization plugins that are the easiest to access also end up being the ones that do not stick to Google’s guidelines, which can result in unregulated ad quality and high ad density. Removing a strike against a site on Google Ad Manager is extremely difficult, which makes using plugins for ad monetization highly risky.

In addition to potentially being unsafe, plugins are oftentimes static – they do not adapt well to different visitors. 

One alternative is having direct ad orders – negotiating directly with advertisers. 

AI offers an opportunity to personalize every visitor’s ad experience – the number of ads, the size, the format, etc.  This can have a huge impact on publishers’ ad revenue. It balances plugin-based and direct ad orders-based advertising (speed vs. quality).

Can AI Replace Every Plugin? 

Not yet, but AI is starting to give plugins a run for their money. AI has already made some social media plugins obsolete, for example. AI-driven SEO tools display a significant advantage over generic SEO tools – they eliminate the need to mind data to discover what’s relevant to a publisher’s content.

However, AI can’t do everything yet – e.g., firewalls or antibot systems will always need a human touch. Performance optimization plugins can have an AI assistant to say which changes may be needed on a site, but they cannot deliver performance optimization independently.

Therefore, publishers need to use AI to find a balance – identify which plugins are negatively impacting a site’s performance and monetization without eliminating all plugins (which, oftentimes, can be impossible – especially for small publishers).

Watch the full session:

Download the ebook of learnings from PubTech2023 here.

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