Our CRUNCH series continues to be supported by our TAB partner Google

Search is becoming a zero-sum game. Traffic is declining, and publishers are increasingly finding themselves in direct competition with AI summaries and large language models. Against this backdrop, publishers need to adopt new strategies to reclaim a direct relationship with their audience – and to educate advertisers on the value of a quality, premium environment.

Attendees joined us at AOP CRUNCH on Thursday 14 May to discover how publishers are protecting their traffic while maintaining or growing their yield, and to learn from their successes and failures as they develop their own post-search strategies.

Here’s a look at the questions that were explored:

• Is AI search optimisation now business-as-usual – and if not, how do you address the AI crawlers?
• How do you develop new strategies that will protect your audience whilst reducing reliance on search and referral traffic?
• What does it take to develop a strong brand voice that emphasises premium publishing’s unique points of differentiation to AI-driven summarisation
• How are publishers shifting from metrics that promote scale to those that demonstrate how brand and performance come together to deliver quality returns for publishers and advertisers alike?

CRUNCH is a series of four events where publisher members can come together with their contemporaries and the industry for

• Collaboration to progress key industry issues
• Inspiration and learning
• Networking