Along with all components of Web traffic, the relationship between traffic and commerce revenue continues to evolve in significant ways. 

While some publishers are reporting Google AI Overviews trigger 30%-50% traffic drops for affiliate-dependent publishers, innovative news organisations are discovering quality audience relationships matter more than quantity of clicks.

My colleagues Jodie Hopperton, INMA’s Product & Tech Initiative lead, and Greg Piechota, INMA’s researcher-in-residence and Readers First Initiative lead, both recently dug into the latest data on traffic.

Jodie’s analysis found a confluence of forces at work, while Greg believes these traffic drops are currently overstated. But zooming out, everyone (including Jodie and Greg) agrees the foundation of digital publishing is undergoing a seismic shift.

What industry observers are calling “Google Zero” — the era when Google answers queries directly rather than referring users to publisher Web sites — is not a matter of if but when. And this reality is reshaping commerce strategies across news media organisations globally. 

Counter-intuitively, this shift is driving a reimagination of content commerce strategies that could ultimately strengthen publisher revenue models. While the old affiliate playbook is indeed growing obsolete, the new model could be far more profitable. Publishers building content commerce around editorial authority and audience trust are not just surviving traffic declines but driving revenue growth.

The coming death of SEO-driven affiliate revenue?

According to Similarweb data, since the U.S. launch of Google’s AI Overviews, the percentage of searches for news that result in no click-throughs to news Web sites has grown from 56% to nearly 69% by May 2025. 

The implications for commerce-dependent publishers are profound: If audiences never reach your site, they can’t convert through affiliate links or engage with branded content. Traffic from Google AI Overviews has triggered revenue drops for many affiliate-dependent publishers, with some reporting income down by half since the May 2024 rollout. 

Adweek reported that companies with large affiliate content operations including Forbes, CNN, and Time saw significant drops in their Google visibility in late 2024. Mail Online’s director of SEO and e-commerce disclosed that Google’s June 2024 anti-spam update had “effectively turned off a very significant revenue stream for a lot of publishers.”

Business Insider’s recent workforce reduction of 21% serves as a canary in the coal mine. CEO Barbara Peng cited “changing search landscape and traffic volatility” as key factors in her decision to shut down most of the publication’s commerce business due to its “reliance on search.” Press Gazette analysis found that Business Insider’s traffic has halved over five years, from 160 million monthly visitors in 2020 to around 80 million in 2025.

The platform reckoning

Social platforms compound the challenge.

Facebook referrals have plummeted 48%, according to Chartbeat data, while Twitter/X’s transformation creates uneven playing fields where premium subscribers receive 4x visibility boosts. Publishers now describe Reddit as driving “about a third” of their social traffic, sometimes eclipsing Facebook entirely.

The fundamental shift from referral-based to platform-native content consumption challenges traditional monetisation models. TikTok, while essential for reaching younger audiences, generates minimal referral traffic to publisher sites. Publishers invest heavily in TikTok content but struggle to convert views into Web site visits or affiliate revenue.

The divergent reality: why some publishers still thrive

Despite widespread doom-and-gloom reporting, the affiliate commerce landscape isn’t uniformly bleak. Several publishers are bucking the trend with strategic repositioning that offers valuable lessons for news media advertising professionals:

• The New York Times Company has reported year-on-year growth between 3.7% and 16.3% in its “other revenue” category for four consecutive quarters, with Wirecutter affiliate revenue as a primary driver.
• IAC’s Dotdash Meredith reported an 11% year-on-year increase in performance marketing revenue, while Future saw a 9% organic increase in affiliate revenue.
• The Arena Group experienced explosive growth, with performance marketing revenue increasing over 200% year-on-year to US$10.9 million in 2024.

What separates the winners from the casualties? Three key strategies emerge from successful publishers:

• Authority-driven specialisation: As one entertainment publishing executive told Digiday, “Where we’re focused is to target our commerce offerings where our brands have a tremendous amount of authority.” Publishers are abandoning generic product recommendations in favour of category-specific content where they possess genuine expertise.

• Voice and personalisation: Multiple lifestyle publisher executives emphasised adding “personal, unique, and voicey perspectives” to product round-ups. A lifestyle publishing executive noted their affiliate revenue remained stable because “commerce and product recommendation content [is] a core part of their brand proposition,” contrasting with brands that “entered in the foray of commerce just to get some commerce wins.”

• Premium focus: Publishers focusing on high-value categories are seeing more resilience. As one head of SEO explained, “We’re working in furniture, which is very high [average order value],” rather than competing in saturated, low-margin categories.

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