Stay curious: 12 ‘Back to school’ training suggestions for digital publishers

Published: 01 Sept 2025

It’s September, which means it’s back to school for the kids, and back to the office for the rest of us. But, of course, every day is a learning experience; the need to continue developing your skills doesn’t stop when you leave formal education.

With the future of digital publishing changing so rapidly, the need to reskill and upskill your employees is more pressing than ever. The AOP Associates share their insights on what essential training you should be providing to your team to ensure they’re ready

for the challenges and opportunities of 2025 and beyond.

Tackling complexity: Why cross-functional skills are more important than ever

To succeed in 2025 and beyond, publishers need to invest in practical, cross-functional training. As the digital landscape grows more complex, with tighter privacy regulations, evolving monetisation models, and the rise of AI - teams must understand how these shifts impact their day-to-day work.

This isn’t just about technical know-how. Sales, ops, and product teams all need to be aligned on how data is used, how consent is managed, and how to deliver value to both consumers and advertisers. That means training on privacy-first strategies, ethical AI use, and sustainable revenue models.

The publishers who get ahead won’t be the ones chasing trends. They’ll be the ones who build internal expertise, stay agile, and lead with transparency and trust. That starts with giving every team the tools and context they need to make smarter, more strategic decisions.

Russell James, Senior Director, Publisher Development, Northern Europe, Ogury

The power of premium publishing environments

In 2025, publishers aren’t just competing with each other, they’re competing with Big Tech platforms that offer scale, targeting, and guarantees. That makes it critical to train sales teams not only on the mechanics of products, but on the uniqueness of the publisher proposition.

Teams need to be fluent in why trusted environments, quality storytelling, and engaged audiences deliver brand outcomes that programmatic alone can’t. Just as importantly, they need the confidence to link that value directly to advertiser objectives, package it alongside complementary channels, and price it in a way that protects margin.

Whether that includes branded content, sponsorships, or amplification, the common thread is the same: when publishers can clearly and confidently communicate their unique proposition and back it up with clear outcomes and deliverables, the conversation shifts from defending share to actually growing it.

Tom Gunter, Co-Founder & Director of New Markets, Avid Collective

The art of the sale: Addressability, outcomes, and consented audiences

In an ever-changing, fast-moving ecosystem, ongoing learning remains critical for all roles within publishers. Sales teams, in particular, need to understand the increasing challenges faced by advertisers in today’s environment, such as addressability (and the increasing lack of it outside of the walled gardens); the inability to measure outcomes; and reaching relevant consented audiences efficiently and effectively, all through a backdrop of evolving data regulation and increased scrutiny on sustainability. With knowledge comes the ability to speak to these challenges transparently. With a better understanding of the options that are available to them, publishers can create a response that addresses advertiser needs, which will hopefully drive better outcomes. Such behaviours can enable the creation of partnerships and mutual trust. This leads to improved performance, and the ability to drive increased spend.

Catherine Murray, Head of Partner Services, Utiq

Quality Metrics 101: Why attention is becoming de rigueur

The concept of “high-quality inventory” has changed significantly. For years, quality metrics like viewability, brand suitability and invalid traffic were the essentials. But advertisers looking to improve ROI have extended the quality conversation to include performance metrics like attention. Buyers will increasingly evaluate publishers based on both quality and attention metrics, so now is the perfect time to learn how to operationalise them for your team’s benefit.

Establish a baseline understanding of attention’s positive impact on campaigns to learn why advertisers value engaged audiences. Teams should then work on combining traditional quality metrics such as viewability, invalid traffic and brand suitability alongside attention data, especially as part of your sales narratives. Lastly, leverage benchmarks to contextualise the media quality and attention data that you’re seeing. Resources like DV’s Quality & Attention Benchmark Report can help you learn where you stand and monitor trends.

Anya Libova, Sr. Director, Business Development, Double Verify

Ethical AI and the future of traffic

Publishers must train teams to adapt to shifting traffic dynamics, especially as AI-driven search and chatbots threaten to reduce referral traffic from traditional platforms. Essential training should cover audience engagement strategies, leveraging newly formed AI-enhanced user experiences and bringing elements of these new user behaviour practices to the open web. Personalisation, summaries, dynamic content delivery and conversational interfaces are taking over in popular AI apps, leaving a "habit" gap yet to be explored for publishers in the open web. Training should also emphasise ethical AI use, SEO adaptation in an AI-first search landscape, and fostering direct relationships with readers through subscriptions, communities, and immersive digital formats.

Jason Iliou, Regional Publisher Director, EMEA, Taboola

Introduction to AI: Understanding how, where, and when to implement AI effectively

One of the most pressing challenges for digital publishers in 2025 is defining the evolving role of AI within their business strategies. A clear, transparent approach to AI integration—both in internal operations and audience-facing functions—is essential. While AI can significantly boost efficiency by automating repetitive tasks, it also risks narrowing entry-level opportunities and stalling early-career development. Publishers must proactively address this tension to ensure long-term talent growth and organisational resilience.

Beyond AI, publishers face a complex landscape shaped by regulatory and market shifts. Teams must monitor the implications of Google’s ongoing antitrust cases, navigate a fragmented ecosystem of identity solutions, and stay ahead of emerging trends in supply path optimisation (SPO). As buyers demand greater efficiency and transparency, publishers must embrace curated marketplaces and adopt sell-side decisioning tools that offer more value, clarity, and control throughout the media supply chain.

Andrew Heald, Manager Publisher, Development, Index Exchange

The impact of SEO on discoverability in an era of AI-driven search

One vital area for publishers to focus on is their SEO strategy. This is constantly evolving, so those who stay on top of this are more likely to be rewarded. For example, many companies consider social content to be siloed and not necessarily part of a broader SEO strategy. But, starting in July, public Instagram posts from professional accounts will become indexable by Google. For this reason, it’s worth investigating whether social content here is working as well as it can, and whether content and social teams need to collaborate in a way that aids discoverability. Meanwhile, with on-site content such as blogs, the old way of thinking was to write for Google. Then it became clear that writing in a natural way for humans was a better idea. Now, with AI snippets increasingly dominating search results, writing for humans in a way that AI systems can easily parse and understand appears to be the superior approach.

Matt Golowczynski, Marketing Communications Director, SmartFrame

How to enrich first-party data with credible insight

Getting teams ready for the future starts with building confidence around data – where it comes from, how it connects, and what makes it trustworthy. As signal loss accelerates and identity gets harder to pin down, understanding the role of third-party data will be just as important as managing your own. Publishers who can enrich their first-party assets with credible external insight will have the edge: deeper audience understanding, better targeting, and stronger monetisation without giving up control. That takes training, not just in tools, but in strategy. Knowing how to navigate ID resolution, personalise at scale, and collaborate with the right partners will separate those who adapt from those who stall.

Danny Holmes, Consulting Partner, Media and Agency, Experian Marketing Services

Data confidence: Moving from operational know-how to strategic insight

To succeed in 2025 and beyond, publishers must ensure their teams are fluent in data-driven decision-making. As programmatic becomes more complex, monetisation teams need more than operational know-how; they need strategic insight. This means understanding performance signals like viewability, auction dynamics, and SSP behaviour, and knowing how to act on them in real time. It’s no longer about manually managing line items or troubleshooting setups - training should focus on interpreting data, testing revenue strategies, and adapting fast. At Pubstack, we see the highest-performing teams invest in upskilling around these areas, using tools that simplify workflows and surface actionable insights. As a result, they’re not just reacting to change, they’re proactively driving revenue outcomes.

Ronan Murphy, Country Manager UK, Pubstack

Introduction to bridging technical, strategic, and creative skills

Publishers should focus on training their teams in three key areas: data management, AI adoption, and privacy-first strategies. Teams need a strong understanding of first-party data collection, activation, and curation to maintain value and trust in a cookieless environment. Equally important is building AI literacy. Not only understanding how AI works in different cases, but also how to use it responsibly. Finally, ongoing education around evolving privacy regulations and sustainability practices is critical. Cross-functional training that bridges technical, strategic, and creative skills will empower teams to adapt quickly, collaborate effectively, and make data-driven decisions that support long-term growth.

Thuy Ho, Sales Manager, Relevant Digital

The key to resiliency: Optimise, maximise, diversify

To thrive in 2025 and beyond, publishers must equip teams with skills that bridge efficiency, compliance, and monetisation. First, AI literacy is essential: understanding which tasks can be automated—whether editorial workflows, SEO optimisation, or audience development—frees up time for higher-value creativity at a moment when traffic pressures are acute. Equally critical is training around privacy and content rights: GDPR remains a moving target, and stolen or scraped content poses reputational and revenue risks that staff must recognise and respond to. From a business standpoint, revenue diversification training is key: for example, pairing retail media strategies with video can maximise yield from every user touchpoint. Finally, publishers must build deep knowledge of video monetisation—how to optimise formats, placement, and programmatic demand—since video remains the most powerful driver of engagement and revenue. Preparing teams in these areas ensures resilience and growth in a shifting digital landscape.

Alex Dawson-Smith, Global Business Development Director, EX.CO

The importance of data fluency

In 2025, the most essential training publishers can offer their teams is around data fluency - especially in measurement and analytics. As a brand lift company, we see firsthand how richer data leads to smarter storytelling and stronger commercial outcomes. When teams understand how to interpret audience behaviour, campaign performance, and engagement metrics, they’re not just reacting—they’re predicting. That’s where the real opportunity lies. Training should empower teams to connect the dots between content, context, and conversion, using measurement as a springboard for forward-looking narratives. The more granular and real-time the insights, the more confidently publishers can innovate, personalise, and pitch value to advertisers. In short, data isn’t just a tool—it’s the foundation for future revenue, and publishers should equip their teams to wield it well.

Sean Adams, CMO, Brand Metrics