The Weekly Bulletin | November 11, 2025

Hi SODP community,

Let's recap on what's been happening, the new content, industry updates, tips, and more.

.TIP OF THE WEEK.

Scale without identity doesn't drive loyalty—or revenue

For years, digital publishing focused on reach and traffic. But scale without identity doesn't drive loyalty — or revenue.

The advantage now is owning and un-duplicating your audience data across your website, newsletters, apps, and subscription touchpoints.

Not "more data." Connected, behavioural data that shows who your readers are, what they value, and why they return.

When editorial, product, audience and commercial teams work from the same user view, publishers can:

✅ Personalise content and journeys
✅ Strengthen habit + reader loyalty
✅ Improve subscription/membership conversion
✅ Build more predictable revenue

The KPI is shifting from: Traffic → Known, Engaged Users.

The path to achieving this is a journey of Audience Data Maturity.

Audience Data Maturity Model

Where does your organisation sit?

1) Fragmented
Mostly anonymous traffic. Data sits in different systems.
→ Start capturing identity consistently (newsletter, reg walls, login).

2) Partially Identified
Some known users, but limited behavioural insight.
→ Introduce identity resolution + standardised event tracking.

3) Unified User Profiles
One user record per reader + meaningful behavioural signals.
→ Use insights to drive editorial and product decisions.

4) Personalised Experiences
Content and offers adapt based on behaviour + lifecycle.
→ Automate journeys and habit loops.

5) Predictive + Proactive
Churn and conversion signals are identified in advance.
→ Scale into memberships, community, and differentiated value.

Most publishers today sit between Stage 1 and Stage 3.

The competitive edge is moving toward Stage 4, where audience data actually shapes the experience, not just reporting dashboards.

.SODP EVENTS.

California Dinner: The Audience & Revenue Innovation Series

November 13, 2025 | 6 PM | Santa Monica, CA

An intimate, off-the-record dinner for senior media publishing leaders and executives to discuss what's actually working in audience monetization and growth right now.

This isn't a presentation—it's facilitated group conversations where you'll:

• Share your single biggest challenge with peers facing similar issues

• Participate in strategic discussions with executive-level professionals

• Walk away with a blueprint not available publicly

• Continue conversations in a supportive WhatsApp group

Location: Rustic Canyon Restaurant, 1119 Wilshire Blvd, Santa Monica

The dinner is designed to be high-trust, collaborative, and off-the-record. Includes dinner, drinks, and post-evening strategic discussions.

RESERVE YOUR SEAT

PubTech 2025: Smarter Workflows, Safer Platforms, Stronger Connections

November 17-18, 2025 | Virtual + London In-Person Dinner | Free Registration

Join 300+ digital publishing professionals for the 3rd annual PubTech virtual event. As AI moves from experimentation to embedded infrastructure, and search engines roll out generative answers that threaten traditional discovery, publishers need practical strategies for 2026.

Virtual Sessions:

• Day 1 (Nov 17, 4-5 PM CET / 10-11 AM ET): Next-Gen PubTech trends for 2026 + Designing future publishing stacks

• Day 2 (Nov 18, 4 PM CET / 10 AM ET): Privacy, identity & intelligent frameworks—trust as platform advantage

In-Person:

• PubTech Dinner London (Nov 17, 6:30 PM): Exclusive off-the-record dinner for senior product, engineering, and technology leaders. Guest speaker Mel McVeigh (former Condé Nast) on uniting product and design disciplines. Location: Cornus Restaurant, London. Partner: Multidots.

Featured speakers: Anabelle Nicoud (IBM AI News & Editorial Strategy), Eric Ulken (Stanford University, former VP Product at The Baltimore Banner), Chao Liao (Permutive), Justin Wohl (Aditude).

Past attendees: The Guardian, Financial Times, The Economist, Indian Express, New York Post.

REGISTER FOR PUBTECH 2025

.NEWS OF THE WEEK.

➡️ Print consolidation accelerates as publishers share facilities to cut costs. The Globe and Mail outsourced all five print sites, while Erritsø Tryk (Denmark) closed two plants and removed 10 press towers. Rodi Group (Netherlands) delivers 1.5 million newspapers weekly but faces declining copy counts and rising costs. Commercial printing has nearly disappeared in Denmark, while Rodi experiments with format changes to attract business. Industry executives predict shared printing will become necessary: "It makes sense to treat news production as a service rather than competition." Most Canadian newspapers already use shared facilities. Print expected to continue 5-10 years.

READ MORE

➡️ Meta projected $16 billion in 2024 revenue from scam ads, leaked documents reveal. Reuters obtained internal projections showing roughly 10% of Meta's yearly revenue comes from fraudulent e-commerce, illegal casinos, and banned medical products. A December 2024 document indicated Meta showed users 15 billion scam ads daily. "High Value Accounts" accumulated over 500 policy strikes without shutdown. Meta's ad-personalization system showed more scam ads to users who clicked initial ones. Meta called the projection "rough and overly-inclusive," noting user reports declined 50% over 15 months. Meta reported $138 billion in ad revenue so far this year.

READ MORE

➡️ Alliance for Audited Media proposes eight-pillar ethical AI framework. Only one-third of publishers have adopted formal AI governance tools per IAB study. The framework covers: ethical policies (AP's generative AI guidelines), transparency (Bay City News publicly shares AI use), rights and permissions (NYT prevents copyrighted material in AI tools), human oversight (USA TODAY's journalist-reviewed summaries), bias mitigation (Financial Times fairness checklists), privacy protection (Graham Media GDPR/CCPA compliance), training (Radio-Canada's AI literacy program), and governance (Gannett's AI council). Framework emphasizes responsible AI as foundation supporting innovation.

READ MORE

➡️ Publishers report 30%+ traffic declines. At AdMonsters' Sell Side Summit, publishers shared that search traffic is gone and won't return—organic click-throughs fell 61% for queries with Google AI Overviews, paid clicks dropped 68%. People Inc.'s Patrick McCarthy: "Web pages are going to die." Sports publisher On3 impressed by keeping audience growth flat year-over-year. Yet publishers see opportunity: Arena Group used AI platform Encore to segment audiences into "engagement buckets," achieving profitability after six consecutive quarters of decline. Strategy varies by user frequency: first-time visitors get content recommendations, twice-yearly visitors see higher ad density, 4+ monthly visitors funnel to subscriptions. Mediavine's Amanda Martin: publishers must "squeeze the middle" with more direct deals and extract CPM for their data.

READ MORE

➡️ Reddit's 177.6% stock surge proves forums create content "no algorithm can copy." Semrush found Reddit appeared in over 40% of LLM responses—the top cited source. The supply-demand crisis: LLMs need long-tail answers, but brands focused only on competitive head terms. User-generated content matches search intent, stays current, builds semantic depth, and provides authentic discussion AI can't replicate. Open-source options like Flarum, Discourse, Apache Answer enable brands to own conversations for under $100. Success requires: zero tolerance for spam, detailed titles, seeded topics from search data, clear guidelines, empowered regulars. Forums reduce support costs while creating owned, citation-worthy content.

READ MORE

.JOB BOARD.

➡️ Gizmodo needs a temporary editor-in-chief (3-month contract, parental leave cover). Lead editorial direction for one of the most recognizable tech and science publications during a key transition period. Opportunity to shape coverage strategy and work with established editorial team. (Remote).

SEE MORE

➡️ National Geographic (Washington, D.C.) needs a senior editor ($95,500-$128k/year). Work on health coverage, credible wellness trends, and odd history pieces for one of the world's most prestigious publications. Requires editorial experience in science or health journalism. (Washington, D.C.).

SEE MORE

➡️ The New York Times needs multiple interns across advertising, design, opinion video/photo, and audio ($20/hour, 10 weeks, 35 hours/week). Opportunities include advertising audience & insights, B2B marketing, business operations, monetization, sales planning, design, opinion video fellow ($82,414/year), and opinion photo fellow ($82,414/year). Experience working across NYT's diverse departments. (New York).

SEE MORE

.SOCIAL MEDIA.

➡️ Scott Purcell on LinkedIn:

"Google has quietly launched a new experiment in Labs called Pomelli, an AI tool designed to help SMBs generate scalable, on-brand social media campaigns. When testing it out for Man of Many, it was surprisingly capable at copywriting that reflected our brand ethos, but I think this is because we've done a great job of communicating our core message across our key surfaces, such as our About Us page, social media, and important channels."

The strategic implication: "Whether you choose to use these tools or not for final content or output, it is time to audit your own brand platforms. Does AI currently 'understand' your brand messaging the way you want it to? If not, you might have a lot of work to do to get the right message out there."

This connects to the week's Tip on audience data maturity and identity: just as publishers need unified user profiles across touchpoints, they also need consistent brand messaging across surfaces so AI systems can accurately represent them. If Pomelli (or ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude) can't coherently synthesize your brand from your About page, social presence, and content, neither can potential readers or subscribers.

CONTINUE READING

These are the highlights for the last week.

Until next!

Vahe Arabian and the editorial team at SODP