Vox Media Leans Into Audience Engagement, Big Name Podcasts

It’s been a bumpy few months for Vox Media, with a trio of layoffs and a restructuring of its lifestyle brands, Thrillist, PS and Eater.
Still, last year, Vox Media subscribers grew by more than 30% over 2023; however, Vox wouldn’t share where they started in the year. That includes New York Magazine, Vox Memberships, The Verge and paid products like Cafe Insider and Top Secret Base.
In an effort to seek out better quality monetization, at the start of December, The Verge launched a subscription product with more than 90% of readers opting for the annual option. In 2024, more than 55,000 “super users” [daily visitors] visited The Verge daily, with the company stating that it is well on its way to converting that group into paying subscribers.
Meanwhile, the Vox Media Podcast Network has more than 30 actively publishing podcasts reaching a unique global monthly audience of over 10 million. The company will continue to focus on podcasts, IP and data for future growth as it seeks to better engage audiences with higher quality content and reporting.
President of Vox Media Ryan Pauley, a 12-year veteran of the company, talked to AMO about the strategy for 2025.
The Strategy
For a scaled advertising business, it’s all about intellectual property and data, Pauley said. On the IP, it’s about creative programming and the authority that a brand has with its audience. Data is driven by a combination of scale, community and engagement and making that scale addressable—scale alone is no longer a differentiator, Pauley said.
“The combination of strong IP and strong first-party audience data are really what’s driving a lot of growth and opportunity, and marketing and investment decisions, in a big way,” he said.
With media under pressure as traffic from search and social referral declines, Vox has elevated its focus on driving loyalty and giving audiences reasons to visit more frequently, whether through redesigning home pages, like they did with The Verge, expanding newsletters or launching mobile apps, as they did with Eater and New York Magazine.
“There’s also different types of content that leads to increased consumption,” Pauley said, pointing to podcasts that have deep engagement (ie, a high percentage of people that complete an hour-long podcast once or twice a week).”
There are still plenty of consumers to reach; it’s just not going to be through search or social in the same ways anymore, he said. The business model and strategy now has to adjust to engaging the audience and monetizing them through their loyalty.
The objective for New York Magazine, specifically, which launched an app last year, is to be the best thing users read every day—not necessarily the first thing, or the newsiest thing. He cited a recent cover story on author Neil Gaiman who is facing assault allegations as an example of deeply reported and powerful stories that audiences are responding well to.
“If you do the job that you’ve said, you’ve promised, and that people have paid you to do, then you’ll be okay,” Pauley said. “There’s certainly a much higher tolerance for paying for good products and good content than there probably has been in a very long time, maybe ever.”
However, because of that, there’s also a quick willingness to churn and cancel if consumers don’t get what they paid for.
Lifestyle Makeover
In December, Vox laid off staff at its lifestyle brands, Thrillist, PS and Eater. In a memo to staff at the time, Chief Executive Officer Jim Bankoff said that “the pace of change is accelerating for media businesses and it is essential to our success that we continuously evaluate how and where we invest to serve our audiences best to advance the long term health of our business.”
The changes he cited include search and social referral declines and the rise of AI platforms for discovery and consumption of content. As a result, Vox is changing how it reaches people.
Pauley said:
In certain cases, that means expanding the podcast franchises to other mediums. In some cases, it means making sure we have more social talent and programming. In other cases, it might mean investing more in the subscription part of the business. But it’s different on a program basis. It’s one of the things that makes Vox Media so unique is the breadth of not only just like the brands and what we cover, but also the different capabilities. We see it as a feature, not a bug. But it does mean we have to be pretty disciplined in what the needs are of each individual brand within the portfolio.
Some categories are seeing complete overhauls with programming, formatting and distribution.
Most beauty, wellness and fitness content is consumed via social platforms and around individual creators. Advertising dollars have followed that migration pattern, meaning the PS website, once a huge destination for readers, is no longer nearly as relevant.
“That’s just not how audiences are consuming this type of content anymore,” Pauley said. “PS is still incredibly relevant across social channels… [It’s got a] huge opportunity to grow, but we’ve got to shift the center of gravity of the brand to be more oriented around social and elevate the internal talent we have within that programming.”
For similar reasons, Eater now has an app, to make it easier for consumers to get to the content and take action based on recommendations.
Podcasts and declining search
Vox has been and continues to be very ambitious with the growth of the podcast network. New shows that joined the network last year included those by Megan Rapinoe and Andy Roddick, former professional athletes.
“What’s important in that is the combination of the talent and, it sounds obvious and very simple—it’s a lot harder to execute on this,” Pauley said, adding that Vox is very good at monetizing “journalistic products in the audio space” thanks to its promotional might. The money comes largely from advertising.
Future expansion in podcasts, video and beyond are likely to be in sports, tech and business areas.
While search is declining, it remains an important discovery channel for Vox, as does social media. The key is to provide ways for readers to engage, whether through a newsletter or otherwise, and become repeat customers.
“We’ve got to make an experience that once we reach a new user, that we’re giving them every reason to continue to connect and engage with the brand further, but so [a] combination of still making sure we’re discoverable in the biggest platforms, search being one of them, but also making sure that we can reach new and modern audiences, which are primarily coming in newsletter, forum, or Instagram or other social channels,” Pauley said.