Digiday+ Research: Publishers streamline revenue sources, with direct-sold ads top money driver
February 14, 2023 • 3 min read | By
Ivy Liu
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Publishers aren’t feeling their best about revenue or the economy overall.
Digiday+ Research surveyed 112 publisher professionals to find out how this is affecting their revenue sources, if at all.
Digiday’s survey found that, overall, the number of revenue sources publishers rely on has fallen very slightly since the first quarter of last year. To be exact, publishers are currently relying on 6.41 revenue sources on average, compared with 6.60 revenue sources last year.
The change is a bit more significant when we break down publishers by size. Small publishers (or those with a revenue last year of less than $10 million) get their revenue from an average of 4.83 sources as of Q1 of this year, down from 5.41 a year ago. Meanwhile, large publishers (or those with last year’s revenue at least $50 million) are relying on 7.68 revenue sources on average, compared with 8.02 sources at the start of 2022.