SODP Dispatch - 15 January 2026

9 Best CRM Solutions for Publishers in 2026

By Sachin Kumar & Samuel Fatola

Digital publishers are in a fight for survival, striving to capture audience share from established rivals while fending off challenges from new entrants to fuel their business growth . It’s more important than ever before that publishers cultivate their audience relationships if they hope to drive revenue and maximize engagement.

Audience churn is a real problem for publishers, with some research finding that the media and entertainment industry’s average customer retention rate is just 25%. Little wonder then that more and more publishers are turning to customer relationship management (CRM) systems to help build and retain their audience.

CRM platforms have emerged as powerful tools that enable publishers to streamline their operations, enhance communication and improve customer relationships.

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📊 2026 News SEO Trends: 20 Global Experts Predict the Year Ahead | NewzDash

Last year we worried about AI. This year we’re living it: fewer clicks, more zero-click experiences, and visibility now happens across multiple surfaces, not just rankings. 2025 felt like the panic year. In 2026, the real work starts: adapting workflows, redefining what “success” looks like, and building a visibility strategy that holds up even when the SERP becomes an answer engine. This is no longer a single-channel game. “Search, Discover, video, and AI answers are not separate channels anymore, they’re different doors into the same building. If your trust signals crack in one, you feel it everywhere.” — John Shehata

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By Vahe Arabian

🚀AdTech Trends for 2026: Privacy-First Strategies & AI-Powered Monetisation

In 2026, the AdTech landscape is shifting, driven by privacy-first approaches, AI-powered automation, and intelligent frameworks focused on building trust-based monetisation strategies.

Here's what publishers and advertisers should keep an eye on to stay ahead:

1. Privacy-First Monetisation: Consent as a Revenue Driver

   Your consent strategy isn't just a compliance issue; it's directly tied to your monetisation strategy. Granular consent tracking will unlock higher CPMs and better monetisation results.

   👉Actionable Tip: Bring consent management into revenue operations.

2. Multi-ID Strategy Is Essential

   As we move past third-party cookies, a multi-ID strategy will be critical. Publishers will need to select identity frameworks that suit their needs.

   👉Actionable Tip: Evaluate the right identity solution based on your publisher type and focus on addressability.

3. AI Automation Takes Over Optimisation and Creative

   By 2026, expect AI-powered tools to handle end-to-end programmatic operations, freeing up human resources for higher-level strategy.

   👉Actionable Tip: Embrace AI tools to automate creative development and campaign optimisations.

4. Contextual Targeting Becomes a Privacy-First Alternative

   AI-powered contextual engines will enable precise targeting based on content rather than user data, allowing advertisers to deliver relevant ads without compromising privacy.

   👉Actionable Tip: Invest in contextual targeting technologies that leverage AI.

5. Connected TV (CTV) Maturity and Programmatic Expansion

   By 2026, CTV will reach new heights in programmatic sophistication, evolving beyond simple audience targeting to embrace data-driven creative optimisation.

   👉Actionable Tip: Integrate CTV into omnichannel strategies for a unified ad experience.

6. Trust as a Core Asset

   Transparency in how data is collected and used will become a competitive advantage for publishers.

   👉Actionable Tip: Focus on building trust through clear data practices and proper consent management.

Publishers who succeed in 2026 will be those who:

• Optimise their consent strategies to drive revenue.

• Adopt multi-ID solutions for better addressability.

• Leverage AI for creative and campaign automation.

• Adopt contextual targeting to respect privacy while delivering precision ads.

• Integrate CTV into their omnichannel advertising strategies.

The key to thriving in 2026 is adaptability and strategic foresight. Those who embrace privacy-respecting, AI-driven frameworks will lead the charge.

How five AI models source Iran-related information in Persian | Gazzetta

Over the past weeks, we ran a small, structured audit across five LLMs using a fixed prompt set about Iran. We asked each model the same set of political questions in Persian language, repeating each topic in six different ways to simulate different user intent: a neutral question, a future-oriented question, two leading questions (one framed in state language and one in opposition language), and two verification questions (one checking a state claim and one checking an opposition claim)

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Publishers fear AI search summaries and chatbots mean ‘end of traffic era’ | The Guardian

Media companies expect web traffic to their sites from online searches to plummet over the next three years, as AI summaries and chatbots change the way consumers use the internet. An overwhelming majority are also planning to encourage their journalists to behave more like YouTube and TikTok content creators this year, as short-form video and audio content continues to boom. The findings are drawn from a new report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, which included the views of 280 media leaders from 51 countries.

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NPR Media Critic: "2026 Looks Ominous for Media Industry | NPR

The worst thing about today's media environment is that — bad as it is — it is easy to imagine how things might get worse in 2026. Traditional journalism outlets buffeted on all sides by misinformation, weak-kneed ownership and a hostile White House will struggle to earn back public trust even as the need for fair, accurate reporting grows. Smaller groups of wealthy businesspeople control larger swaths of the country's information ecosystem, pitting their overall corporate interests against the public's desire for accurate journalism challenging powerful institutions in society.

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Social Media Trust Is Breaking Down (And How You Can Rebuild It) | SEJ

Social media is an integrated part of life in the U.S., with usage growing among adults. Pew Research Center reports that YouTube (84%) and Facebook (71%) remain the most widely used platforms for U.S. adults, followed by 50% of adults using Instagram. What we should pay attention to is that people’s trust levels have changed. Americans turn to social media for local news and product research, but no longer trust every voice equally. According to Pew Research, trust in national and local news organizations is declining across all age groups. According to Ipsos Global Trustworthiness Monitor, only 22% of the public trusts social media companies.

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Newsrooms are taking comments seriously again | NiemanLab

In the 2010s, news publishers couldn’t shut their comment sections fast enough. The space “below the line” had become a noisy, thankless place to spend your time, where bile and bad-faith arguments too often drowned out any genuine discussion or personal connection, or skewed the way readers thought about the journalism above. Publishers saw comment sections as a reputational hazard and a cost center and, by the middle of the decade, a dozen sites — including Popular Science, Chicago Sun-Times, Motherboard, Reuters, and NPR — had significantly reduced or completely disabled commenting features.

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