New York Times integrates The Athletic into its ad ecosystem

The news: The New York Times has woven The Athletic into its advertising framework, allowing marketers to reach audiences across its entire digital ecosystem.

• The Times now offers precision-focused advertising for properties including Games (including the popular Wordle), Cooking, Wirecutter, as well as The Athletic. This approach enables brands to connect with deeply engaged audiences through compelling non-news content.
• As part of the updates, the Times has introduced ad-targeting options to focus on lifestyle content and “superusers” rather than the traditional politics or hard news topics; it’s a bid to change advertisers’ perceptions of news as a platform only for political or conflict-oriented topics.

Why it matters: The move should help The Times squeeze more dollars out of its properties that aren’t hard-hitting journalism.

• Wirecutter remains a key revenue driver through its product reviews and affiliate partnerships. The platform showed steady growth, helping boost the Times' "other revenues" bucket by 4.9% in Q2 and 9.3% in Q3.
• Meanwhile, The Athletic has made significant audience and revenue strides. With nearly 5 million subscribers (up 1.72 million YoY) and 3 million newsletter readers, its revenues climbed 33% to $37.2 million in Q1. After posting losses of $8.7 million in Q1 and $2.4 million in Q2, The Athletic achieved its first quarterly profit of $2.6 million in Q3, a turning point since its acquisition.

Our take: As Google's impending cookie restrictions reshape digital advertising, the Times should see success by leaning on its robust first-party data infrastructure, which includes 150 million registered users and 10.5 million digital subscribers. These numbers represent a goldmine of authentic user insights, eliminating reliance on third-party tracking.

This initiative marks a notable shift in digital publishing. By highlighting lifestyle content and engaged readership segments, the Times aims to craft premium advertising spaces that appeal to brands seeking quality placements that aren't reliant on cookies. This approach could be a blueprint for publishers dealing with changes in privacy-conscious audience targeting—although many cash-strapped publishers are not able to replicate these results.