BDG's Cost-Cutting Era Is Over. Now It's Targeting Record Profits

After years of layoffs, closures, and strategic pivots, Bustle Digital Group is poised to post its most profitable year ever. First-half sales are up 25% year over year, and the company is anticipating a 10% profit margin on a nine-figure revenue in 2025, according to BDG founder and chief executive Bryan Goldberg. In 2023, the publisher brought in around $135 million. The turnaround is the result of a painful, years-long effort to overhaul the BDG business model. Since 2021, the company has shuttered or shelved brands including Gawker, Mic, Fatherly, and Input. At the same time, the publisher has kept revenues roughly consistent while reducing headcount and investing in its events and influencer divisions. In doing so, BDG has transformed from a digital media publisher into a company that uses events as a centerpiece for influencer marketing, gifting campaigns, branded content, and social media impressions. “We’ve had to fundamentally change what we’re doing,” Goldberg said. “Instead of being a website that publishes stories, we’re now basically an events company.” Rebuilding around real-life moments As part of its evolution, BDG has significantly scaled back written editorial content and restructured its editorial teams to support and extend the company’s events circuit. Today, that includes major activations in tandem with cultural touchstones like Art Basel and New York Fashion Week, as well as smaller recurring events under the Nylon banner. It threw 16 events last year and plans to host 24 in 2025. “The best way for us to win in the digital realm is for us to win in the physical realm,” Goldberg said. “If you try to win only in digital without winning in real life, you won’t win digital.” BDG publisher Nylon hosts exclusive events at cultural tentpoles like Coachella, NYFW, and Art Basel. At Coachella and Stagecoach in April, BDG built an immersive, photo-ready space and facilitated influencer gifting for major brands. Across the two events, the company pulled in nearly $5 million in sponsorship revenue. Each of its 10 major sponsors focused on getting physical products into the hands of tastemakers and influencers, who then promoted the gifts on social media. Using this strategy, BDG generated roughly 500 billion organic social impressions across the two events, according to Goldberg. “Brands are realizing there are maybe 5,000 to 10,000 young women in America who have a lot of influence,” he said. “Our superpower is getting product into their hands.” An ecosystem of monetization But no brand is just buying the event, according to Wesley Bonner, senior vice president of marketing and audience development at BDG. Instead, they are buying into a full suite of surfaces—custom content, video production, influencer campaigns, licensed event footage, and repackaging across social and owned-and-operated channels. “It is an ecosystem of products,” Bonner said. “The ideal advertiser wants to tap into every component of the product wheel.” In 2025, BDG expects 20% of its revenue to come from live events, 30% from social content, and 12% from affiliate. Print, led by W Magazine, could account for up to 10%, and branded content, produced by BDG Studios, is responsible for the remaining 30%. The company’s staffing mix reflects the shift: While it still employs writers, Goldberg said, it now also staffs production designers to build branded experiences at events. Affiliate revenue remains a challenge, but Goldberg sees promise in tracking the downstream effects of the influencer connections BDG facilitates. The goal, he said, is to develop a way to quantify the long-tail value of introducing a creator to a specific product. “If we create the initial connection between a cosmetics company and a popular influencer, how do we value that lifetime value?” he said. “It is real and will drive a massive number of conversions.” Leaner and more efficient The restructuring, while painful, appears to have right-sized the business for a new kind of monetization model. “[Goldberg] didn’t go into this business thinking he’d build an events company,” said Jacob Donnelly, founder of A Media Operator. “But if he can pull this off, it’ll be a real success story.” Still, the model comes with risks. Consumer events can be expensive to produce and often carry thinner margins than their business-to-business counterparts. And while brands are returning to top-of-funnel spending, the inability to tie influencer gifting to hard attribution metrics remains a hurdle. “Anything that doesn’t have a direct conversion metric is always going to be more on the chopping block,” Donnelly said. “But brand still matters. And if they can prove value at scale, they’ll be fine.” The big bet: standalone events To date, BDG has built its events strategy around co-locating with major cultural tentpoles—Coachella, Art Basel, New York Fashion Week. But in 2026, the company plans to launch standalone Nylon events in major cities, using the community it’s built as a draw. If the standalone events take off, it could mark the final leg of BDG’s evolution—from digital publisher to experience-driven platform. “Because the typical Nylon attendee is on their third event, that is now our audience, our community,” Goldberg said. “The first thing influencers are saying is: Get me on the list.”

Experiential Marketing

BDG's Cost-Cutting Era Is Over. Now It's Targeting Record Profits

First half revenue is up 25% at Bustle Digital Group

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Mark Stenberg

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