How Commerce-Heavy Publishers Are Preparing for the Holidays

As the holiday season nears, publishers are hoping to translate an uptick in consumer spending into ecommerce gains that will bolster their final quarter figures. Predictions from retail analyst firms Bain, Deloitte and Mastercard SpendingPulse all predict retail consumption will rise by at least 7% in November and December compared to last year, totaling nearly $800 billion in sales, according to Bain. In response, publishers with strong ecommerce divisions, including Future plc, BuzzFeed and Bustle Digital Group (BDG), have laid preparations to capture as much of that increased spend as possible. Despite the fact that more consumers are expected to return to in-person shopping this year, publishers are counting on an increased familiarity with ecommerce, the return of dormant categories like beauty and enhanced technological capabilities to result in a banner year. “The number one thing that our audiences have been talking about is that they want to double down on Christmas,” said Zack Sullivan, chief revenue officer of Future plc. “They want to make it special this year, because it's a chance to reconnect with their families.” Inside the Suddenly Cutthroat Business of Holiday Hires Consumer insights suggest a splurge-heavy holiday season Reports from retail analysts like Deloitte mirror the results Future plc has collected from its consumer sentiment surveys: An increase in savings, combined with pent-up demand, suggest heightened spending this holiday season. Future predicts its U.S. audience will spend $95 billion and $74.5 billion on Christmas and Black Friday, respectively. Its survey data also found that 54% of U.S. shoppers plan to do most or all of their Black Friday shopping online this year. Likewise, Nilla Ali, svp of commerce at BuzzFeed, said that the publisher anticipates an increase in consumer demand. Shoppers will likely gravitate toward discounts, per usual, but many will be more willing to spend big on “splurge-worthy” purchases, Ali said. “There is more optimism in the economy, and unemployment is in a better place than last year,” she said. “That could lead to an increase in the average order value of products this year.” New and returning categories The last holiday season saw an exaggerated rise in the affiliate revenues of many publishers, due to social-distancing provisions that discouraged shoppers from making in-store purchases. At BDG, affiliate revenues rose 78% from the year prior, according to Meghan Muntean, its evp of commerce and revenue development. As shoppers return to malls this fall, the volume of online retail transactions will likely drop compared to 2020, Muntean said. But publishers are optimistic that the return of categories that were dormant last year, including beauty and fashion, could help compensate for the downturn in activity. “With more cities opening and people starting to go out more, we expect a big uptick in the fashion and beauty categories this year, and they will be supported with more resources,” she said. Other categories will simply shift, rather than shrink or expand. For instance, spending on home renovation and furniture boomed last year as people found themselves sequestered in houses that had to adapt to their occupants’ new modes of living. This year, that spending could shift to decor, Ali said. “I think that trend will persist in Q4, where the categories within home that are driving growth shift,” Ali said. Navigating supply-chain bottlenecks The pandemic continues to disrupt supply-chain networks, a problem publishers have navigated in close communication with their brand partners. Most have found a simple solution: Confirm which products retailers will have available, then promote those. Publishers tempted to ignore the warnings could find themselves with a customer-experience problem. If an article routes a reader to a product that fails to arrive in time, people will be disappointed. The affiliate model guarantees publishers some protections from the vicissitudes of the supply-chain fiasco––it takes a percentage of the transaction, which means its profit margin remains fixed––but they still have to guard against damaging their reputation with readers. "We know our audience and that they want to receive purchases quickly, so we are focused on covering products from merchants that are available and have reasonable shipping time estimates," Muntean said. "Our hope is to make the online shopping experience as stress-free as possible." Enhanced technology Most publishers have taken a two-pronged approach to increasing their commerce revenue. First, they work to increase their top-of-funnel audience by drawing as many readers to their platform as possible during the holiday months, strategically using proven content, SEO heavy-hitters and shopping guides to lure readers into the purchasing funnel. Over Black Friday weekend last year, Future plc generated 3.8 million page views across its articles, Sullivan said. Its top article that weekend––a piece from TechRadar telling readers where to purchase a PS5 gaming console––achieved 843,000 page views and generated $1.5 million in sales order value. Once readers are drawn to their sites, publishers have placed a renewed focus on using sophisticated technology to make their purchasing experience as smooth as possible. At BuzzFeed, which launched BuzzFeed Shopping last July, the publisher aims to increase the lifetime value of its shoppers by allowing them to complete their purchases without leaving the platform. It has experimented with live-shopping, embedding shopping in its quizzes and algorithmic shopping to drum up demand; the publisher has even worked with texting platform Subtext to establish a holiday hotline to provide one-to-one shopping suggestions. (Disclosure: I previously worked at Subtext.) Future plc relies on similar methods, as well as its proprietary Hawk technology. The service, which launched in 2013, automatically identifies products and vendors that the company has an affiliate relationship with and embeds the links in its review articles, allowing readers to see prices and retailers next to the products mentioned. Last year, due in part to its outsized holiday traffic and commerce-streamlined site, Future plc generated $960 million in sales order volume, Sullivan said. Over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekends alone, it generated $132 million––$32.7 million in the U.K. alone––in SOV. “Knock on wood,” he added. “This year we hope to break the $1 billion threshold.”

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