Why Publisher Revenue Growth Depends on Better Signals, Not More Ads

For years, digital publishers have pursued advertising growth through a familiar formula: attract more traffic, create more inventory, and add more demand partners. But as the advertising market becomes increasingly complex, that strategy is delivering less returns.

Speaking at Arc XP Connect London, Jason Tollestrup, Head of Monetization and Revenue Operations at The Washington Post, argued that many publishers are overlooking one of the most effective ways to increase revenue: improving the quality of the signals attached to their inventory.

“The most important thing is that you are being throttled,” Tollestrup explained. “There are ways to combat being throttled. The answer to that is signals.”

The shift reflects broader changes taking place across the digital advertising ecosystem. While Google’s plans around third-party cookies have evolved, advertisers have already moved toward alternative identifiers, contextual targeting, and server-side signals to evaluate inventory and make buying decisions. The result is a marketplace where inventory quality matters as much as audience scale.

Visibility creates value

Advertisers can only value what they can understand. Today, buyers assess inventory using a growing range of signals, including audience data, content categorization, contextual information, device type, and user identifiers. Publishers that provide richer, more accurate signals make it easier for advertisers to identify relevant audiences and justify higher spending.

The shift is changing the economics of digital advertising. Competitive advantage increasingly comes from the quality of audience and content signals rather than simply the size of an audience. Tollestrup pointed to content classification as one area where many publishers leave revenue on the table.

“If you’re a news publisher, all of your ad partners are declaring all of your inventory as just news,” he said. “You have to map your content to individual classifications.”

A sports article classified simply as “news” may never be surfaced to advertisers specifically seeking sports audiences. The content remains valuable, but its commercial value is obscured.

What might appear to be an ad-tech issue is really a growth issue. Publishers that accurately classify content and strengthen audience signals can unlock additional revenue from existing traffic, improving monetization without increasing acquisition spend.

Finding revenue in operational efficiency

Revenue growth is not always about creating more inventory. In many cases, it comes from improving the performance of inventory that already exists. Tollestrup highlighted low-viewability ad placements as one common example.

“If you have an ad unit on your page that is 30% or lower, it is costing you more money to have that ad than it is making you,” he said. Poorly performing placements can lower the perceived quality of an entire page, reducing the value advertisers assign to all available inventory.

Site performance presents a similar opportunity. Slow-loading pages, heavy ad stacks, and inefficient infrastructure can prevent ads from rendering altogether, creating invisible revenue leakage. Publishers that improve speed and reliability often see immediate gains in monetizable impressions without adding a single new ad placement.

Success requires coordination across the business. Product teams, engineers, editorial staff, and commercial leaders all influence the quality of the inventory advertisers ultimately evaluate and purchase.

Buyers are becoming more selective

Advertisers are also introducing increasingly sophisticated methods for evaluating publishers. Inventory quality scores, brand safety assessments, sustainability metrics, and attention measurements are all becoming part of the buying process.

“Buyers are scoring you,” Tollestrup noted.

While these systems are still evolving, the direction of travel is clear. Advertisers want greater confidence that their budgets are reaching high-quality environments and engaged audiences.

As advertisers introduce more sophisticated evaluation models, monetization performance is becoming a reflection of overall operational effectiveness, not just ad operations. The organizations that understand this connection will be better positioned to compete for advertising budgets.

The next phase of digital advertising

Perhaps the most significant development discussed during the session was the emergence of AI-powered buying and selling protocols designed to simplify media transactions and reduce intermediary costs. The concept is straightforward: create more direct connections between buyers and publishers while automating parts of the procurement process.

Early industry tests have reportedly reduced buyer costs significantly while increasing purchasing efficiency. Unsurprisingly, major agencies and holding companies are already paying close attention.

“This is going to change how we buy and sell,” Tollestrup said.

If these emerging buying models gain widespread adoption, publishers could benefit from greater transparency, improved margins, and more direct access to advertiser demand.

However, the opportunity comes with a challenge. As new standards are established, publishers must actively participate in shaping them. Those who remain on the sidelines may find themselves adapting to rules created by others.

A strategic opportunity for growth

The digital advertising industry is entering a new phase where efficiency, transparency, and data quality increasingly determine commercial success. The publishers most likely to outperform in the years ahead will not necessarily be those serving the most ads. They will be the ones that make their inventory easier to understand, easier to value, and easier for advertisers to buy.

In a market where every advertising dollar faces greater scrutiny, the ability to demonstrate quality may become one of the most valuable assets a publisher can possess.