Publishers are in a painful situation these days, with many facing loss of traffic and revenue because of cookie deprecation, social networks’ discouragement of external linking, algorithmic changes from search engines, and the rise of single-result AI-powered “answer engines.”
My guest, Elliott Easterling, CEO and “Chief Confectioner” at Bonbon Technologies, provides hope for publishers by offering a solution promising to “give consumers real control over their data while bringing ad revenue sustainability to independent publishing via more logins.” In doing so, Bonbon’s technology “fixes the cookie mess.”
Given the stakes for publishers, without which the World Wide Web would be a much poorer place, I wanted to have a lengthy chat with Elliot to discuss how exactly his solution works and why it’s important. Our conversation highlights the importance of giving consumers control over their data and providing rewards for participating in cooperative environments. We also discuss challenges faced by publishers in the digital landscape, including declining search traffic and the rise of chatbots, and explore strategies for optimizing ad performance and consumer behavior using machine learning. Additional discussion topics include:
- The origin story of Bonbon Technologies and its role in the advertising industry.
- How Google’s algorithmic changes will lead to less traffic from search results page over time.
- How Bon Bon’s technology allows publishers to display rewards to consumers in exchange for registering, with personalized questions and engagement widgets to enhance user experience.
- How the company’s solution addresses publisher pain points, including Google updates and diminishing traffic, by helping publishers make more money off fewer users by encouraging registration and engagement.
- Why publishers feel exploited by social networks, seeking more control over user data.
- How single-result AI-powered search engines will likely further contribute to a loss of traffic to publishers.
- Why publishers reliant on ad-free subscription models will not likely benefit from Bonbon’s technology.