The media and information space is changing fast. Businesses that printed money in 2020-2024 are struggling to make a profit now.
It's because they're using monetization models that don't work anymore.
Today you’ll learn the best and worst ways to monetize your audience.
Starting with the worst…
The 6 worst ways to monetize
Courses — LLMs and YouTube killed courses. The course economy peaked in 2020-2022 and won’t recover. Here’s why.
Low ticket digital products — Suffered the same fate as courses, but worse. It’s impossible to build a sustainable business on $27 transactions.
Newsletter ads — The newsletter advertising model is broken, especially for smaller publishers. I explained this in May.
Programmatic ads — AI is eating your search traffic and page view revenue.
Affiliate marketing — Also getting crushed by AI. No one cares about "Top 10 Gifts for Moms" articles when they get personalized lists from LLMs.
Consumer subscriptions — People don’t want more subscriptions. Consumers have a limited budget for news, paid newsletters, Substacks, etc. The subscription market is small and competitive.
Yes, of course, there are exceptions.
1440 Media built a $25M/year newsletter advertising business. But they started early and now have over 4M subscribers.
Newsletter ads should still be in your toolkit. They just shouldn't be the only ad product you offer.
MarketBeat does ~$50M/year largely from affiliate and performance marketing. But they don't rely on search or tiny commissions from Amazon.
Low ticket digital products can liquidate ad spend and work if they ascend customers to a high-ticket product later.
Ezoic has built superior programmatic ads using 1st-party data.
I'm not saying you can't make money with these methods. I’m saying I would not want to own a business dependent on them.
In general, they’re the worst ways to monetize.
Here are the best…
6 C’s: The 6 best ways to monetize
Cohorts
Coaching
Community
Commission
Conferences
Collaboration
These 6 methods are the future of monetization.
While other ways have been disrupted by AI, these benefit from it.
1) Cohorts — Cohort based courses
Live cohorts and traditional courses are different.
“Courses” are essentially video content behind a paywall.
Live cohorts are an experience that helps your customers get work done so they can reach their goals.
People hear the term "cohort-based course” and think it's like a course, but with live instruction. That's not how the best cohorts work.
The best cohorts are more like live events or paid challenges.
Knowledge transfer should not be the value proposition of a cohort. Helping students implement and execute what they learn IS.
Cohorts work because the problem isn’t access to knowledge anymore.
People don't need more content! Instead, they need:
Clarity on what matters
A plan to execute from a trusted mentor
Gamification to make it fun and incentivize results
Community to hold them accountable and bond with
Systems that actually do the work (not just explain how to do the work)
That’s what cohorts can deliver.
It’s why cohort-based courses are 20X more engaging than recorded content (according to Maven.com).
While “courses” have a 1%-5% completion rate (most people never log in).
My Write, Grow, Sell cohorts get 26%-49% completion rates — and much better student outcomes.
This enables higher price points and word of mouth marketing.
2) Coaching (programs)
The best coaching products are done-with-you services that help customers implement a system, strategy, or mindset.
Coaching is exploding for the same reason cohorts will be soon…
In a world with unlimited access to knowledge: Clarity, mentorship, and support from real people you trust is scarce.
Coaches help you cut through the noise and focus on what matters.
3) Community (online, in-person, & hybrid)
Communities are never going out of style.
They’re only getting more valuable because:
The most important questions can't be answered by AI, only by people who've experienced them first-hand.
Remote work has distributed (and even isolated) people. This has increased the need to find like-minded communities online and in person.
The TikTokification of social media shows us less of our friends and community, and more viral content we can't look away from.
But — I'll be the first to say that “community” is a hard business model.
I've built communities. I've been behind-the-scenes at big community businesses.
(Like Trends.co, $15M+ ARR — which had one of the most beloved communities in the entrepreneurial space — and GrowLetter clients like Hampton).
See, if you want to build a community, you can't just throw people into a Slack channel. Then charge $10-$100/month. That doesn't work.
Communities are a flywheel. To make them great, you need to be in there daily:
Posting
Commenting
Curating new people
Then slowly, over a long time, they become valuable without you.
If you can get a one to work, it's one of the few moats in media.
However, my recommendation would not be to build a community-only product. Instead, use community as a feature. Not the core product.
4) Commission — Services and implementation
By commission I mean: To authorize the production, building, or creation of something.
Yeah, I could use the term "agency" or "services," but I need a C here!
A done-for-you service (DFY) is more valuable to the customer than done-with-you (DWY), which is more valuable than do-it-yourself (DIY).
Because of that, you can charge more and attract clients faster. Yes, they can be challenging to scale, but not impossible.
5) Conferences — Live events and experiences
Again, I use "conferences" because of the C, but I'm referring to any type of…
In-person event, summit, festival, mastermind, retreat, trade show, and more.
People are starving for real experiences with real people. Live events are the anti-AI bet.
Here’s just a few reasons why they work:
AI can't replace in-person: Experiences are becoming MORE valuable.
Post-pandemic hunger: People want human connection after years of Zoom fatigue.
People value experiences over products. A $2,000 event = status. A $2,000 course = commodity.
FOMO is built-in: Events create natural scarcity that digital products and services struggle to replicate.
Proximity premium: People pay more for physical proximity to you. Same content online = $100. Same content at an event = $2,000+.
In-person conversion rates are 10-30% vs 1-3% online. You can pitch high-ticket offers ($10k-$50k+) and close them in-person.
Content goldmine: One event can create months of content and dozens of testimonials.
Churn reduction: Event attendees stay in your ecosystem longer than digital-only customers.
6) Collaboration — brand partnerships
When you only offer one "ad product" (newsletter spots, podcast pre-rolls, or display ads), you compete on price with other publishers and platforms like Meta and Google.
Your ads become commoditized, forcing you to accept lower rates just to fill inventory.
The way to escape commoditization is this:
Become a marketing partner (a collaborator) focused on helping brands reach their goals, not another publisher selling ad spots and traffic.
This is exactly how media companies like Industry Dive built a massive business and sold for $525M. Industry Dive doesn't sell ads — they build full-funnel campaigns for brand partners across their newsletters, website, social, and more.
From “brand to demand” as Sean Griffey likes to say.
That’s it!
The 6 Cs are all about escaping commoditization by…
…Delivering experiences, services, and helping your customers implement the work to improve their businesses and lives.
Not more content, education or information.
Cohorts
Coaching
Community
Commission
Conferences
Collaboration