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AkhenOsiris
$GOOGL
TPUs and Gemini stole the show of late, but search still going to 0 unfortunately:
Publishers with affiliate operations are entering the holiday shopping cycle with a blunt new reality: Organic search is no longer the reliable engine it once was.
Across interviews with revenue leads at six major media companies, a new playbook is emerging—one built on direct audiences, rigorous price scrutiny, and a monthlong deal cycle.
Here are the key shifts shaping the season.
- Building strategies that don’t rely on Google
Affiliate teams have largely stopped assuming search will drive meaningful traffic.
Vox Media is leaning harder into original, voicey coverage and pulling back on SEO-oriented rewrites, according to Camilla Cho, its senior vice president of ecommerce.
“Search has become such a question mark,” Cho said. “So we’re focusing on formats we know our core audience values.”
Other publishers described similar moves, investing in newsletters, recirculation loops, social channels, and CDP-powered targeting to reach readers directly.
- Growing loyal, first-party audiences to offset volatility
Newsletters, on-site alerts, and logged-in experiences are becoming more important as publishers try to stabilize unpredictable traffic.
Several companies cited deeper recirculation strategies and expanded email programs aimed at high-intent readers.
“The cheap-traffic era is over,” said Michael McNerney, a digital commerce analyst and founder of the Martech Record. “Publishers have to know who their audience is.”
https://t.co/KTgJPDVb65
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$GOOGL
TPUs and Gemini stole the show of late, but search still going to 0 unfortunately:
Publishers with affiliate operations are entering the holiday shopping cycle with a blunt new reality: Organic search is no longer the reliable engine it once was.
Across interviews with revenue leads at six major media companies, a new playbook is emerging—one built on direct audiences, rigorous price scrutiny, and a monthlong deal cycle.
Here are the key shifts shaping the season.
- Building strategies that don’t rely on Google
Affiliate teams have largely stopped assuming search will drive meaningful traffic.
Vox Media is leaning harder into original, voicey coverage and pulling back on SEO-oriented rewrites, according to Camilla Cho, its senior vice president of ecommerce.
“Search has become such a question mark,” Cho said. “So we’re focusing on formats we know our core audience values.”
Other publishers described similar moves, investing in newsletters, recirculation loops, social channels, and CDP-powered targeting to reach readers directly.
- Growing loyal, first-party audiences to offset volatility
Newsletters, on-site alerts, and logged-in experiences are becoming more important as publishers try to stabilize unpredictable traffic.
Several companies cited deeper recirculation strategies and expanded email programs aimed at high-intent readers.
“The cheap-traffic era is over,” said Michael McNerney, a digital commerce analyst and founder of the Martech Record. “Publishers have to know who their audience is.”
https://t.co/KTgJPDVb65
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Offshore
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memenodes
Me checking if i'm already rich yet or still pre-rich every morning https://t.co/JCTX3gMbLM
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Me checking if i'm already rich yet or still pre-rich every morning https://t.co/JCTX3gMbLM
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Offshore
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memenodes
never lose faith crypto guys, maybe the women of your life is still in production https://t.co/TiTJLcvpc4
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never lose faith crypto guys, maybe the women of your life is still in production https://t.co/TiTJLcvpc4
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Offshore
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EndGame Macro
The Industrial Slowdown Was Phase One. Phase Two Depends on the Consumer
What you’re looking at is the combined pulse of the manufacturing economy. Each line represents a different Fed district asking local factories a simple question: “Are things getting better or worse?” Above zero means improvement, below zero means contraction. When you average all the regions together, you get a pretty reliable sense of the national trend.
The story is clear. Early 2021 through mid-2022 was the overheated, post COVID surge…reopening demand, stimulus, supply chain chaos. Then things cooled hard. Higher rates hit, inventories got worked down, global demand softened. Manufacturing slipped below zero and stayed there, almost two full years of quiet contraction. Not a crash just a long, grinding slowdown.
Now, in mid 2025, everything is clustering around the flat line. It’s not booming, but it isn’t sliding further either. It’s the look of a sector that’s done most of its bleeding and is trying to find a floor.
Where We Are Now And What Happens If the Broader Economy Rolls Over
If the rest of the economy were still healthy, you’d probably say manufacturing is bottoming out. It already went through its own private recession, and historically this kind of stability around zero is the phase before a slow, uneven recovery.
But if you assume the broader economy finally softens and consumer spending slows, services stop carrying the load, credit gets tight this chart reads very differently.
Instead of manufacturing is stabilizing, it becomes manufacturing has already taken its hit… and now the rest of the economy is catching down. In that scenario, these surveys don’t drift from negative to positive, they turn back down with a second leg, this time reinforced by layoffs, weaker orders, and a pullback in investment across multiple sectors, not just factories.
That’s how a long, contained industrial slump turns into a full cycle downturn: the part of the economy that held everything up finally runs out of momentum. Manufacturing doesn’t cause the recession, it simply stops hiding the one that’s been building underneath.
So the question the chart is really asking isn’t whether factories are improving.
It’s whether the rest of the economy gives them room to recover… or pulls them back under on the way down.
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The Industrial Slowdown Was Phase One. Phase Two Depends on the Consumer
What you’re looking at is the combined pulse of the manufacturing economy. Each line represents a different Fed district asking local factories a simple question: “Are things getting better or worse?” Above zero means improvement, below zero means contraction. When you average all the regions together, you get a pretty reliable sense of the national trend.
The story is clear. Early 2021 through mid-2022 was the overheated, post COVID surge…reopening demand, stimulus, supply chain chaos. Then things cooled hard. Higher rates hit, inventories got worked down, global demand softened. Manufacturing slipped below zero and stayed there, almost two full years of quiet contraction. Not a crash just a long, grinding slowdown.
Now, in mid 2025, everything is clustering around the flat line. It’s not booming, but it isn’t sliding further either. It’s the look of a sector that’s done most of its bleeding and is trying to find a floor.
Where We Are Now And What Happens If the Broader Economy Rolls Over
If the rest of the economy were still healthy, you’d probably say manufacturing is bottoming out. It already went through its own private recession, and historically this kind of stability around zero is the phase before a slow, uneven recovery.
But if you assume the broader economy finally softens and consumer spending slows, services stop carrying the load, credit gets tight this chart reads very differently.
Instead of manufacturing is stabilizing, it becomes manufacturing has already taken its hit… and now the rest of the economy is catching down. In that scenario, these surveys don’t drift from negative to positive, they turn back down with a second leg, this time reinforced by layoffs, weaker orders, and a pullback in investment across multiple sectors, not just factories.
That’s how a long, contained industrial slump turns into a full cycle downturn: the part of the economy that held everything up finally runs out of momentum. Manufacturing doesn’t cause the recession, it simply stops hiding the one that’s been building underneath.
So the question the chart is really asking isn’t whether factories are improving.
It’s whether the rest of the economy gives them room to recover… or pulls them back under on the way down.
Manufacturing started contracting around mid-'22 and has been in the doldrums ever since: https://t.co/LfSH9F5uDP tweet