As AI kills search traffic, Google launches Offerwall to boost publisher revenue

Google’s AI search features are killing traffic to publishers, so now the company is proposing a possible solution. On Thursday, the tech giant officially launched Offerwall, a new tool that allows publishers to generate revenue beyond the more traffic-dependent options, like ads.

Offerwall lets publishers give their sites’ readers a variety of ways to access their content, including through options like micro payments, taking surveys, watching ads, and more. In addition, Google says that publishers can add their own options to the Offerwall, like signing up for newsletters.

The new feature is available now in Google Ad Manager after earlier tests with 1,000 publishers that spanned over a year.

Google notes that it’s also using AI to determine when to display the Offerwall to each site visitor to increase engagement and revenue. However, publishers can set their own thresholds before the Offerwall is displayed, if they prefer.

Many of the solutions Offerwall introduces have been tried by publishers before, across a range of products and services. Micro payments, for instance, have repeatedly failed to take off. The economics don’t tend to work, and there’s additional friction in having to pay per article that’s not been worth the payoff for readers or publishers alike, given implementation and maintenance costs.

A Twitter-like social networking startup called Post, backed by a16z, most recently tried to make micro payments work for publishers, but it ultimately shut down due to a lack of traction.

In Google’s case, it’s working with a third party, Supertab, which allows site visitors to pay a small amount to access the online content for a period of time — like 24 hours, a few days, a week, etc. The option (currently in beta) also supports subscription signups and integrates with Google Ad Manager.

Google notes that publishers can also configure Offerwall to include their own logo and introductory text, then customize the choices it presents. One option that’s enabled by default has visitors watch a short ad to earn access to the publisher’s content.

Another option has visitors click to choose from a set of topics they’re interested in, which is then saved and used for ads personalization.

Having a more integrated solution could help publishers experiment with different monetization options, without having to commit significant time and resources to those tests. Notably, Google’s announcement didn’t share any results of its early tests with publishers or present any successful case studies. However, early reports during the testing period said that publishers saw an average revenue lift of 9% after 1 million messages on AdSense, for viewing rewarded ads. Google Ad Manager customers saw a 5-15% lift when using Offerwall as well.

Google says publishers can view metrics associated with Offerwall in Google Ads Manager reports. These include things like estimated Offerwall revenue, number of Offerwall messages shown, Offerwall successful engagement, and post-Offerwall page views.