Cookieless advertising is no longer a future problem. It is a live shift for advertisers, publishers, and newsletter operators right now. This week, we asked two advertising experts what happens as third-party cookies disappear, and what publishers should pay attention to next.
We started with a basic question: why do advertisers and publishers care so much about cookies? It sounds obvious, but getting the mental model right matters.
“Imagine walking into your favorite coffee shop. After a while, the barista knows your order. That is what cookies do on the internet. They help websites and advertisers remember you and your preferences, which makes ads more personal.”
That simple framing explains why this change matters. Google is moving the web toward more privacy, which means fewer easy ways to track users across sites. For publishers, that raises a hard question: what kinds of media businesses get stronger in a cookieless market?
One answer is B2B publishing. Teams with a defined audience, strong first-party data, and direct reader relationships may be in a better spot than broad consumer sites. That is one reason more companies are thinking about newsletters, membership products, and better web development for publishers.
- B2B newsletters and niche media often see higher engagement.
- Advertisers will usually pay more for a clearly defined audience, like marketers, operators, or developers.
- For publishers, B2B also creates room for other revenue streams, such as data products, paid research, recruiting, and software.
- In some cases, curated B2B audiences can command CPMs above $100.
The bigger point is simple: in cookieless advertising, audience quality matters more than raw reach. If you are building a media business in 2024, a focused niche and strong reader trust may matter more than ever.
Product News and Updates
WordPress 6.5 “Regina” Released
WordPress has released a major update, WordPress 6.5 Regina, named after jazz violinist Regina Carter. The release includes updates to fonts, revision history, background images, and links. For developers, the biggest changes are better performance and updates to the Interactivity API, which make block customization easier.
Yahoo News Will Get a New Discovery Engine
Yahoo has acquired Artifact, the news discovery and aggregation platform, and folded it into its ecosystem. Artifact’s AI-driven discovery engine surfaces content users are more likely to want, then adjusts as their interests change.
beehiiv Update Makes Comments and Mentions Easier
beehiiv is keeping up its product update streak by improving the editor comments feature and letting editors mention writers and teammates with the familiar @ format. Publishers can also invite other newsletters to boost theirs from the dashboard.
Substack Lets You Add Videos to Your About Page
Substack has also released new features to its platform, including one that will let writers add a video to their About page. That could help creators who want to grow with younger audiences, especially readers who respond better to video.
Britain’s Mail Publisher Is Releasing a Video Product
DMG Media, the company behind Mail Metro Media, has recently launched “Edits,” a new video streaming product. It helps advertisers place ads across video-heavy platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook, along with Mail Online and Metro properties. The offer lowers the cost of entry by simplifying video production and packaging reach guarantees with its own user ID system.
Perplexity Is Selling Ads
Perplexity is selling ads on its AI chatbot, becoming an early GenAI platform to test this model. Whether publishers benefit will depend on how widely this model spreads and whether it performs well without hurting trust.
Page-Builder Blues: Elementor and Beaver Builder Vulnerabilities
At Refact, we prefer WordPress development that stays close to the core platform. We often use Gutenberg blocks because they are flexible, native to WordPress, and easier to maintain over time. Extra layers of page-builder plugins can make a site harder to manage, and they can also increase security risk.
This week, researchers reported vulnerabilities in Elementor add-ons and Beaver Builder. That does not mean every page builder is always a bad choice. It does mean plugin-heavy stacks carry tradeoffs that teams should take seriously.
Beaver Builder Hit With XSS Vulnerability
The Beaver Builder WordPress Page Builder plugin is a drag-and-drop tool that makes site editing easier. However, it suffers from a Stored Cross-Site Scripting, or XSS, vulnerability. In plain language, that means attackers may be able to inject harmful scripts into a website if user input is not checked and cleaned correctly.
Elementor Vulnerability Details
11 Elementor add-ons are suffering from vulnerabilities, mostly tied to the same XSS issue seen in Beaver Builder. Elementor is widely used, and its add-on ecosystem adds another layer of complexity. Complexity is not free. It often means more maintenance, more testing, and more room for things to break.
That is why we usually favor simpler builds with native tools where possible. If your publishing site depends on WordPress, cleaner architecture can make updates, performance, and security easier to manage over time.
Planning a publishing platform, newsletter site, or WordPress rebuild? Talk with Refact about the right setup before development starts.