Digital publishing is on the cusp of a seismic shift. New content platforms-streaming services, social media, podcasts, and short-form video apps-are changing the paradigm of how people consume content, placing publishers at an inflection point.

The pressure to innovate and adapt has never been more acute, as the rise of AI, increasing concerns over ad personalization, and the relentless demand by advertisers for targeted, high-performing ad placements add layers of complexity.

At the fifth edition of afaqs! DigiNews, earlier Digipub World, industry leaders congregated to discuss the future of monetisation in this fast-changing ecosystem.

The session, New Age Monetization: What Lies Ahead – Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities featured a panel consisting of some of the renowned digital media experts such as Idris Loya, CEO and Head of Innovation and Technology at IDPL; Sanjay Sindhwani, CEO, Indian Express Online Media; Puneet Singhvi, CEO – Digital & President Corporate Strategy, Network18 Media & Investments; and Samarth Sharma, COO, Asianet News Media and Entertainment. The discussion was moderated by Pankaj Sharma, CEO and director of MGID India.

Sharma opened the discussion with the growth in subscription models being adopted as an alternative to increasing revenue by publishers. He said this is a strategic shift whereby publishers seek monetizing their content beyond traditional advertising.

Sindhwani further added that the subscription model was important for anyone serious about the content business, but underlined the fact that one must be really long-term in approach towards acquisition and retention.

It is a long-term journey for publishers to make it an economically viable alternative or an add-on to one’s advertising business. A lot of premium content comes from print newsrooms so the bottom line has to be enough to sustain the print newsroom. Also, there are two components to the subscription game – acquisition and retention. More than acquisition, I believe, one should work on their retention strategy,” he explained.

It was also discussed how revenue generation has become increasing labyrinthine in nature with the advent of the digital world.

In digital advertising, there are usually two different ways of revenue generation: direct and indirect. The former refers to incomes accrued through direct sales of advertising space, subscriptions, and other products and services provided by the publishers themselves. Indirect revenue is made through methods such as programmatic advertising, affiliate marketing, and partnerships, whereby income is accrued in a more passive manner or through third-party platforms.

Singhvi said that when Google decided to kill third-party cookies, broad industry fears emerged about what would happen with programmatic advertising in the future. Even after Google reversed course recently and decided to keep third-party cookies, if the user consents, the landscape remains tough. According to Singhvi, more publishers are focused on first-party data and working out new privacy regulations that reshape programmatic strategies.

Speaking about optimizing programmatic strategies to strike a balance between direct and indirect revenue, he stated that in the survey that Google did with its advertisers, there would be an expected 34% drop in revenue for those using Ad Manager, about 21% for those on AdSense. It came down to 20% and 18%, respectively, in the Privacy Sandbox environment.

In the discussion around cookie deprecation, two important things happened: one was a redirecting of the publisher’s focus onto first-party data and another was the push for global regulations for privacy. It flipped to a privacy-first technology. In the short run, there will not be much variation in the programmatic strategies due to the fact that this big ecosystem needs broader cooperation among advertisers and publishers. He added, “Direct revenue will be prioritised, while indirect revenue will get more nuanced, richer in data to better target, potentially yielding higher CPMs.”

Sharma then made a shift in focus toward increased relevance to video monetisation as it promised higher cost per mille CPMs. He underlined, “Your strategy needs to be platform-specific, especially on platforms like Instagram that are pushing video hard.

Well, everyone prioritizes video monetization because it tends to drive higher CPMs. But from what we have experienced at our organization and many others, it is essential to deal with a different platform-specific video monetization strategy. For example, Instagram has a significant push in terms of views of video content on the platform.

He added that a strong short-form video strategy was also required, but its endpoint had to be converting viewers into long-form content consumers to enable monetization.

“There is a need at platform level to customize video production. The foremost point to keep in mind is that you are targeting the same user who is consuming your short and long-form content. We are chasing both views and revenue metrics simultaneously,” Sharma said.

Idris Loya pointed out the role of AI in digital publishing, which may well lie in ad placement optimization for further ROI. He admitted that this is often a balancing act for the publisher between the interests of audiences and advertisers.

There is a conflict of interest in the audience and advertisers, and we try to serve them one at a time as publishers. To do that, we arrange content and ad space in layers to cater to both. I think AI can be useful in identifying those possibilities and maximising the opportunity. Eventually, the traffic is for the revenue,” he said.

This difference in revenue rates between domestic and international markets was pointed out by Loya while discussing strategies to attract more international audiences in order to boost business.

“The revenue rate we get from other countries is much higher than the domestic rate. In the domestic market, one has both direct and indirect revenue. What we need to crack is direct revenue from overseas audiences,” added Loya.

As the session drew to a close, panellists agreed that the future of digital monetization lies in innovative strategies that will keep up with the evolutionary changes now continuously bombarding the media landscape.”.