For the past year, Google has been experimenting with a feature called Recipe Quick View – a feature allowing users to click an icon inside search results to view an entire recipe without leaving Google Search.

To say this pilot program was controversial among food content creators would be an understatement, and for good reason.

Ultimately, Google decided that this feature could not adequately support creators and has officially ended the pilot, as reported by Bloomberg on July 3.

This news is a cause for celebration – not just for content creators in the food space but for the open web more broadly. Had the program succeeded, there’s little doubt that this approach would have extended to other niches and categories. 

The motivation behind Recipe Quick View was Google’s belief that it could enhance the user experience for recipes.

Reading between the lines, that meant retaining users within Google Search and preventing them from seeking food content on platforms like TikTok, Instagram or the open Internet in general.

Of course, this raised concerns among the recipe creators who own that content.

If their unique recipes were summarized and presented by Google without compensation, how would their voices be heard? How could they continue to build a following and grow a business based on the content now being effectively kept inside one of big tech’s walled gardens?

During the Recipe Quick View beta, Mediavine engaged in extensive discussions with Google and raised these issues. While Google continued testing the program, the company was made aware of creators’ questions and concerns and wrestled with them internally.

More importantly, I believe this is a strong signal from Google that creators are central to its decision-making.

The relationship between Google and creators has always been mutually beneficial–creators provide the content that Google Search needs to attract users, and in return, Google provides traffic so that thousands of unique voices (and businesses) flourish.

This relationship has formed the core of Mediavine’s business for 20 years, both as an independent web publisher ourselves, and more significantly, as a representative of nearly 17,000 creators in the present day. 

We will continue to collaborate with Google to make sure that this value exchange continues into the future. In the age of generative AI, where features like AI Mode and AI Overviews threaten this balance and have caused widespread publisher concerns about loss in traffic and attribution, it’s critically important that we remain vigilant and united in our mission.

Today’s news is not the end of this fight, but it is a win, and a step in the right direction we need Google to take. So fire up the grill and visit your favorite food blogs today, and tomorrow, and all holiday weekend long, knowing independent creators will be fairly compensated for those 4th of July recipes. 

And if you’re outside the U.S. and not celebrating a holiday, we recommend visiting some quality food sites anyway. Same idea!

By now, we’re all aware that generative AI is dramatically changing the web, leaving content creators — whose work is used to train powerful AI models — under duress.

But just because AI is here to stay doesn’t mean we have no agency in shaping the future. 

Content creators power the open web as we know it, and Mediavine’s mission is to ensure that their unique and diverse voices are heard — and fairly compensated.

While Mediavine has been collaborating with others in pursuit of this mission — like the IAB Tech Lab on its LLM Content Ingest API, as we discussed in our recent webinar — we’re particularly enthusiastic about Cloudflare’s new Pay Per Crawl feature, which was announced on July 1st.

We believe Pay Per Crawl is a significant step toward achieving this goal. It’s a straightforward concept in that it allows content creators to charge AI crawlers for access to their content.

Publishers who opt in will have AI crawlers blocked by Cloudflare; in response, AI crawlers will receive a notification stating the cost to access the content. 

If the AI crawler agrees to the terms and pays Cloudflare for access, Cloudflare will provide it, and subsequently distribute the payment to the publishers.

Cloudflare’s extensive reach — powering nearly 20% of the internet — suggests that this feature is likely to be adopted as a standard by numerous AI companies almost immediately.

Moreover, Cloudflare plays a pivotal role in Mediavine’s partnership with BigScoots. All of the Mediavine publisher-exclusive BigScoots hosting plans have a Cloudflare Enterprise CDN baked in.

This unique integration makes it exceptionally easy for Mediavine to offer this feature to our more than 18,000 publishers at scale. 

We are actively working with BigScoots and Cloudflare as this beta rolls out, and we will work to make this feature available to our publishers on Mediavine hosting plans as soon as possible.

Mediavine is committed to empowering content creators as the driving force behind the future of the web, and this initiative is one of many steps we are taking to that end.

Every day, as the debate around AI, copyright, and data usage unfolds, we are working on behalf of and joining other industry leaders in support of you, our publishers.

We’re in this together, and we’ve got this.

For more information, read our Cloudflare Pay-Per-Crawl FAQ.

Since the advent of Trellis, Mediavine’s goal was to provide a WordPress framework to meet the needs and pain points of independent publishers.

We’ve had the pleasure of working with thousands of creators since its 2020 release and in the years that followed. Today, we’re excited to announce the next iteration of Trellis:

Trellis has been acquired by Feast Design Co.

This next phase will mean additional options, optimizations and opportunities for Trellis’ loyal users in the years ahead.

Let’s talk about why this is the ideal path for both the product and the publishers using it. 

Why Feast Design Co?

It’s a great question, with a pair of related, compelling answers:

1. Meet the WordPress Framework Specialists 

Feast Design Co. is a company specializing entirely in WordPress theme frameworks. It’s their focus, day-in and day-out. 

I’ve known Skylar, the owner of Feast, for years. There’s been plenty of overlap as countless Mediavine ad management customers use Feast’s Foodie Pro themes. 

For these reasons, I can tell you unequivocally that Skylar and his team know their stuff. 

Thinking back to the onset of Trellis, our goal – developed through our work with so many of you – was to create a publisher-friendly, lightweight system that prioritized site speed and monetization, along with an easier path to passing Google’s Core Web Vitals. In short, we wanted to create a product that was designed specifically to achieve the goals and address the pain points of independent publishers.

Mediavine will always serve publishers through our technology and our team, and as a part of the broader community. Through partnerships with other publisher-first companies, like TopHatRank and BigScoots, we’re expanding our ability to provide you with what you need to build and sustain your business.

With the transition of Trellis to Feast Design Co., we’re furthering that commitment by partnering with Skylar and his team of WordPress Framework experts.  And speaking as an engineer, I’m honestly pretty excited at everything they have planned to take Trellis into the future. 

2. Ideal Business and Publisher First Alignment

Development goals are not the only things shared between Mediavine and Feast. One of our requirements for any company we consider partnering with is exemplary service. 

Skylar and the Feast team take care of their customers as well as anybody we’ve worked with, and we know current and future Trellis users will be in good hands.

Feast also shares the publisher-first ethos that drives everything we do at Mediavine, creating products that cater to the needs of independent content creators.

Long story short, Trellis has an incredibly bright future under the Feast umbrella. 

Are Feast Design Co Offerings Only For Food Creators?

No. Trellis has never been only for food creators and it’s not going to be now. 

The immediate enhancements on deck for existing Trellis users will benefit content creators in many different categories, not just those in the food and drink space.

What Will Change For Trellis Users?

Nothing is happening immediately to your Trellis subscription. 

You’ve got options that I’ll detail below; whichever you decide is best for your business, there are some great enhancements you can access immediately. 

Let’s get into it. 

Option One

Option One is remaining on Trellis and receiving automatic, free access to the Feast WordPress plugin. The Feast WordPress plugin, named Lattice for Trellis users, has been optimized especially for Trellis sites.

The benefits offered with the Feast Lattice plugin include: 

• A modernized homepage for an improved user experience
• Improved post display via the FSRI block
• Category images via the FSCI block
• Scheduled categories 
• Improved user experience in posts with the Advanced Jump To
• Improved SEO and user experience with the Yoast Breadcrumbs integration
• FAQ toggle for Yoast FAQ blocks
• Social icon block
• Convert Text to Fractions for improved accessibility
• Convert Recipe Acronyms for improved accessibility
• Easier writing by starting with a prefilled post instead of a blank canvas using the Recipe Post Template

Option Two

Option Two is migrating from Trellis to the Foodie Pro 5 theme with the Feast Plugin. While this option may seem like more work upfront, it’s the one I’m more excited about. 

Why? We’ve been working with the Feast Design Co team behind the scenes, ensuring we bring everything Trellis users love to Feast’s Lattice plugin. I took a quick peek at everything under the hood and Foodie Pro 5 with the Feast plugin has the best of both worlds in terms of technology to ensure maximum earning potential. 

Migrating unlocks the full suite of features in the Feast Plugin, plus cutting-edge image optimization from Shortpixel and pagespeed optimization from WP Rocket. 

Plus, Feast Design Co is offering free migration (normally $399) when publishers migrate from Trellis to the Feast Plugin with Foodie Pro 5. 

By migrating, you’ll get all of the benefits from the Lattice plugin listed above, plus: 

• A block-based footer with the Modern Footer
• A block-based sidebar with the The Modern Sidebar
• Greatly improved category pages with the Modern Categories
• Automatic Lazy Rendering 

What Are The Next Steps For Existing Trellis Users?

Your Trellis license will remain active for 12 months after your last renewal date for annual subscribers. 

Visit the Trellis landing page on the Feast Design Co. website and learn more about your two options. 

For those who choose to remain on Trellis through the remainder of their license, you’ve still got free access to the Lattice plugin from Feast Design Co.

This has all of the optimizations listed above. To get the plugin, go to your Trellis account on trelliswp.com, download and install. 

Over 20 years in business, Mediavine has been an independent publisher and the voice of thousands of independent publishers. Forging a path of innovation within digital publishing and advertising, Mediavine has enabled countless creators to flourish and establish profound connections with their audiences.

At Mediavine, we take great pride in the contributions of our leadership team. Their incredible dedication and expertise have been instrumental in driving our company’s success and growth.

Today marks an important day in our company’s evolution.

After nearly a decade of shaping Mediavine’s brand and driving its social impact, Amber Bracegirdle, Co-Founder, and Chief Brand & Social Impact Officer, is stepping away from day-to-day operations, taking on an advisory role. 

Amber is not only a passionate advocate for Mediavine publishers, but for social responsibility, helping to raise awareness of important causes and make a positive difference. She has been integral in establishing our company’s unique culture, known for both a sense of community and commitment to excellence. 

She has created a strong team that values collaboration, innovation and social impact. Amber’s influence will continue to shape Mediavine for years to come. 

With the support of our co-founders, Matt Richenthal and Stephen Marsi, I am confident in the capabilities of our leadership team, which also includes Amanda Martin, Chief Revenue Officer, Jamie Lieberman, Chief Legal Officer and Chief Operations Officer, and Yolanda Evans, Chief People and Culture Officer. As part of this transition, Amanda will take on the additional responsibility of leading and overseeing our Social Impact team. 

I’m excited for the future of digital publishing and programmatic advertising and will continue to lead Mediavine’s vision as a trusted and proven growth partner to over 13,000 publishers. With our publisher monetization products and services, creators are able to unlock ongoing business opportunities.

Together, we are forging ahead with our commitment to be the strongest monetization partner and advocate for the independent publisher. Mediavine will always believe in the power of content creators and the value of the open Internet.

We are thrilled to announce the launch of Journey by Mediavine, a new ad management solution for growing websites and the publishers behind them.

What is Journey?

Journey is an entirely new ad offering designed and built from the ground up as a solution for smaller publishers.

Powered by Mediavine’s first-in-class ad technology, Journey by Mediavine will offer publishers with smaller websites full access to all of our first-party data and identity solutions.

The beauty of Journey is that it is a completely self-service offering. Getting started is easy and fully automated.

Why Journey?

Our mission has always been to help content creators build sustainable businesses. Now we’re doubling down by supporting creators even earlier in their path to success.

With the launch of Journey, we’re bringing Mediavine’s award-winning ad management to publishers of all sizes around the world.

What This Means for Existing Mediavine Publishers

Journey is a separate ad offering to advertisers, allowing us to service more publishers while still maintaining high CPMs.

But most importantly, existing Mediavine publishers will benefit from the authenticated traffic these new sites will help us build. Because of our unified first-party data solution, we all grow together.

The first step to running Journey ads on your site is to install Grow, Mediavine’s first-party data solution. (Don’t know what Grow is? Go here!)

The Grow software, which generates authenticated traffic and enables us to assess when a site is eligible for ads, makes Journey possible.

As new publishers join Journey and their readers create Grow accounts, the pool of authenticated traffic grows.

When another website’s logged-in readers visit yours, it’s good news for your revenue.

Get Started with Journey

Getting started with Journey is easy! Simply install Grow on your site and apply for Journey.

The sooner you get started, the better! We’ll use Grow to evaluate your site and reach out when you’re ready to run ads.

Already have Grow installed? Awesome! Simply log in to your Grow account and apply for Journey now.

Third-party cookies aren’t going away until 2024, but, well, 2024 isn’t exactly far away at this point, and regardless, you need to be running Grow now. 

You should be running it yesterday or last month, honestly, but we’ll settle for now. Why? There are so many reasons we made a Top 10 list.

1. Build Your Newsletter Audience

As a percentage of your overall audience, email traffic might be quite small — but it may be your most valuable traffic source. That’s because your email list is the only relationship with your audience that you actually own. 

Your social traffic lives and dies with the platform you build it on. (How are your MySpace followers doing lately?) Even if the platform survives, algorithm changes wreak havoc.

Google Search traffic can tank with an update. Referral traffic can vanish without any warning or fault of your own. And few of us can rely on people typing our URL into their browsers.

The one constant since the 1970s? The Detroit Lions being bad at football. Email.

Grow is loaded with Subscribe features to help you expand exponentially in this arena. From Spotlight Subscribe, to pop-ups, Action Pack and Exclusive Content, Grow fuels newsletter growth — and builds relationships with your readers  — no matter what the future holds.

2. Make More Money Today!

We all love to talk about Chrome getting rid of third-party cookies (3PC) in 2024, but let’s not forget the trendsetters — Safari and Firefox put the kibosh on 3PC years ago.

When readers are logged into your site through Grow on these browsers, your earnings could increase*. Today. These readers currently can be valued at more than double the worth of non-Grow readers on average.

Better still, even with 3PC still around for the time being on Chrome, you could make more there as well. On average, authenticated traffic can be worth over 50 percent more than third-party data on Chrome because it’s so reliable. That’s right now, before cookies are gone, and that figure should only increase when we lose the ability to track non-Grow readers once 3PC are gone and the value of those readers decreases.

3. Grow Uses 3PC While We Still Have Them

We still have two weeks of 2023 with 3PC in effect, and the 2024 phase out is going to be a slow rollout (only 1 percent of cookies will be deprecated initially).

That means we still have some time left with cookies around, and you better believe Grow is taking advantage of that.

On Chrome, if a logged-in reader who created a Grow account comes to your site, when they show up, they’re already signed in. 

Publishers get all the advantages of logged in readers, like increased CPMs, and readers get personalized content they’ll love.

Simply turning on Grow could mean more money in your pocket* with no effort — and the sooner you turn it on, the more valuable it becomes in the long term.

4. When Third-Party Cookies Go Away, Your First-Party Data Endures

To be clear, when we talk about cookies going away, we mean browser-based third-party cookies. When a reader logs in to your site, that’s stored on site as a first-party cookie.

That means all those readers who come to your website, even through third-party cookies on Chrome, will remain logged in to your site once third-party cookies go away.

Think of these like a nice “cookie bridge” — and the sooner you run Grow, the sooner you can begin building up your reserves for a post-3PC world.

Convert third-party cookies into first-party data starting today, simply by enabling Grow.

5. Increase Traffic

If extra money and future-proofing your business with authenticated traffic aren’t enough to persuade you, how about increased web traffic?

Grow has features like Recommended Content, Search, Bookmarks and Automailer that are designed to increase the value of every visitor to your website by providing them opportunities for repeat engagements.

Getting that second pageview out of a visitor is huge — and we all know how challenging that can be, especially with traffic from social media platforms.

Through years of optimizations and built-in machine learning, Grow optimizes your readers’ experiences to make sure they stick around — and it works.

The average site running any of those features gets more pageviews. In November 2023, we saw nearly 13 million additional pageviews across sites running these features, which could mean more money in your pocket today.

6. Speed Up Your Site

Did we mention that you get all of the tools listed above without slowing down your site?

Across the internet, related content, subscribe forms and search plugins are often some of the most taxing on your site. Not with Grow.

Grow provides you all of those features with built-in lazy loading and optimizations to help ensure that neither your server nor your site’s Core Web Vitals are adversely affected.

So turn off those taxing plugins and other third-party JavaScript and help speed up your website with a single Grow script (or with our Grow WordPress plugin). A faster site can mean more ad revenue.

7. Save Money

We’ve spent a lot of time discussing ways in which you can earn more money with Grow. But would you believe you can also save at the same time?

That’s because Grow is free. Better than free, actually, because it may help you earn revenue*!

Removing many of the plugins we just mentioned means eliminating paid, recurring expenses from your budget. Not only can you save money by removing those and going with Grow instead, but our Automailer feature allows you to send emails for free. 

Paying for an Email Sending Provider (ESP) is one of the most costly expenses for many publishers. In many cases, Automailer is an effective, free replacement.

NOTE: If your email solution is optimized, and you’re happy with it, we definitely recommend sticking to your ESP. But if you’re like many of us and never optimized an ESP? Automailer is for you.

A lot of us set up RSS-to-email feeds and then moved on. In those situations, you could ditch that setup for Automailer — a system that automatically sends your latest and top performing posts to your readers based on their individual recommended content. That means tailored emails to each subscriber. 

(For free, in case we didn’t mention that three times already.)

8. Build Your Reader Base

We all love any traffic we can get, but not all traffic is created equal. A reader that consumes one pageview after coming from Pinterest will never be worth the same as a loyal reader who returns week in and week out after opening your newsletter.

Why? That’s a subject for an entire blog post — but long story short, readers who are more engaged with your content are also more likely to see relevant ads, which improves their user experience. 

Plus, thanks to Grow, all of these logged-in readers will fall into the category of authenticated traffic, which again, on average, can be worth more than double the value of unauthenticated traffic on browsers like Safari and Firefox. 

You might not think of your readers as “super fans” along the lines of Taylor Swift’s legions of devotees, but this is the publishing equivalent — they will follow you no matter where the web goes. They belong with you, if you will.

Bad jokes aside, we can’t predict every aspect of what the web will look like in a few years, but we can promise you it’s changing fast and won’t be like it is today.

Loyal readers will stick with you, though. Grow is the engagement framework built for you to attract and keep super fans, and Grow readers are that fan base.

Mediavine is constantly working on even more ways to make sure they keep coming back. Features like Subscribe, Automailer and Bookmarks are just the beginning.

9. Help Us Grow Together

Individually, no single publisher can generate the volume of authenticated traffic and the scale of first-party data that advertisers need to replace third-party cookies.

We’re talking about tens of millions of registered readers. Not even the top sites on the internet with the biggest subscriber bases have that.

But combined? Mediavine publishers are bigger than the top sites on the internet. 

Trying to grow your newsletter on your own is fine, but even a successful website is probably sending out emails to tens of thousands of subscribers. We need tens of millions.

Tens of millions means at least 5-10% of traffic from Mediavine sites logging in. Grow readers are shared between our sites, and we need to bring in a lot more of them — together.

It takes all of us, and the sooner we start this collective mission, the closer we’ll be to the goal when third-party cookies are officially a thing of the past.

10. Help Shape the Future of Grow

We purposely launched Grow in what we call the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) stage when we released it three years ago, and we did this for a reason. 

Grow has always been about providing value to readers. Since every site is different and you know your readers better than anyone, it’s you — our publishers — who have been driving the roadmap of Grow from the onset.

You can’t be providing that feedback, and driving the future of this platform and the web, unless you’re running Grow — and thousands of our publishers are not. 

Are there features missing from Grow that are preventing you from running it? Or things you think could be done better or differently in an ideal world?

Run Grow now. Then share that feedback.

Grow has evolved like crazy in the past three years and will only continue to do so in 2024 and beyond, but we need you to be part of the solution. 

The future of the web is in our hands. Let’s Grow together.

Please note: Grow users must be utilizing Mediavine’s ad services to potentially increase revenue with Grow. Mediavine does not guarantee any revenue increase as a result of using Grow.

Yes, it’s finally happening. 

After nearly four years of delays, the end of third-party cookies is nigh. Deprecation will begin in early 2024 and cookies will be fully phased out by the end of the year, according to Google.

The end of third-party cookies will forever change the ad landscape — but will it mean the end of content creators?

Not if you’re a Mediavine publisher.

Because Mediavine built the only first-party data solution for publishers and advertisers alike, we predict these changes will mean only good things for those who join us on this journey.

What is that solution? And what exactly is the problem that it’s solving for? 

Grab your coffee and take a seat while we break down the end of cookies, the coming shift in the ecosystem and Mediavine’s multifaceted plan for the future.

What is Going Away When Cookies Go Away?

We’ve gone over this in detail and recommend checking out some of our previous blog posts for more information. But the long and short of it is that the end of cookies means the end of advertisers’ ability to serve ads relevant to readers — and measure how well those ads worked.

Example: If you’re selling diapers, you’ll no longer be able to target parents of newborns, nor find out from local stores if you sold more diapers to readers that saw your campaigns.

Browser-based (third-party) cookies made this user data, and performance tracking of ads targeted toward those readers, readily available. Come 2024, this fundamental tool of the advertising industry will be fully deprecated. Then what?

Without an alternative to this system, expect advertisers to be willing to pay less per ad unit since they’re not able to hyper-target audiences or accurately measure investment. 

Put another way, brands will still want to reach the same people, but without cookies, they’ll have to buy more inventory across the whole internet in order to achieve the same results, meaning the amount you’ll see from the units on any individual site will decline sharply.

How much less are we talking about? Google estimates up to a 60% decline in ad performance.

Deep breaths. That figure implies that there are no solutions or alternatives to third-party cookies. But as a Mediavine publisher, you’ve got plenty. 

Mediavine’s Multifaceted Approach

We need to recognize that cookies are going away for a reason — the widespread shift in reader expectations toward greater privacy regulation is no accident.

Things are changing and we can’t simply replicate what we had in the past. Not every reader is willing to be served fully personalized ads.

This is why we’re being realistic and going with what we think of as a Good, Better, Best methodology for addressing the variety of readers on your website. 

Think of a pyramid with Good at the bottom, making up the bulk of web traffic. It’s essential, but you really want the Better and Best sections at the top of the pyramid.

In summary, here are the three levels of the pyramid:

1. Good. Many readers will accept no personalization at all. For these readers, we’ll rely on direct-sold contextual ads on Safari and on Chrome, as well as Google’s Privacy Sandbox. (More on these shortly.)
2. Better. These readers won’t go so far as to log into your website but will still consent to personalized ads. With these readers, we’ll be able to replicate a lot of the signals (and performance) cookies have given us. (More on this shortly also.)
3. Best. Authenticated Traffic. The pinnacle of the pyramid for a reason. The best readers are those willing to log into your site and, in doing so, allow us to serve personalized ads and even partner with companies to provide measurement to brands. At this point, we’re not just equalling the performance of a website using cookies but performing even better than ever.

Mediavine will be able to serve high-paying ads to all three categories of readers with the goal of maximizing the Better and Best categories to net you even more revenue on balance. 

Let’s break down the three groups in more detail to get a better understanding of how they will formulate our comprehensive strategy to surpass the third-party cookie era.

Good: The Anonymous User

Performance: Not Third-Party Cookies But Alright & Getting Better

A majority of your traffic isn’t going to consent to personalized ads nor log in. I wish it wasn’t true, but it is, and a majority of anything is impossible to ignore.

So what will we do to help publishers monetize the majority of your readers once the world can no longer rely on third-party cookies?

First, it will depend on the browser. If they’re running Chrome, we’re going to take advantage of the Privacy Sandbox.

As one of only six GCPP Premier partners, we’ve been in regular contact with both the Google Chrome and Ad Manager teams responsible for the Privacy Sandbox.

We’ve been early testers of its features over the years, including the Protected Audience API and Topics API — the two features that look like third-party cookie replacements for personalized ads.

Between these two APIs and the rest of the Privacy Sandbox, we hope to recover a lot of the lost revenue for these (many) good readers.

But that still leaves Safari, Firefox and other browsers without third-party cookies — as well as Chrome users that have opted out of Privacy Sandbox features.

In those cases, we still have a variety of ways to help you monetize those readers through our incredible partnerships and sales efforts. 

We’ll be using more old school ad targeting methods like contextual, where ads are about the content or site you’re reading rather than the reader. This style of ad targeting won’t earn publishers as much as cookie-based ads do today, but it’s a whole lot better than nothing, especially as this technology improves.

Speaking of better …

Better: First-Party Data

Performance: On Par With Third-Party Cookies or Darn Close

Every time Google or anyone else talks about the end of third-party cookies, they talk about first-party data as the solution — and for good reason. 

Mediavine is perfectly positioned to assist publishers in harnessing the power of first-party data. In fact, our expertise in this area was recently acknowledged at Google’s Publisher Data Summit, where we were honored with the First-Party Data Activation award for our innovative first-party data solutions.

But, without third-party cookies, there’s no third-party data.

Ultimately there’s only one person that can replace the data, and that’s the person who runs the website. The publisher. You.

That’s why Mediavine built Grow, a tool to allow all publishers to band together and generate enough volume of first-party data to have an impact on advertiser spend.

Individually, none of us has the scale to offer what advertisers need, but combined across our 10,000+ publisher sites, we sure do.

That’s where Grow comes in. If a reader consents to personalized ads, even if they don’t log in, we’re able to start learning about the reader as they browse sites running Grow.

For example, if the reader browses a Grow site about cars, we may learn that they are looking to purchase a car. Then, when they browse your food blog, which is also running Grow, we can serve a car ad to that reader even when they’re browsing a food blog. 

You can start to see where the scale of Grow is vital to its success and why we want as many websites running this as we possibly can.

These ads — not the Best (still to come) but Better than anonymous because they’ve given us some degree of consent — provide advertisers many of the targeting capabilities they need and should be nearly as strong performance-wise as what third-party cookies/data provide.

Now we’re getting somewhere, but we’re not done yet. The ultimate goal is not just replacing third-party data, but improving on it with authenticated traffic — the Best solution of all.

Best: Authenticated Traffic

Performance: Better Than Any Third-Party Cookies You Ever Had, By a Wide Margin

This isn’t just where Grow shines; it’s where Mediavine publishers can dominate. No one else is offering a solution like this at this scale.

Authenticated traffic is when a reader logs in to your site and consents to personalized ads.

Grow is able to do this through a single sign-on account in which readers agree to plain English terms of service that let them know how we plan to use their data.

Then, all you need to do as a publisher is have the reader log in.

You don’t need to worry about account creation, and more importantly, the data and consent side of the equation. It becomes one simple click.

Already, we have millions of combined users and Grow provides a whole host of features that make logging in as easy as that one click.

What do advertisers get out of this?

A lot. With first-party data in play, we can use identifiers such as Unified ID 2.0 and LiveRamp ATS to give them even more than they got with third-party cookies.

This allows advertisers to bring their own data to the equation, and in a privacy-safe manner. It’s better data for them and better for the reader.

And the best part of all? It’s also better for you. Way better. 

Even while third-party cookies are still around, we can see that this authenticated traffic already earns publishers nearly 115% MORE on Safari.

We expect that figure to increase as well. Remember, this is still new and many advertisers have yet to invest serious resources into these kinds of campaigns. 

We believe this is the future of digital advertising and that Mediavine publishers are poised to remain the top earning publishers on the internet because of it.

So, What’s Going to Happen to My Revenue?

A lot depends on the type of site you run as well as the decisions you make as a publisher. Do you plan to run Grow and optimize for those Better and Best ads? If so, we believe you’ll find yourself walking away with a nice increase in revenue.

Is Grow Required to Stay at Mediavine?

While not technically required, unless you already have 5-10% of your traffic logged in and properly consenting, then you’re certainly going to want Grow.

If you’re thinking your 20,000 email subscribers have you covered, let’s chat.

Part of what makes Grow work so well is the collective power it brings to publishers. Your 20,000 subscribers may seem relatively modest, but through Grow, they are combined with the subscribers of potentially thousands of other websites to create a massive pool of authenticated users that rivals any publisher online and draws the attention of premium advertisements.

In short, this isn’t something that can be done easily on your own. Even some of the largest publications on the internet have trouble doing this alone, and most independent publishers don’t have anywhere near the scale.

If you want to continue to work with Mediavine and completely ignore the other ad types, you certainly can. You will take advantage of our Privacy Sandbox integrations, contextual advertising and partnerships, and you certainly will still make money.

But you’ll likely be leaving some money on the table compared to the third-party cookie world of today — and certainly more than if you run and optimize for Grow immediately.

How do you optimize for Grow? 1,970 words is enough for one article. I’m tired. But stay tuned because that post is coming soon!

Update: As of October 31, 2023, the Gross Revenue Report is live and available in your Mediavine Dashboard. If you have any questions, please visit our help center.

At Mediavine, we’re proud to offer industry-leading revenue shares to our publishers — beginning at 75% and reaching as high as 90%!

But between Premiere, Pro, loyalty bonus and impression goals, we understand that revenue shares can be confusing at best — and that’s before taking into account that they can vary, by the month or even by the day.

We also understand that as the pioneers of transparency in the ad management space, this runs counter to our goal. 

We want more clarity — not less.

After feedback received on a Town Hall with some of our Premiere publishers – and from your emails, comments and requests over the years – we’re excited to announce that a Gross Revenue Report is coming soon!

What is a Gross Revenue Report?

We are going to offer you the ability to download your advertising earnings, in gross, via the Mediavine Dashboard. The revenue report includes the amount of net revenue you’ve received above the base revenue share of 75% along with historic revenue values.

It will look similar in formatting to our other exportable reports, and will show your earnings in both gross and net. The revenue report includes the amount of net revenue you’ve received above the base revenue share of 75%

This will allow you to view Mediavine’s take rate as well as your revenue share. Currently, the dashboard has displayed only net (to the publisher).

When will I be able to see it?

The Gross Revenue Report development and testing is currently in progress, and we plan to release it next month.

Why are we announcing it now?

Again, transparency. Our Premiere publishers spoke and we listened.

You have our commitment and we wanted you to hear that as quickly as possible.

Is this it?

No, not at all. We respect that this is your livelihood and that you want more insight into what you are earning and what Mediavine is charging.

We don’t take it lightly that we are often the primary revenue source for your business, and want you to have full confidence and trust in our reporting.

We’re exploring ways to provide additional data points, and appreciate all the feedback the community continues to bring us.

It only makes us all better, so keep it coming.

In a blog post last week, Google announced plans to launch generative AI into Search Labs with a new product called Search Generative Experience (SGE).

What exactly is SGE, and more importantly, what will it mean for content creators who rely on Google for much of (or most of) their web traffic?

According to its post on SGE, Google will add a new section directly above the search engine results, where a ChatGPT-style bot will answer queries directly inline.

At that point, the user can click on links to the sources that fed the AI response, or continue the dialogue by asking follow-up questions to the chatbot.

Many publishers are concerned by this and rightly so. 

If Google chatbots are directly answering search queries at the top of the page, how might that impact organic traffic as we’ve always known it?

Before we pronounce our industry dead and buried, let’s zoom out. Despite how remarkable this technology is and how futuristic it seems, we’ve been down this road before.

If you’ve been doing this for a long time like we have (at the risk of dating ourselves) you may remember when Google first launched ads into search.

Ads quickly began to dominate most of the top spots, and plenty of panic ensued, but here we are. Organic search results survived.

More recently, you likely remember the launch of position zero, which is conceptually similar to SGE, as certain questions are answered directly in a box above the search results by Google before any links are displayed (hence the name).

But again, guess what? Organic results survived.

In fact, organic search strategies came to include winning this very spot, as position zero is attainable even if a page isn’t otherwise ranked in the top three. For those that saw this challenge as an opportunity, it was a potential win, not a loss.

The list goes on. Think about carousels, text fragments, and countless other changes and enhancements we’ve experienced with Google search.

Organic survived, because content creators have always served as the lifeblood of those search results, and the web itself. 

Google’s SGE post acknowledges this reality:

“As we bring generative AI into Search, we’re committed to continue sending valuable traffic to sites across the web.”

Okay, But Do You Honestly Believe That? And What Can I Do?

Still skeptical? Good, and same. There are things that are outside of your control (what Google does).

While we believe that Google needs content creators — and therefore has an interest in taking the responsible approach it promises here — we’re still strong advocates for publishers taking AI seriously and updating their strategies.

First and foremost, focus on the one thing that AI, machine learning and chatbots can never do: Build a relationship with your readers.

SGE, ChatGPT and their robotic cohorts have many use cases, but forming an authentic relationship with readers is beyond their scope**.

Take advantage of your best asset: You. 

Own the relationship with your audience and nurture it with tools like Grow’s Spotlight Subscribe and running a newsletter.

Second, think in terms of what these changes add, not what they take away.

Remember that this is not a declaration of war on AI, nor is it mutually exclusive from embracing technology that adds tremendous value.

Don’t fight the robot revolution, lead it. Check our blog post on ways bloggers can use ChatGPT to increase productivity while maintaining your unique voice.

Use AI to build and maintain the authentic relationship with your readers that helps you stand out. It’s not an either/or proposition.

Third, and perhaps most importantly from the standpoint of AI possibly disrupting your Google traffic? Diversify. Invest in other traffic sources.

I know … who wants to join yet another social network. I still long for the days of MySpace. But again, you have to think of your relationship with your readers. 

Not every reader is going to want to engage exactly how you wish they would, whether that’s via email or on your preferred social platform that you’ve already mastered.

Change is the only constant. As trends in content consumption and technology shift, users will adapt and so should you. Meet your readers where they are.

Even if that means TikTok.

Mediavine Has Your Back

Through nearly 19 years of growth as an independent business, Mediavine has adapted to myriad changes that threatened its existence and has always come out stronger.

We still own and operate The Hollywood Gossip — one the websites that led us into ad management in 2015.

We’re publishers, too. As always, we’ll be using that to our advantage, using our own sites and resources to help our 10,000-plus customers navigate these changing times.

AI is here to stay, but so are we, the content creators. We’re here to make sure the two work together, and lead the next internet revolution together.

** ChatGPT attempted to write a first draft of this post, and it was beyond terrible. What the 12 of you who made it to the end of this just finished reading is all me, using my uniquely human voice. 

Mediavine has been in business since 2004, and needless to say, a great deal has changed after almost two decades.

We’ve gone from four founders running a publishing company to 185 employees helping over 10,000 publishers monetize their websites. The Mediavine team has built unprecedented ad technology and brought it to independent publishers. 

We’ve become an organization that not only withstands turbulent economic conditions, a shifting privacy landscape, the rise of the robots and other factors, but also one that is a thought leader and change agent for an entire industry grappling with an uncertain future.

In many ways, it’s a different world than when we started. But what I’m most proud of are the things that have not changed after all that time.

We’re Still Mediavine.

At our core, we’re still run by the same founders. We’re still independent, have no outside investment and are not beholden to external shareholders.

We still answer to you, our publishers.

We believe this is what makes Mediavine truly unique. Our award-winning customer service and top-performing ad units may be what drove a lot of you to Mediavine, because our independence — and the culture that fosters it — drives the innovation behind everything we do.

We’re still Mediavine. Here are a few reasons why that’s important — and how our publishers reap the rewards, year after year.

Industry Leading Revenue Shares

The biggest reason why our publishers earn the most is a simple one: They get to keep the vast majority of every dollar made by their website.

We offer revenue shares up to 90 percent to our publishers, even when we work directly with buy side platforms like The Trade Desk.

That’s unheard of to earn from a SSP or an ad management company, and we’re able to do it because of our independence. 

Mediavine is not controlled by a board, or shareholders or by metrics like EBITDA that position us for acquisition. Our roadmap is entirely in our own hands. 

We’re driven only by the same thing that led us into ad management — to help independent content creators build and grow sustainable businesses.

Still Mediavine. When you succeed, we succeed.

We know that putting more money in your pockets drives your business, ultimately making Mediavine more successful in the long term.

Big Ideas. Long Term Vision.

If you’re worried about stock prices or your private equity firm’s next valuation, your vision is likely to be very short term.

Because we’re independent and unencumbered by these considerations, we’re able to think long term and big picture.

It’s why we’re still the only company with a viable third-party cookie solution, built for a new, privacy-centric era.

We’ve poured millions of dollars into Grow to help publishers navigate a shifting landscape of regulations, artificial intelligence and other challenges. 

Grow is just one example. Whether it’s investing in our ad tech, our own video player or any of our products, we’re always thinking through the lens of how we can improve our content creators’ businesses now, and long into the future.

The freedom to embrace — and act on — big ideas comes from our independence. 

An Independent Voice. A Brighter Future.

After nearly two decades, and hopefully for decades to come, we’re dedicated to protecting and shaping the future of the web.

We believe the web needs to be independent and diverse. The only way we can champion that vision is to reflect this ourselves.

It’s why we choose to continue to be Mediavine. Because the web cannot, and should not, be run by a select few power brokers. 

Of the top 100 companies on the Internet, Mediavine is the only one with the same makeup as you, the publishers we serve.

Banded together, we’ve become an Independent Internet Giant — an achievement that is as much yours as it is ours.

We’re still Mediavine. And with your partnership, we’re going to keep it that way for another two decades and beyond.