As the second quarter of 2025 has already begun, digital publishers, particularly in the editorial niche, are facing several major challenges. Here’s how they can tackle these.

Undoubtedly, 2025 isn’t likely to be the most stable year for digital publishers. Not only has the average volume of subscriptions been declining, with some notable exceptions, but the recent economic turmoil has already had a visible impact on the overall digital ad spend, particularly in the U.S., which only demonstrated 2.8% growth in February 2025, i.e. the lowest growth rate since the previous ad recession in 2023 (per Mediapost). This inevitably takes a toll on the publishers’ ad revenue outcomes, slowing their growth dynamics, accordingly (per the AdPlayer.Pro data).  

Add it to the increasing traffic issues due to the massive shift towards AI-driven search algorithms in major web browsers, like Chrome, and the publishers’ revenue perspectives for the near future may look vague, to say the least. 

Nonetheless, no challenge is impossible to tackle, in case one has an efficient strategy developed, and here’s what publishers may consider implementing to mitigate their revenue risks in 2025. 

A Move from SEO to GEO Is Inevitable: Leverage It

According to recent reports, the top-3 tech giants, i.e. Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon are eager to spend over 250,000,000,000 USD on support of generative AI (GAI) cloud infrastructure only in 2025. And given the multiple newsmakers regarding the development of agentic AI solutions, one thing becomes clear: the galloping growth of generative AI technologies looks unstoppable at this point. 

From a digital publisher’s perspective, while the use of GAI can simplify a myriad of their operational tasks, the newly-adopted AI-powered search algorithms have been “eating out” their referral traffic. In fact, almost 60% of searches in Google in 2024 ended in zero website clicks, and this trend may only accelerate in the months ahead. 

Fortunately, there’s a way to decrease the negative impact of GAI search solutions, i.e. by implementing the so-called Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) tactics. 

Namely, some of these include:

  • analysis of how an AI-powered search algorithm processes, integrates and prioritizes online content from multiple websites to deliver results for end users’ search queries;
  • content optimization to improve its AI search tech discoverability, according to obtained analysis data;
  • continuous adaptation of digital content, based on the tracked fluctuations to maximize achieved results, and much more. 

MFA Issues Persist: Secure Your Spotless Reputation

While the problem of MFA sites doesn’t seem as widely-discussed in the media in 2025, as it was last year, for instance, many digital publishers face a looming threat of having their digital properties falsely flagged as MFA, hence losing a significant share of their ad revenue. 

The worst thing is, up until recently it hasn’t been clear at once whether a publisher’s domain was blocklisted as MFA by a certain verification provider, or not, leaving fewer opportunities to fix a problem, if any, in a timely manner. 

Well, the good news is that a working solution to MFA labeling issues may have been finally found. In the beginning of 2025, the Brand Safety Institute (BSI) launched a free tool, known as the MFA Transparency Utility, which enables publishers to check, whether any of their digital properties have been flagged as MFA by any of the verification providers, and if so, learn how to try and fix things in order to resolve the issue and prevent blacklisting in future. And while no vendors’ specific methodology, regarding MFA flagging is being revealed, following the commonly recommended guidelines should definitely help out mitigate risks, if any. 

To use the new tool, a publisher will need to submit their application to its developer, i.e. the BSA, verifying that it comes from a legitimate representative/contact, then wait up for approval in order to access its core functionality. 

Direct-to-DSP Deals Are Hot: Take Advantage of the Few

While deal curation (working with SSPs and other DCaaS providers) remains trendy in 2025, the associated costs might drag its obvious benefits down. Namely, according to experts, the revenue share for curated PMPs may rise up to 20% (per AdMonsters), which potentially takes a toll on a publisher’s ad revenue. 

In view of this, another publishers’ monetization strategy is gaining more traction in 2025 – it’s known as Direct-to-DSP Deals. 

Even though the notion of Direct-to-DSP sales isn’t exactly new (since the Trade Desk’s OpenPath solution, for instance, has been on the market for some time already), the idea of removing SSPs from an equation may seem lucrative for some publishers. 

At the same time, as the analysts admit, the share of such deals on the market isn’t big yet, and shifting one’s entire focus to those would be an apparent mistake. A potentially efficient strategy, however, would imply experimenting with a few options and analyzing the achieved revenue outcomes, prior to making any strategic moves.