• by Ray Schultz , August 6, 2024

Publisher Dotdash Meredith (DDM) achieved a 12% increase in digital revenue in Q2 YoY to 238.1 million and a 3% hike in overall revenue to $452.2 million.  

Print revenue declined by 7% to $191.7 million , the lowest percentage decrease since the Meredith acquisition by IAC almost three years ago. 

Parent IAC suffered a 15% decline in revenue to $949.5 million. However, CEO Joey Levin says, “Halfway through the year, profits and cash flow at IAC continue to grow, particularly at Dotdash Meredith (DDM) and Angi, our two largest majority-owned businesses.”

Levin continues that “DDM’s digital advertising revenue growth is outpacing competition in digital publishing and beginning to rival the growth of the platform companies. We are growing both in volume and price which we believe differentiates us in this environment.  The growing Digital revenue is lifting margins higher and pushing profit to grow faster than revenue.”

He adds, “We’re raising our profit outlook for the year and are focused on demonstrating our current momentum heralds the long-term power of our business.”

The company’s ad targeting product, D/Cipher, is now “part of more than half of our premium campaigns and has helped turn previously challenged categories like Home and Food back to growth,” Levin continues. 

Dotdash Meredith programmatic ad rates are up by about 36% in the second quarter “versus an estimated 15-20% lift in rates for the broader market,” Levin says. 

Meanwhile, the firm’s audience growth accelerated in the second quarter, thanks in part to “People lapping the Hollywood strike last year and strong consumer engagement across our titles,” he notes. 

The impact has been negligible from Google rolling out AI Overviews in May. “Referrals from Google search queries produce less than half of our traffic, and based on our analysis, AI-generated answers are being served on roughly 15% of searches across our categories, with the highest frequency in Health, Technology, and Finance,” Levin states. 

As for Google’s backing off of cookie deprecation and Monday’s court decision against it,  Levin says this: “While you won’t find much sympathy in the hallways of our buildings for Google’s regulatory woes, we believe Google got stuck between well-intentioned but conflicting regulators and, without a clean path to compliance, chose the wisest course – leave the future up to users (but reach the same end state).”