Brand publishing will mature further as a discipline in 2024 as it plays an increasingly important role in many companies’ strategies. But as content becomes more central to the way businesses attract and engage both external and internal audiences, content operations will also face greater scrutiny and pressure to perform in the months ahead.
Heading into 2024, brand publishers now face many of the same challenges plaguing the traditional publishing industry: Declining organic distribution and growth, growing competition for consumers’ attention, increasingly discerning audiences, and a tightening of the purse strings.
Last but certainly not least, generative AI will continue to work its way into publishing operations as the year unfolds. Content will be easier to create than ever before, and it may even help ease non-productive tensions and make teams more efficient. But it could also mean an explosion of poor-quality content, and force brand publishers to think carefully about how they will differentiate themselves – and how they will grow audiences in an era where search is dominated by AI.
As the cookie dies, predictive audiences offer an alternative
By Erin Tye, director of content insights and innovation, Nativo
The death of the third-party cookie is finally upon us. By the end of 2024, Google Chrome will have closed ranks with Safari and Firefox to eliminate third-party cookies, ending years of speculation and anticipation.
The impact of this development is hard to overstate. The digital advertising industry has been dependent on third-party cookies for audience targeting since its inception, and despite years of advance notice, only 8% of marketers say they are” fully prepared” for the departure of third-party cookies.
With billions of dollars at stake, the entire marketing industry is asking: What do we do now? For many, the answer may lie with predictive audiences.
Scalable and privacy-safe, predictive audiences use artificial intelligence to build new audience groups based on predicted behaviors ranging from “this audience is likely to engage with nutritional content” or “this audience is likely to purchase in the next week.”
Predictive audiences work by ingesting contextual signals from a “seed” audience and then using those signals to predict which other users would be in a similar category (because they have similar contextual signals). Put simply, it’s look-alike modeling but without cookies. The seed “signals” can come from a variety of first-party sources: publishers, advertisers or ad-tech platforms. It could also be generated using paid panelists.
At Nativo, we took the idea of predictive audiences a step further by building expanded audiences based specifically on content engagement. We call this Nativo Predictive Audiences. The contextual signals this algorithm might look for include behaviors such as average time spent, click-through rate or conversions. It also factors in elements such as placement category and content location on the brand publisher page.
For brand publishers trying to maximize impact, this approach is a no-brainer. If the goal is to reach audiences most likely to engage with your content, why not start with the people who’ve already done it? Nativo Predictive Audiences allows brands to reach audiences even on browsers that block or limit the use of cookies.
With thousands of pieces of content distributed across thousands of sites, Nativo has used Nativo Predictive Audiences to build hundreds of off-the-shelf audiences that are ready to use. We can even tailor custom segments based exclusively on the published content of one brand.
It’s still possible to reach new audiences, boost engagement and drive full-funnel outcomes, all without a single third-party cookie. The time is now for brand publishers to experiment with predictive audience targeting and future-proof their content investments.
Content moves front and center
Content marketing and brand publishing have for years been seen primarily as a marketing function: A way to lower customer acquisition and engagement costs. While some content operations attempted to evolve beyond product-focused content and to integrate journalistic approaches into their publishing strategies, content was still considered little more than a marketing tactic in most instances.
That’s beginning to change. For modern companies, content is quickly becoming core competency: A powerful marketing tool, but also a critical way for companies to communicate with employees and internal stakeholders. In some cases, content teams are being tapped to come up with fodder for customer success teams; in other cases, content has become a primary way CEOs and founders communicate their vision to the public.
In August, Franklin Morris, former head of content, communications, and brand marketing at Alloy was promoted to run all marketing at the company. He says it’s part of a growing trend: “I’m surprised more content marketing leaders don’t move into head of marketing role,” he wrote on LinkedIn. Morris made the point that content marketers are unique in knowing both how to be creative through storytelling and analytical through their focus on ROI. And, said Morris: “Content marketing has line of sight into every subdiscipline… demand, creative, social, comms…. [as well as] sales, product and customers.
At the same time, the C-suite is expressing a growing interest in getting directly involved with content and publishing operations – and marketing activity more broadly. Late last year, a McKinsey survey conducted in collaboration with the Association of National Advertisers and the Growth Council found that the relationship between CEOs and CMOs was correlated with a company’s performance. CEOs who place marketing at the core of their growth strategy are twice as likely to have greater than 5% annual growth compared with their peers, the study found.
The CMO role is also splintering: The majority of companies in the McKinsey study now have multiple people with marketing-related responsibilities who report to the CEO. Titles include chief brand officer, chief creative officer, chief growth officer, and chief customer officer, and each is responsible for content creation to some degree.
“You can’t make a business plan without being able to communicate it. You can’t respond to the needs of the society around you or prep for geopolitical challenges without being able to communicate well,” said Salesforce head of public affairs Margaret Taylor at an event in December.
The post-pandemic era also brought employees into sharp focus: A tight labor market, growing demands from employees, and an overall “vibe shift” made companies think more carefully about how they communicate with internal stakeholders and prospective employees. Plus, the rise of remote working made asynchronous communication much more common. Enter content.
A growing number of companies are now prioritizing publishing initiatives aimed at internal audiences. Over the past year, companies including Visa, eBay, the New York Times, Bloomberg, and Nike hired senior-level executives tasked with creating and distributing content for employees, both current and prospective.
The goal is to engage with employees to retain and recruit them, and also tap them as influencers who can communicate the company’s values broadly. It’s a strategy fitness brands like Peloton and SoulCycle have been ahead of the curve on – turning instructors into influencers via social media, with their own followings and fanbases.
“We are making employees that most important audience, and viewing press, social and advertising as opportunities for surround sound, … [it’s about] merchandising good news stories and social content and pushing it under the noses of our employees,” Steven Restivo, vp, global communications at United Airlines, said at a recent event hosted by Axios.
The era of ROI arrives
Content teams remain at risk as companies continue to scrutinize and control their spending closely. Brand publishing has suffered from attribution issues, and content teams often find themselves defending their existence when their output is not considered central to an organization’s success.
But in the coming year, brand publishing and marketing executives say they intend to work harder to get credit for the work they do – and to help stave off any cuts in the process. Brand publishing is entering the era of ROI.
One way many are defending their investments in content is by exhorting CEOs to see content as a true leading indicator of where revenue is going. Lauren Vaccarello, the CMO of Talend, for example, said that she looks at website traffic as a way to figure out what revenue lines are poised to take off.At other companies, content teams are finding their work is being used by customer success teams to answer customer questions – and finding ways to get credit for that.
“The biggest myth is that content doesn’t directly contribute to dollars and cents. So many marketing metrics are focused on the last touch—but so-called “golden pages” are only doing a fraction of the work,” said Emily Anne Epstein, president of Decopop agency. “People need to be familiar with a brand, a category, a problem, etc. before they’re ready to buy. All it takes is connecting systems to show the value of a thought leadership post. Connect your Google Analytics to Marketo and Salesforce. Get ContentSquare, Knotch, or AudiencePlus to track user journeys. Look at the companies reading your content with Demandbase. There are indicators everywhere that customers need to engage with several pieces of content before they are ready to buy.”
Brand publishers also need to, says Morris of Alloy, get out of their own way and put their strategic hats on when they’re writing for an audience – not just get stuck in the “creative” space and not think carefully about how their work is impacting the bottom line. “As a marketing leader, you constantly have to be explaining and selling internally. You have to defend every decision, strategic rationale on where you’re placing your bets,” he said. “They think the work you’re doing is disconnected from the bottom line. But its not. It’s what drives the business.”
In the coming year, as publishing becomes more central to company strategy, content teams will work harder to ensure they’re getting credit for their work and put the right KPIs in place.
Audiences become more receptive to brand content
American trust in media remains near a record low: A 2023 poll from Gallup found that only 34% of Americans trust mass media. Meanwhile, “alternative sources” of information are on the rise. There has been a shift in how audiences enjoy and engage with news, information, and entertainment – and who they’re willing to trust and engage with when it comes to the people who make that content.
All of this leaves more gaps in the information space that brands can step into. Audiences now see brand-funded content as a meaningful source of information and entertainment
“One of the biggest myths is that content marketing can’t be trusted. On the contrary, brands are becoming trusted storytellers as they look to more deeply connect with people on a human level,” said Ken Beaulieu, EVP at the Association of National Advertisers. “They understand that great storytelling democratizes brand building and can provide impact that matters. We are seeing more innovation from content creators to become part of other people’s stories and to tap into culture to meet consumer and customer expectations in relevant, meaningful ways.”
Jennifer Parker, editor-in-chief at Huge, says that this shift – seeing that brands can and should produce quality content – is what spurred her to take on a brand role: “The myth is that these practices can be separated in our collective consciousness. It’s a false dichotomy. What we’re talking about is the craft and quality of storytelling, regardless of who is funding it,” she said.
The data backs this up: A study of 1,007 U.S. digital content consumers in October 2023 found that 36% trust content published by brands more than content from traditional media organizations – including TV news, newspapers, magazines or online news sites. Only 26% said they trust brand content less than they do content published by media companies. The rest – 38% – said they were unsure.
The data suggests that audiences could not care less about whether a brand or media organization produces the content, as long as it is of high quality – and that audiences have permission from the audience to truly act as authoritative publishers.
Quality continues to be a priority for modern brand publishers, and a growing number of brand publishers said stepping up quality is a key priority for them in the new year. This is particularly critical in the era of generative AI, where AI-produced content will proliferate and quality will become even more of a competitive advantage. “It drops the marginal cost of producing crappy content to zero. Everyone can produce the same SEO bait type of articles at scale. What sets you apart is now really good strong content narrowly focused,” said Morris of Alloy.
One way many marketers are trying to create quality content: Hiring journalists to make it. Trained journalists can help ensure higher quality content because it’s likelier to be original and reported. Customers are also likelier to trust it: An October survey found that 43% of consumers trust brand content more when professional journalists create it.
Last year, several companies hired reporting and editing talent with experience at major news brands to run their content operations, including The Trade Desk, Robinhood, Goldman Sachs, Activision, and JP Morgan Chase, to name just a few.
In 2024, this is bound to accelerate. “Creating high-quality content that will move the needle for your audience takes a small village,” said Chandra Turner, editorial recruiter and founder of The Talent Fairy. That small village will mean drawing from media organizations – many of whom continue to shed talented people.
Direct audience connections become critical
Most brands started investing in publishing for a myriad of reasons: They wanted to have a way to get their stories out there without relying on the media. They wanted an alternative outlet that would be more sympathetic to their goals or business values. Or, they wanted to simply find an alternative marketing mechanism to lower the costs of attracting customers – and retaining them.
But in 2024, these reasons pale in front of the looming death of the third-party cookie. Against this backdrop, publishing stands to become a key way brands can get to know and understand their audiences and their behaviors. As privacy concerns become front and center for consumers, more brands will establish how content can lead to a “fair exchange” for readers who are willing to give up their data and information.
On Jan. 4, Google turned off cookies for an estimated 30 million users – about 1% of Chrome users. That’s the first step in Google’s so-called “Privacy Sandbox” project, where cookies will be replaced with tracking mechanisms the company claims is better for privacy. The move follows years of slow chipping away at tracking mechanisms. Apple already outlaws the use of unauthorized cookies on Safari and across apps.
For brand marketers and industry watchers, what comes next is a world where audiences can consent to being tracked and receive a fair value exchange in return for giving up their data. This will mean companies will need to build direct relationships with their audiences to gain valuable first-party data.
For many companies, content may be the answer. Content can provide that “fair value” exchange, and coupled with tactics like registration walls and email newsletters, can enable marketers to build that ever-valuable direct connection.
It’s a trend that comes hand in hand with a resurgence of brand marketing many are predicting for this year. Seventy-two percent of respondents to BoF and McKinsey’s 2024 executive survey plan to spend more on brand marketing in the next year, compared with 45% intending to increase performance marketing.
The rise of privacy regulations may herald a new dawn that puts storytelling and content at the center of brand strategies, forcing marketers to think carefully about how they’re communicating with audiences, and putting in place appropriate KPIs to measure the success of those efforts.
The distribution challenge grows
Distribution has gone from a side dish to the main course at most brand publishers. More and more of them are realizing now that simply having “great content” isn’t enough for audience growth.
Plus, as social platforms evolve – and link throttling becomes the norm – brands who have spent considerable resources on owned and operated channels are trying to solve the distribution puzzle.
“Relying on one distribution channel is like putting all of your eggs in one basket,” said Hone Health editorial director Tracy Middleton. “Google will change its algorithm, and social media platforms can come and go. Publishers of all types need a diversified distribution strategy to make sure they’re hitting their audience in multiple places—and tailoring the messaging in each.”
Publishers of all types are realizing that the days of organic growth may be over, and in order to drive traffic to their sites and content, they will need to pay.
Each of the major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, X and LinkedIn all have made it clear that they will continue to prioritize posts without outbound links to keep users on their platforms. It’s not a new change, but one that comes hand-in-hand with more ways to post natively on those platforms.
The threat of generative AI also plays a part. In the coming months, Google will continue to roll out its search generative experience. According to brand publishing executives who have gained access to demos, the new experience will give Internet search, a mainstay for publishers looking to drive traffic to their websites, a major facelift. In many cases, brand publisher content will surface inside summarized answers for searched questions – meaning there is less incentive for users to click through to answers. “Even if it cites the source (the direction it looks like it’s moving in), there’s no guarantee readers will read full articles,” said Middleton.
The result is that brand publishers will need to build paid social distribution into their strategies. That means a rejiggering of budgets to reflect those additional costs – and even more scrutiny on publishing teams to ensure they’re actually performing and making an impact. Hiring is also impacted. Last year, brand publishers were focused on hiring audience development specialists. Now, those job roles are being tweaked to focus on paid growth as much as organic development.
Another way to spend distribution dollars is syndication. A growing number of brands are attempting to syndicate and license their content to news media organizations. Using a variety of tools available in the marketplace, brands can reach the audiences of major news brands via dedicated newswires. These news brands will then republish brand content, giving it major exposure.
The downsides of this approach are that traffic doesn’t necessarily come to brand sites, and resulting intent data on who is reading and engaging with that content doesn’t get passed on. And this approach may not necessarily work for brands with specialized audiences. However, for consumer brands, it can be a way to reach massive audiences quickly. Companies like Glassdoor, Zillow, and Bankrate have all been able to use proprietary data to build stories that have been syndicated to news sites. Over the coming year, we expect more companies to experiment with these approaches to modern earned media.
What’s next
Tighter financial scrutiny and the rise of generative AI both present both threats and opportunities for brands who are serious about content and publishing. But in 2024, a maturing discipline will mean more brand publishers and marketers become savvier about producing, publishing, distributing, and measuring content. And as the bonfire of web trackers gets underway, content will not only take on a more central role, but enable brand publishers to get creative on finding alternatives to the cookie – one that’ll set them up for a more sustainable future.