Leaps And Inbounds: Blogs And Influencers Top List of Publishers’ Revenue Drivers (New Report)

You may not have read it here first, but there’s a reason you’re reading about it on a blog.

A recent mrge survey of publishers, advertisers, network providers, and other agencies found that the publisher type that generated the most sales in Q4 2024 was blogs, tied with social media influencers for 29.3% of those surveyed, but up from only 18.6% this time last year.

“What publisher types generated the most sales for you in Q4 2024?” (Source: mrge)

“In the last quarter, blogs, search and product listings made significant strides, joining the consistently strong performance of influencers as top revenue drivers,” says the State of Commerce Advertising Report 1/2025. “In contrast, coupon pages and loyalty programs have experienced a noticeable decline.”

Publishers and advertisers both put value in cost-per-click (CPC), with 40% and 33%, respectively, saying it was the monetization model most relevant to them. Cost-per-click was just as important to 33.3% of advertisers, while cost-per-action was the second-most relevant to publishers (28.2%). Even with their sights set on these stats, those surveyed knew that growth and revenue strategies don’t end there.

“According to respondents, the top priorities for 2025 are clear: trying new monetization models (41.1%), implementing generative AI (32.9%), and expanding into new markets or regions (31.5%),” says the report, which found that most of those incorporating AI considered the key driver to be productivity (63.9%) rather than growth (29.2%).