How People Inc. is prioritizing traffic and revenue diversification to prepare for AI era

Titles in the health and finance category have been especially vulnerable to the expansion of Google’s AI Overviews summaries and changes to SERP, Borsa noted. Meanwhile, some titles like Travel + Leisure already had more diversified traffic sources (including search, email, Google Discover, and social) before AIOs debuted, meaning they have been more insulated from search traffic declines.

When IAC’s Dotdash bought Meredith Corp. in 2021, about 60-65% of traffic was from organic search, Borsa said. Now it’s about 25-30%.

This trend will likely only accelerate. “Google is, to some degree, alluding to the fact that AI Mode will become the default search engine going forward. When and where that happens is to be determined, but it’s absolutely real and impactful,” Borsa said.

Despite the challenges, revenue and traffic has continued to grow at People Inc., Borsa said. 

A key part of keeping up this trajectory is diversifying traffic and revenue sources by investing in People Inc.’s email and newsletter program, Google Discover, social media, Apple News and its commerce and licensing businesses, Borsa said.

It’s also about developing direct to consumer relationships, she added. People Inc. has launched new products and services this year, including the People app and a MyRecipes recipe box that allows users to save and collect recipes from across People Inc.’s top food and recipe sites at People Inc. 

Events and IRL experiences are also growing at People Inc, which now hosts over over 60 events, Borsa said. The company, for example, expanded its Food and Wine event in Aspen to Charleston last year. All of this has led to its events business growing by double digits, helping to offset declines in programmatic ad revenue, Borsa told Digiday in a previous interview.

 “We are investing heavily [in events]. We are seeing significant growth. There is a ton of consumer demand. That means there’s also a ton of partner demand there,” Borsa said onstage at DPS. “On the advertising side, our premium revenue that’s tied to events [and social, and our contextual ad targeting product D/Cipher] – that is all continuing to grow because it’s providing premium advertising opportunities and that offsets any of the actual declines… We’ve got to make sure that we are coming up with highly valuable experiences and advertising opportunities.”

While Borsa noted that People Inc.’s content licensing deal with OpenAI does help surface and attribute its content in AI tools like ChatGPT, there’s “no playbook” for optimizing for AI platforms. 

“As those products and services evolve, at the core of it, quality in and quality out still holds true,” Borsa said.