In May 2024, State of Digital Publishing (SODP) hosted Monetization Week – an online event for digital publishing and news media professionals.
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.
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“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.
