Google has postponed its plans to depreciate third-party cookies to 2025 as it addresses outstanding competition concerns from UK regulators over its Privacy Sandbox Initiative. The delay has given advertisers a temporary reprieve, but cookie depreciation still poses an existential threat to any publisher relying on programmatic ad revenue.  According to research from Google Ad Manager, the top 500 publishers will lose an average of 52% of their programmatic revenue following the phaseout of cookies. 

So how can you prepare for a post-cookie world and secure your brand for the future? Double down on your first-party data, diversify your income streams, and build deeper connections with your audience in the process.

We’ll get into all that in this guide. Read on for more: 

The publisher’s roadmap to revenue   

We’ve got two main ways to solve this problem: Strengthen your advertising package with first-party data and discover new revenue streams. We’ll dive into both of these strategies — and tell you how to make the most of each one — next:  

Build up your first-party data   

Advertisers value programmatic because it’s so data-driven: They’re able to get directly in front of an audience that’s highly motivated to buy – and do it automatically.  

To keep attracting advertisers post-programmatic, you need to continue creating that value for your partners.   

The best way to do that: Build up your first-party data so that you can pitch personalized packages to advertisers. This will help you stay competitive and attract lucrative advertisers even as programmatic becomes less valuable.  

How can I collect more first-party data?  

The more you know about your audience’s interests, behaviors and purchase patterns, the more revenue and ROI you’ll drive for your advertisers. So look to enhance your audience profiles through progressive profiling. Short on audience insights? Here’s where to start:  

Maximize participation through transparency and customer-centric design

Burned by data breaches and spammy marketing, people have become more protective of their data. You’ll need to overcome that skepticism in order to get the insights that you need. Put your audience at ease by telling them exactly how you’ll use their information to improve their experience (for example, personalizing content and offers, or sending them information they need to improve in their job).

Also err on the side of less required fields to maximize responses (aim for no more than 3-5). 

Stick around for more details on how to do this!  

Create behavior-based segments with gated content

Each piece of premium content aligns with a very specific topic, so this is an excellent way to narrow in on individual interests and needs. But underwhelming gated content can turn audiences away rather than pull them in. Include proprietary research, industry insights or expert quotes to ensure that your premium content provides the promised value. And as mentioned before, limit your forms to 3-4 required fields.  

Host webinars and use polls, questions, surveys and pre-qualifying questions to add to your audience’s profiles

Also distribute related eBooks and whitepapers for attendees in the webinar room. Track those downloads to identify your audience’s interests. From there, you can further nurture their interest through email and cross-channel campaigns. 

Make sure your form builder integrates with your database so every person’s response is automatically added to their customer profile — and your team can act on it right away. (Omeda’s Form Builder syncs directly to our audience database, so your team automatically gets the insights they need to act.)  

Get your data in order   

Publishers know the value of data. But many struggle to use it effectively. Their data is spread across too many platforms, so they can’t get all of it data into one place, get it into a usable form, or create a single view of each customer. So they definitely can’t activate it quickly enough to create the personalized packages their advertisers need to drive ROI. Or they need to run a request through three different teams just to execute one promotion.

No media company can afford to waste that much time.  

Using a customer data platform makes this process much easier. These tools take in audience data from every channel, standardize it, and store it in one easily accessible place. Audience profiles update in real time as new information comes in — and they’re added to segments as they meet the underlying criteria.  

Your team gets the most current, complete view of your audience and how they’re engaging with you across every channel. And your advertisers get the blueprint for engaging, activating and driving ROI from your audience. You’ll become indispensable to your advertisers — and attract a whole lot more revenue as a result. 

Tweak your paywalls

The more revenue you generate from subscriptions, the less you need to rely on outside advertising streams. So if you’re getting enough money from subscriptions, look long and hard at your paywalls (also called meters).

Meters might seem like simple forms. But the success or failure of a meter comes down to a lot of factors: the design, timing and firing frequency of the meter; the message and design of the box itself; the specific page that’s being paywalled; the percentage of content that is being blocked; the targeting of your meter and more.  

So it’s worth investigating how you can improve each of those elements — and drive incremental revenue from your paywalls.    

Put the right content behind paywalls

If you’re not getting enough conversions from your paywalls, it’s possible you’re gating the wrong content. Use your website analytics solution to see how your audience is engaging with your paywalled articles and change course as needed. Also use it to identify your most popular articles, writers and topics. (Omeda’s solution tracks referral sources, impressions, clicks and bounces for each page, and tells you who’s visiting each page.) 

Increase your premium content visibility

If your traffic is high, but your subscriptions aren’t following suit, consider putting more of your posts behind paywalls. If your content’s differentiated and valuable, that alone will incentivize your audience to subscribe.

But maybe you don’t want to risk reducing your site traffic or ad impressions right now. In that case, you could limit the number of pages people are able to view for “free” before being paywalled, rather than putting specific pages behind a meter for everyone. Or you could change the mix of content that’s metered. (Get gated content right with these best practices!) 

Target your paywalls at the right audience

People need time to get to know your brand and realize your value before committing to a subscription. So if someone visits your site for the first time only to find a paywall, they’ll probably bounce rather than buy a subscription right away. But if they’ve already read a few articles, they’re more likely to convert once they do come across your paywall.  

By targeting your meters only at your repeat visitors, you can guide your more committed users toward conversions without turning away new visitors.  

That’s possible on Omeda: Since our content gating solution connects to your audience database, you can target your meters at custom audience segments. This way, you can target as precisely as possible and maximize your subscription revenue.  

Diversify your revenue streams  

Relying on one income source to fund your business is risky in the best of times. Today, when every touchpoint is in flux, it’s a recipe for failure.  

Strengthening all of your possible income streams helps you withstand changes in the market — and could even give you new ways to engage your audience. Consider the following as you optimize your income mix:   

Provide personalized recommendations and newsletters

20 years ago, people bought CDs even if they only liked three songs on the album. And they bought subscriptions even when they only read some of the content.

But hyper-personalized TikTok and Netflix algorithms have raised your audience’s expectations. They want their experience to be fully customized to their needs. Providing personalized newsletters and content recommendations tells your audience that you understand their unique needs and can deliver on them. From there, you can connect with them and keep them engaged long-term.

Omeda makes this easy: Omeda offers content recommendations, which serve recommended articles to each reader based on their past engagement history. You can also use Omeda’s dynamic content to serve individualized content to every recipient. These recommendations are geared to each person’s individual browsing and purchase history, so everyone on your list gets exactly what they need — every time.  

Create a community

We’re starting to see consumer media brands like Vogue provide online communities for their paid subscribers. This gives audiences a place to explore their interests with like-minded people, which is more and more valuable in an increasingly disconnected world. And the more connected your audience feels to your community, the more connected they are to you.

What this looks like for you depends on your publication and budget. Explore the possibility of creating a Slack community, online networking circles or even a weekly webinar series just for subscribers.  

Monetize educational resources

Whether you’re telling people how to create a monthly budget or manage a conflict, you’re giving your audience the tools they need to better themselves in some way. Creating and selling courses is a natural extension of that mission. And it’s an incredibly valuable way to harness your resources into something that people will engage with and pay for.  

For example, The Economist has 6- to 8-week courses on data storytelling and visualization, business writing and storytelling, international relations, and other topics, meant to help their readers develop their skills and become more informed citizens.   

Morning Brew also offers 2- to 8-week courses ranging from general career advancement to skill development — and they’ve expanded these offerings this year.

Don’t want to commit to full courses? Strike a middle ground by offering subscriber-exclusive guides and webinars. 

Monetization aside, your courses also give you a huge backlog of content that you can repurpose across other channels. That decreases your overhead and frees up your team to create more high-level content, rather than churning out brand new articles to stay on an arbitrary posting schedule.

But seemingly every LinkedIn influencer peddles online courses, many of which are fluff at best and scams at worst. So your audience might be skeptical that your course is the one that’ll help them reach their goals. Create courses that provide real value with these tips:  

• Determine your audience’s knowledge gaps through audience data, interviews, industry research, events, etc. First, consult your website analytics solution to see which pages get the most views. If these articles are educational in nature, consider expanding them into full courses. Then promote your course on this initial article with a reader-exclusive discount code. 

• Consider creating courses around topics that are behind a meter. What paywalls get the most clicks, impressions and conversions? Increased paywall activity indicates that your audience needs more information about the topic — and values it enough to exchange their information for it.  

• Promote courses on your newsletter. Post excerpts from lessons in your newsletter, then link to the full course. Consider giving your subscribers an exclusive discount to sweeten the post. 

• Demonstrate your value. Your audience is more likely to sign up if they can visualize how they’ll benefit from your course. So show your audience exactly what value they can expect for their money. Tell them about the instructor and their expertise in the space and provide detail about the curriculum and sample lessons. Also give them concrete learning outcomes to expect upon finishing the course. 

• Help your audience apply their knowledge. Give your learners tangible templates, how-to guides, or scripts that will help them apply the knowledge they gain in your course. In a time when driving revenue often comes at the expense of maximizing engagement, courses allow you to do both at once.You might not have the resources for a full class — and that’s OK! See whether you can host an interview series with your subject matter experts, turn your blog posts into downloadable “how-to” templates and guides, or have your experts answer FAQs to your newsletter once a month. You could also recruit a partner to split the costs and double your reach.  

Add value to your subscription

A perfectly optimized paywall will push your loyal fans over the edge to subscribe. But if they don’t think your brand is valuable enough to pay for, your paywalls won’t convince them otherwise. To alleviate those concerns, and get more subscriptions, consider adding extra features to your subscriptions. This gives your audience multiple ways to interact with your brand — and makes them more likely to pay. 

Add audio

Your subscribers will judge your brand by this equation: How much value can I get for the price? But they only have so much time to actively read or watch your content, which puts a ceiling on the amount of value you can provide. 

Podcasts allow your audience to listen passively while they do other tasks, though, which means that they can consume more of it and get more value as a result. If you need to juice your subscription package quickly, podcasts are a great place to start.  

Consider day passes

Many would-be subscribers shy away because of a fear of commitment. To address those concerns, publishers have experimented with per-article micropayments with little success. However, day passes, in which readers get unlimited access for 24 hours, offer an interesting middle ground. And this model is starting to see traction.

Currently, Advance Local is experimenting with charging readers between 99 cents and $3 for access to its publication for a full day. Results have been promising so far: 

“The solution for these low-engaged prospects is our Day Pass. For the last four months, we have tested price points and segmentation to learn how day passes fit into our strategy. We have tested prices between US $0.99 and US $3 in three markets. Of the 1,826-day pass purchases, 12.3% have subscribed. Interestingly, 2% of day pass purchasers are repeat buyers. 

This indicates a portion of the audience rejects the commitment of a subscription. They are willing to pay a premium price to avoid commitment.”   

So if you’re seeing a lot of traffic, but don’t have the subscription numbers to match, think long and hard about day passes. Done well, they could generate incremental revenue from an otherwise unengaged audience. (However, success or failure really hinges on your pricing strategy, so experiment with multiple price points before picking a winner.)  

Get more from your current audience  

With subscriber acquisition costs on the rise, your current audience is your best bet toward financial security. Maximize your customer lifetime value and you won’t need to rely on new income sources as heavily. Drive more engagement and revenue from your current audience with these tips:  

Segment your audience by engagement level

Some churn is inevitable. But spamming your audience so much that they unsubscribe is an unforced error you can’t afford. Avoid this by segmenting your audience by engagement level. This way, you can stay connected with your low-engaged audience without driving them away, while also giving your superfans all the content they desire.  

How to do it: Collect your audience’s data from every touchpoint, then use a lead scoring model to create low-, medium-, and highly engaged segments. We recommend using a CDP to do this, as this ensures that your segments account for engagement across every channel. (Learn how to create an effective lead scoring model here!)  

From there, create differentiated outreach strategies for each segment. Rule of thumb here: Think of ways to move each group one step closer to a subscription or conversion.  

For your low-engagement audience, focus on increasing activity and site visits. You could promote your newsletter or use on-site content recommendations on your site to introduce to more content they’re likely to enjoy.

To prevent churn and spam complaints, use fatigue filters in your automated campaigns. When active, fatigue filters temporarily pause sending emails to recipients once they’ve reaced a certain numbers of emails within a specific time period. This is a great way to “read the room” and let your audience regain interest without needing to manually add or removing from your lists.

You can afford to be more aggressive with your highly engaged audience. Reward and encourage their interest by sending them eBooks and content based on content they’ve already downloaded. You could also upsell and cross-sell related publications to them based on their past engagement activity.

And to drive more subscriptions, query this group for anyone that hasn’t subscribed, then target them with a VIP offer for your annual subscription. 

Include your audience in content creation

If you all you do it talk AT your audience, your audience certainly isn’t going to talk back. And odds are, they’ll tune out eventually. But if you involve in your audience in content creation, you’re letting them into the conversation. That makes them feel heard and appreciated — and that’s the key to keeping them invested long term.

Wondering where to start? 

• In your newsletter, ask subscribers to contribute to your reporting (if applicable).  
• Recruit experts in your audience for guest posts or event appearances. 
• Partner with experts in your audience for a joint venture webinar and cross-promote between your audiences.  
• Reshare your audience’s posts about your brand.  
• Turn your audience’s webinar questions and answers into educational social media posts.  

Audience engagement aside, user-generated content is a great way to scale your content cheaply especially if you’ve got a small team.  

Add loyalty rewards

Use your audience data to identify your most active subscribers. (On Omeda, you can do this by querying by total number of engagements, amount of time spent on site, or the frequency and momentum of engagement, or a combination of these metrics). Then show your appreciation with special rewards, including: 

• Discounts on subscription bundles or VIP-exclusive “build your own bundle” packages  
• First-look access to new content releases or event tickets  
• Exclusive access to exclusive events or webinars 
• Free educational resources, downloadable guides, or access to your mobile app  
• Free merchandise   

Invest in your most loyal audience and it’ll pay off in spades.