{"id":232959,"date":"2025-09-17T04:30:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T04:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/232959\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T04:30:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T04:30:18","slug":"people-inc-prioritizes-traffic-and-revenue-diversification-in-ai-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/232959\/","title":{"rendered":"People Inc. prioritizes traffic and revenue diversification in AI era"},"content":{"rendered":"

The AI era is coming for publishers, whether they\u2019re ready for it or not. People Inc. \u2014 formerly known as Dotdash Meredith<\/a> \u2014\u00a0is preparing for all the changes that come with AI\u2019s impact on search and content discovery by focusing on traffic and revenue diversification, as well as direct to consumer relationships, as it lessens its reliance on Google<\/a> search.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe approach to it is pretty straightforward, but it\u2019s actually really hard. We need to diversify where and how we gain traffic, and we also need to build \u2026 more and stronger direct to consumer relationships,\u201d Alysia Borsa, People Inc.\u2019s chief business officer and president of lifestyle, health and finance, said onstage at the Digiday Publishing Summit in Miami, Fla., on Monday. \u201cThat\u2019s what we have been doing. Some of our brands are already on the other side, and some are still more exposed. It does vary by brand and by vertical.\u201d<\/p>\n

Titles in the health and finance category have been especially vulnerable to the expansion of Google\u2019s AI Overviews summaries and changes to SERP, Borsa noted. Meanwhile, some titles like Travel + Leisure already had more diversified traffic sources (including search, email, Google Discover, and social) before AIOs debuted, meaning they have been more insulated from search traffic declines.<\/p>\n

When IAC\u2019s Dotdash bought Meredith Corp. in 2021, about 60-65% of traffic was from organic search, Borsa said. Now it\u2019s about 25-30%.<\/p>\n

This trend will likely only accelerate. \u201cGoogle is, to some degree, alluding to the fact that AI Mode will become the default search engine going forward. When and where that happens is to be determined, but it\u2019s absolutely real and impactful,\u201d Borsa said.<\/p>\n

Despite the challenges, revenue and traffic has continued to grow at People Inc., Borsa said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A key part of keeping up this trajectory is diversifying traffic and revenue sources by investing in People Inc.\u2019s email and newsletter program, Google Discover, social media, Apple News and its commerce and licensing businesses, Borsa said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also about developing direct to consumer relationships, she added. People Inc. has launched new products and services this year, including the People app and a MyRecipes recipe box that allows users to save and collect recipes from across People Inc.\u2019s top food and recipe sites at People Inc.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Events and IRL experiences are also growing at People Inc, which now hosts over over 60 events, Borsa said. The company, for example, expanded its Food and Wine event in Aspen to Charleston last year. All of this has led to its events business growing by double digits, helping to offset declines in programmatic ad revenue, Borsa told Digiday in a previous interview.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWe are investing heavily [in events]. We are seeing significant growth. There is a ton of consumer demand. That means there\u2019s also a ton of partner demand there,\u201d Borsa said onstage at DPS. \u201cOn the advertising side, our premium revenue that\u2019s tied to events [and social, and our contextual ad targeting product D\/Cipher] \u2013 that is all continuing to grow because it\u2019s providing premium advertising opportunities and that offsets any of the actual declines\u2026 We\u2019ve got to make sure that we are coming up with highly valuable experiences and advertising opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Borsa noted that People Inc.\u2019s content licensing deal with OpenAI does help surface and attribute its content in AI tools like ChatGPT, there\u2019s \u201cno playbook\u201d for optimizing for AI platforms<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs those products and services evolve, at the core of it, quality in and quality out still holds true,\u201d Borsa said.<\/p>\n

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