Ziff Davis, Inc. (ZD): Marketing Mix Analysis [Dec-2025 Updated]

You're digging into Ziff Davis, Inc.'s current market footing, trying to see past the noise, and honestly, what the four P's reveal is a company navigating a pivot: it's a diversified digital player aiming for profitable, subscription-driven growth, but still leaning hard on ad dollars. We see this play out in their guidance, projecting full-year 2025 revenue between $1.442 billion and $1.502 billion, even as their B2B software starts at around $50 per user per month. I've spent two decades mapping these transitions, and the mix of content powerhouses like IGN alongside enterprise tools like Ookla shows a complex strategy. Stick with me below; we'll break down exactly how their Product, Place, Promotion, and Price are set up to hit those targets.

Ziff Davis, Inc. (ZD) - Marketing Mix: Product

Ziff Davis, Inc. maintains a vertically focused portfolio structured across five primary segments as of late 2025: Technology & Shopping, Gaming & Entertainment, Health & Wellness, Connectivity, and Cybersecurity & Martech. This structure reflects a deliberate strategy to own leading digital brands within distinct, high-value verticals. The company's core offerings blend digital media content with B2B software and e-commerce tools, aiming for synergistic audience monetization across these areas.

The digital media component includes well-established brands like PCMag and IGN, which anchor the Technology and Gaming segments, respectively. The Shopping vertical is supported by tools like RetailMeNot. For the B2B side, key product suites involve cybersecurity offerings, notably VIPRE, which released its Q3 2025 Email Threat Report in November 2025. Connectivity and data services are driven by Ookla, the provider of Speedtest, and Ekahau, which focuses on Wi-Fi network design and optimization solutions.

The Health & Wellness segment saw significant expansion in 2025 through strategic acquisitions. Ziff Davis completed the acquisition of theSkimm in Q1 2025 and added Well+Good in Q2 2025. These moves bolster the segment, which was the largest contributor to revenue in Q2 2025. Conversely, the company has been actively shifting focus away from non-core assets. This is evidenced by the continued wind-down of its games publishing business, which was explicitly cited as a factor in the Technology & Shopping segment's revenue decline in Q3 2025. The wind-down followed the shutdown of the Humble Games publishing unit, which involved letting go of all 36 staff members in 2024, with operations handed off to a third-party consultancy.

The financial performance of these product categories in the second quarter of 2025 illustrates the current weighting of the portfolio. The Health & Wellness segment led the way, while the wind-down of game publishing directly impacted the Technology & Shopping segment's top-line results for that period.

Key product metrics across the portfolio show significant scale in both consumer-facing and B2B data services. The company's overall Q3 2025 revenue reached $363.7 million, showing five consecutive quarters of revenue growth.

• TheSkimm audience: 5 million+ daily newsletter subscribers across its ecosystem as of Q1/Q2 2025.
• Ookla Speedtest platform: Over ten million tests initiated by consumers daily.
• CNET acquisition cost (prior year): Reported at $100 million.
• Connectivity segment margin (Q2 2025): Maintained a robust 47.3% adjusted EBITDA margin.
• Cybersecurity & Martech segment revenue growth (Q3 2025): Returned to 2% growth.

Ziff Davis, Inc. (ZD) - Marketing Mix: Place

Place, or distribution, for Ziff Davis, Inc. (ZD) centers on its digital-first, global infrastructure, ensuring its diverse portfolio of media, software, and services reaches consumers and enterprises across various digital touchpoints.

Global Distribution via Owned and Operated Digital Properties

Ziff Davis, Inc. leverages a vast digital footprint for global distribution. The company is home to over 40+ leading brands, which serve as the primary conduits for content and services worldwide. This direct control over the distribution platform is a key advantage. As of Q2 2025, advertising on these Owned and Operated (O&O) web traffic properties accounted for 35% of the company's total revenues. Furthermore, about 40% of that O&O advertising revenue is derived specifically from search traffic.

The distribution strategy prioritizes direct reach, evidenced by programmatic advertising contributing less than $50 million of annual revenue, suggesting a deliberate focus on owned channels over third-party ad networks.

Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) Channel

The D2C channel is robust, supporting media and e-commerce brands. Brands like CNET (acquired in August 2024) and the Everyday Health Group are central to this distribution. The Health & Wellness segment, which includes these D2C media properties, generated $99.5 million in revenue during Q2 2025. The Technology & Shopping segment, which includes e-commerce-adjacent brands like retailMeNot, contributed $78.8 million in advertising revenue in the same quarter. The company's M&A strategy, which includes 97 acquisitions from 2013 through September 2025, is explicitly designed to grow this global customer base and expand product lineups.

Key D2C brands and their distribution focus include:

• CNET and ZDNet for technology reviews.
• Everyday Health Group for health content.
• Mashable for technology and culture content.
• RetailMeNot for savings and coupon distribution.

B2B Software and Data Services Sales

Software and data services are distributed directly to business customers. The Cybersecurity & Martech segment and the Connectivity segment represent the primary B2B focus areas. The Connectivity division, which includes Ookla (Speedtest), reported 2% revenue growth in Q3 2025. Ziff Davis Performance Marketing, which handles demand generation, reports maintaining a database of 156MM B2B Contacts across the globe, indicating a direct sales and data licensing channel to enterprises.

The direct sales approach targets specific enterprise types:

• Enterprises seeking cybersecurity and marketing technology tools.
• Carriers utilizing connectivity testing and data services.
• Government clients for data and software solutions.

Digital Storefronts and App Stores for Subscriptions

Subscription products rely on digital storefronts and app stores for access. The overall Subscription and Licensing revenue saw a 2.0% decline in Q1 2025 but grew 2% in Q3 2025, showing mixed but present activity in this channel. The Humble Bundle platform, part of Gaming & Entertainment, distributes its 'Humble Choice subscription' directly through its own digital storefront.

Distribution points for subscription products include:

Geographic Reach

Ziff Davis, Inc.'s geographic reach is international, but the United States remains the core market. This is reflected in the balance sheet data as of March 31, 2025, where cash and equivalents held domestically totaled $517.6 million, significantly outweighing the $80.5 million held internationally. The company supports international advertising clients by maintaining local market expertise, often through local partners holding events in regions like the Middle East.

Ziff Davis, Inc. (ZD) - Marketing Mix: Promotion

You're looking at how Ziff Davis, Inc. (ZD) pushes its message out to the market, which is heavily weighted toward digital performance and owned assets. Honestly, their promotion strategy is built on the foundation of their content quality, which they use to attract and monetize audiences across their 40-plus brands.

Content marketing is the engine here, using high-quality, authoritative content to drive organic search traffic. This focus on organic reach is a key differentiator. For instance, as of September 2025, estimates suggest Google sends their network of sites an estimated 600+ million clicks each month. This organic flow is crucial, especially as the CEO highlighted its importance in the advertising mix.

The CEO, Vivek Shah, made it clear that their owned and operated (O&O) web traffic is a defintely strong competitive moat. Here's the quick math on that: 35% of Ziff Davis, Inc.'s total revenues are ads served on their O&O web traffic, and about 40% of that specific ad revenue comes directly from search. This reliance on owned traffic insulates them somewhat from the volatility seen by competitors overly dependent on third-party platforms.

The company shows heavy reliance on performance marketing and digital advertising across these media properties. Advertising and performance marketing revenue was a major growth driver, surging 15.5% to $197 million in the second quarter of 2025. While growth moderated slightly in the third quarter, advertising and performance marketing still grew 5.9% year-over-year in Q3 2025. To be fair, programmatic advertising remains a smaller piece of the puzzle, representing less than $50 million of annual revenue.

Strategic Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) is a core promotional tactic for Ziff Davis, Inc., used to instantly acquire new audiences and complementary brand capabilities. They were active in 2025; for example, they completed two acquisitions in the third quarter: Semantic Labs (martech/cybersecurity) and Etrality (connectivity). In the second quarter, they completed three acquisitions totaling approximately $11.4 million. This aligns with their historical deployment, having spent over $3 billion in M&A to date to build out their portfolio.

Ziff Davis, Inc. is also utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI) for audience segmentation and content optimization to improve ad effectiveness across its platforms. This AI deployment is part of the ongoing transformation strategy within their advertising operations.

Here are the key financial metrics tied to their promotional revenue streams as of late 2025:

The company's promotional success is also reflected in segment performance where Health & Wellness advertising revenue was $82.5 million in Q2 2025, and the Technology & Shopping segment contributed $78.8 million in advertising revenue that same quarter. The Health & Wellness segment showed particularly strong year-over-year revenue growth of 13% in Q3 2025.

The promotional mix is further detailed by their revenue recognition strategy:

• Advertising and performance marketing revenue grew 5.9% year-over-year in Q3 2025.
• Subscription and licensing revenue grew by 2% in Q3 2025.
• Other revenues declined by $4.3 million year-over-year in Q3 2025, largely due to the wind-down of the games publishing business.

Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday.

Ziff Davis, Inc. (ZD) - Marketing Mix: Price

You're looking at how Ziff Davis, Inc. structures the money side of its business, which is all about balancing perceived value with competitive reality. The pricing strategy here isn't a single lever; it's a dual-stream approach that dictates how customers pay for access to their content and services.

The core pricing model relies on two distinct revenue pillars. One is transactional, based on immediate engagement, while the other is recurring, based on ongoing access. This structure helps smooth out the volatility you often see in purely advertising-dependent models. It definitely helps with long-term financial planning.

For the full fiscal year 2025, Ziff Davis, Inc. has set its revenue guidance in a specific range. Management projects total revenue to land between $1.442 billion and $1.502 billion. This range reflects the expected pricing realization across both major revenue streams.

Here's a quick look at how the two streams performed in the second quarter of 2025, which gives you a sense of the current pricing power in each area:

• Advertising and Performance Marketing revenue was $197 million in Q2 2025.
• Subscription and Licensing revenue was $149 million in Q2 2025.

The advertising side shows strong pricing momentum, evidenced by a 15.5% year-over-year increase in Q2 2025 revenue. The recurring revenue stream, Subscription and Licensing, also demonstrated positive pricing traction, growing 5.0% to reach $149 million in that same quarter.

When you drill down into the B2B software offerings, the pricing model shifts clearly to a recurring, access-based structure. For small businesses needing their software solutions, the pricing starts at $50 per user per month. This per-seat model is standard for B2B SaaS, tying the customer's cost directly to their usage scale, which is a very clear way to price value.

To map out the financial context for these pricing strategies, consider the following breakdown based on the latest reported figures:

The strategy here is clearly about optimizing the mix. Strong growth in the high-margin advertising stream, up 15.5%, supports the overall revenue guidance, while the steady 5.0% growth in Subscription and Licensing provides a reliable floor. If onboarding for those subscription plans takes longer than expected, churn risk rises defintely.

The components driving the pricing power for the recurring revenue stream include:

• Subscription fees for premium content access.
• Licensing fees for proprietary data and research.
• Tiered pricing based on user count or feature set.

Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday.