Ziff Davis Strategy and Business Model

Executive Overview

Ziff Davis is a diversified digital media, internet services, and subscription software company built around specialist verticals where trust, utility, and user intent matter. Founded in 1927 and headquartered in New York, Ziff Davis today operates across five FY2024 reporting segments: Technology & Shopping, Gaming & Entertainment, Health & Wellness, Connectivity, and Cybersecurity & Martech. The company is not simply an online publisher. It owns a mix of media brands, digital marketplaces, consumer subscription products, enterprise data tools, and software platforms, giving it several monetization models at once: advertising, affiliate commerce, subscriptions, lead generation, licensing, and analytics.

Ziff Davis’s strategy is to own strong category brands and internet utility platforms that attract either high-intent audiences or proprietary usage data, then deepen monetization through software, data, subscriptions, and direct advertiser relationships. Well-known assets include CNET and PCMag in tech media, IGN and Humble in gaming, Everyday Health properties in health media, Ookla and Downdetector in connectivity, and cybersecurity and marketing-technology products such as IPVanish and Moz. Its audience reach is global, although the United States remains the core market. In FY2024, Ziff Davis reported roughly $1.4 billion of revenue.

Ziff Davis at a Glance

Logo
Common name	Ziff Davis
Full legal name	Ziff Davis, Inc.
Headquarters	New York, New York, United States
Ownership	Publicly traded; broadly held by institutional and retail investors
Ticker	ZD
Exchange	NASDAQ
Market Cap	$2.22B
Revenue (FY2024)	#N/A
Founding / major historical milestones	Founded in 1927 as a publishing company; transformed over time from print media into digital media and internet services; acquired by j2 Global in 2012; j2 Global renamed itself Ziff Davis in 2021; portfolio expanded through acquisitions including IGN, Ookla, Everyday Health, RetailMeNot, Moz, and CNET
Industry or industries	Digital media, internet information services, connectivity intelligence, cybersecurity software, marketing technology, and digital health media
Key products or services	Digital publishing and advertising, affiliate commerce, gaming media and digital game commerce, internet performance measurement, outage monitoring, health media and marketing solutions, cybersecurity subscriptions, and marketing software
Geographic footprint	Global digital audience and customer base, with operations centered in the United States and meaningful international reach through media, gaming, connectivity, and software products
Business segments as officially reported	Technology & Shopping; Gaming & Entertainment; Health & Wellness; Connectivity; Cybersecurity & Martech
Company website	https://www.ziffdavis.com/

1. What Is the Strategy of Ziff Davis?

1. 1a. What is the winning aspiration of Ziff Davis?

   Ziff Davis’s winning aspiration, as reflected in its FY2024 public filings and investor communications, is to compound shareholder value by owning and improving a portfolio of category-focused digital brands and utility platforms that generate durable revenue, strong operating profit, and cash flow. Management has not centered public messaging on a single headline multi-year revenue target. Instead, the company consistently emphasizes profitable growth, recurring revenue expansion, and disciplined capital allocation.

   In practical terms, “winning” for Ziff Davis appears to mean building leadership positions in chosen verticals where the company can combine trusted content, data, software, and subscription economics. It is not trying to be a broad general-interest media company. It is trying to be a better owner of specialist digital assets in markets where expertise, audience intent, and proprietary data are monetizable over long periods.

2. 1b. Where does Ziff Davis play?

   Ziff Davis plays in five main arenas as of FY2024: technology and shopping media, gaming and entertainment media, health and wellness media and marketing, connectivity intelligence, and cybersecurity and marketing-technology software. Those choices define a narrower competitive field than “digital media” alone. The company tends to favor categories where users arrive with a clear purpose: researching a product purchase, testing internet performance, seeking health information, following gaming content, or buying a software subscription.

   Geographically, Ziff Davis serves a global audience, but its revenue base is still anchored in the United States. Channel-wise, it plays through owned-and-operated websites, apps, data platforms, subscriptions, enterprise sales teams, advertiser relationships, affiliate partnerships, and digital commerce platforms. This means Ziff Davis competes partly for audience attention and partly for budget in software, analytics, and enterprise tools.

3. 1c. How does Ziff Davis plan to win?

   Ziff Davis’s core playbook is differentiation, not cost leadership. It aims to win by owning brands and platforms that users trust for specialist information or utility, then layering multiple revenue streams on top of that trust. In media, the differentiators are editorial authority, purchase-intent audiences, and monetization depth through advertising, affiliate commerce, and lead generation. In connectivity, cybersecurity, and martech, the differentiators are proprietary data, software functionality, and recurring customer relationships.

   The company also uses acquisitions as a strategic weapon. Rather than building every new capability internally, Ziff Davis has repeatedly bought brands and products that fit its vertical model, then integrated them into its segment structure. That creates a portfolio effect: ad-driven businesses provide audience scale, while subscription and enterprise products improve predictability and reduce reliance on ad cycles alone.

4. 1d. What capabilities must Ziff Davis have in place?

   To make this strategy work, Ziff Davis needs several capabilities that reinforce one another. First is editorial and brand credibility, especially in technology, gaming, and health. Second is product and engineering capability, particularly for connectivity intelligence, subscriptions, data platforms, and software tools. Third is monetization discipline: ad sales, affiliate commerce optimization, subscription pricing and retention, and enterprise account management all matter.

   It also needs M&A sourcing and integration capability. Ziff Davis has been built over years through acquisitions, so the ability to identify attractive assets, buy them at reasonable prices, and integrate them without damaging brand value is central. Finally, the company needs strong privacy, compliance, and platform-risk management, especially in health media, digital advertising, cybersecurity, and consumer data handling.

5. 1e. What management systems does Ziff Davis require?

   Ziff Davis appears to run with a mix of decentralized operating accountability and centralized capital allocation. Its segment structure gives management a way to track performance by vertical, while the corporate center allocates capital across acquisitions, buybacks, debt, and internal investment. That requires management systems built around segment profit and cash flow, audience and engagement metrics, subscriber retention, enterprise renewals, and return on acquisition capital.

   The company also needs control systems around editorial standards, cybersecurity, privacy, advertising compliance, and healthcare-related content rules. Because much of the portfolio depends on digital platforms, search, app ecosystems, and advertiser trust, management systems must do more than track revenue. They must also monitor traffic concentration, monetization mix, churn, brand safety, and integration progress on acquired assets.

2. What Are the Current Strategic Initiatives of Ziff Davis?

Ziff Davis’s 2024 and early 2025 public communications point to a set of portfolio priorities that are more concrete than a generic “grow digital media” story. The most visible current initiatives are below.

• Integrating CNET Media Group into the Technology & Shopping segment. Ziff Davis announced and completed the acquisition of CNET Media Group in 2024. The strategic logic is clear: broaden scale in consumer technology, reviews, shopping, and related advertiser categories; deepen commerce monetization; and bring additional well-known tech properties into a segment where Ziff Davis already had meaningful capabilities.

• Increasing the share of recurring and enterprise-style revenue. Across FY2024 reporting, Ziff Davis continued to emphasize businesses such as connectivity intelligence, cybersecurity subscriptions, and martech tools that are less exposed to advertising volatility than pure media. This is visible in the ongoing importance of Ookla, Ekahau, VPN and privacy products, and marketing software assets such as Moz.

• Expanding the monetization of connectivity data and utility platforms. Ookla’s Speedtest, Downdetector, and related network intelligence products are strategically important because they convert user utility into enterprise data, analytics, and workflow tools. The initiative is not simply audience growth; it is broader monetization of network-performance data with carriers, enterprises, public-sector users, and other professional customers.

• Deepening the gaming ecosystem around IGN and Humble. In gaming and entertainment, Ziff Davis is not limited to ad-supported editorial. Its portfolio includes digital commerce and subscription-like offerings through Humble as well as major audience brands through IGN. The current strategic direction is to use content, community, commerce, and publisher/developer relationships together rather than as separate businesses.

• Building out health media and targeted healthcare marketing solutions. The Everyday Health portfolio gives Ziff Davis exposure to consumers, caregivers, healthcare professionals, and pharmaceutical marketers. The strategic initiative here is to combine trusted health content with targeted marketing, professional education, and data-driven engagement in a category where quality, compliance, and audience segmentation matter.

• Maintaining disciplined capital allocation. Ziff Davis’s strategy is inseparable from capital deployment. Public messaging continues to highlight acquisition discipline, cash generation, and shareholder returns. In practice, that means balancing tuck-in or platform acquisitions with debt management, internal investment, and share repurchases rather than chasing growth at any price.

3. What Is the Business Model of Ziff Davis?

What customers actually buy

Ziff Davis sells several different things depending on the segment. Advertisers and agencies buy digital media inventory, sponsorships, custom programs, and performance-based campaigns. Retailers and commerce partners buy traffic and conversions through affiliate and shopping relationships. Consumers buy subscriptions or memberships in areas such as cybersecurity, privacy, or gaming-related services. Enterprise and professional customers buy connectivity data, analytics, workflow tools, and marketing software. Healthcare marketers and related customers buy targeted audience access and health-focused engagement solutions.

Recurring versus one-time or repeat-driven revenue

Ziff Davis is a mixed model. Some revenue is recurring or renewal-based, especially in Cybersecurity & Martech and parts of Connectivity. Subscription software, privacy tools, and enterprise contracts tend to be more predictable. Media advertising and affiliate commerce are less contracted, but still often repeat-driven because advertisers return to trusted vertical brands and users repeatedly visit utility platforms. The business mix matters because the more Ziff Davis shifts toward subscriptions, data, and software, the less it behaves like a purely cyclical digital publisher.

How pricing power works

Pricing power is uneven across the portfolio. In ad-supported media, pricing power is constrained by market rates, programmatic competition, and platform-driven traffic swings. Ziff Davis gains leverage where it controls premium, high-intent inventory or specialist audiences that advertisers value. In subscriptions and enterprise products, pricing power is stronger because customers are paying for functionality, data, workflow utility, or trusted performance metrics rather than page views alone.

Why the business mix matters

The mix is central to the investment case. A larger share of media revenue can add reach and monetization opportunity, but it also raises exposure to ad cycles and search-platform changes. Connectivity, cybersecurity, and martech can support higher predictability, better customer lifetime value, and steadier cash generation. Health sits somewhere in between: it is media-driven, but its professional and advertiser solutions are more specialized than broad consumer publishing.

What drives gross margin, operating margin, and cash generation

Gross margins are generally favorable because much of Ziff Davis’s revenue comes from digital content, software, and data rather than physical products. Key cost drivers include editorial and content creation, software and platform development, hosting and infrastructure, customer support, sales and marketing, revenue-share arrangements, and amortization tied to acquired intangibles. Operating margin improves when high-value recurring products grow faster than lower-margin traffic-dependent media. Cash generation is supported by the company’s relatively low capital intensity, software-like economics in parts of the portfolio, and the fact that acquired digital assets often require less fixed capital than industrial businesses.

Revenue model

Ziff Davis uses a blended revenue model: advertising, performance marketing, affiliate commerce, lead generation, licensing, subscriptions, SaaS-like software revenue, analytics, and enterprise contracts. That diversity is a strategic feature. It lets the company monetize the same user relationship in more than one way and reduces dependence on any single channel.

4. What Products and/or Services Does Ziff Davis Sell?

Viewed across the full portfolio, Connectivity and Cybersecurity & Martech appear especially important to the company’s long-term strategic mix because they add more recurring and enterprise-style revenue. The media-heavy segments remain important because they deliver audience reach, brand equity, and commerce monetization that support the overall portfolio.

5. What Are the Key Competitors or Peers of Ziff Davis?

Ziff Davis does not have one perfect all-company competitor because its portfolio spans digital publishing, data utilities, subscriptions, and software. The better way to think about competition is by segment and by peer group.

There are also important substitutes that are not clean peers. Search engines, social platforms, YouTube, Reddit, and app ecosystems compete for user attention and can affect traffic acquisition economics even if they do not resemble Ziff Davis at the company level.

6. What Is the Marketing Strategy of Ziff Davis?

Ziff Davis’s marketing strategy is closely tied to the fact that many of its businesses are themselves media properties. For the consumer-facing portfolio, the content product is often the marketing engine. Trusted editorial brands attract users through search, direct visits, email, social platforms, and word of mouth. That makes brand trust and content quality more important than traditional mass-market brand advertising alone.

• Brand-led audience acquisition. Flagship brands such as CNET, PCMag, IGN, Everyday Health, and Speedtest rely on reputation and repeat usage. In categories like tech reviews and health information, credibility is part of demand generation.

• Performance marketing and conversion optimization. For commerce and subscription businesses, Ziff Davis uses performance-oriented tactics: search visibility, landing-page optimization, merchandising, retention campaigns, and offer testing. This is especially relevant for shopping, cybersecurity subscriptions, and Humble-related commerce.

• Direct advertiser and account-based marketing. In B2B and professional products such as Ookla, Ekahau, Moz, and health-marketing solutions, marketing supports enterprise sales. Thought leadership, product education, webinars, events, and targeted campaigns matter more than mass consumer brand spend.

• Cross-portfolio leverage. Because Ziff Davis owns multiple audience brands, it can sometimes market within its own ecosystem, using owned media to support new products, subscriptions, or partner campaigns.

Marketing is therefore both a major differentiator and a supporting capability. It is a differentiator where brand trust, editorial authority, and user intent drive monetization. It is a supporting function where enterprise software and data products require more conventional B2B pipeline development.

7. What Are the Key Customer Segments of Ziff Davis?

Ziff Davis is meaningfully diversified by end market. It is not dependent on a single customer type in the way a narrowly focused SaaS company or media site might be. That said, advertising exposure still matters in several segments, while health and connectivity have more specialized customer economics.

8. What Is the Sales Model of Ziff Davis?

Ziff Davis uses multiple go-to-market models because its portfolio includes both media and software-like businesses.

• Direct ad sales. Sales teams work with brands, agencies, and category marketers to sell sponsorships, custom programs, premium media inventory, and health-focused advertising solutions.

• Programmatic monetization. Parts of the audience inventory are monetized through digital advertising exchanges and automated channels. This increases fill and scalability, but it can also limit pricing control compared with direct sales.

• Affiliate and commerce partnerships. In shopping and gaming, Ziff Davis monetizes through merchants, retailers, publishers, and other commerce partners. The company earns when it drives conversions, not only when it serves an ad impression.

• Direct-to-consumer digital subscriptions. Cybersecurity and privacy products are sold online through websites, app experiences, renewal flows, and digital customer-support channels. This model depends heavily on conversion, churn management, and retention marketing.

• Enterprise and inside sales. Connectivity and some martech products are sold through direct sales teams, account managers, and contract relationships. This creates closer customer intimacy and more predictable revenue, but it also requires sales enablement, implementation support, and customer success capabilities.

The channel structure has strategic consequences. Direct enterprise sales improve visibility and can support better pricing. Programmatic and search-driven media channels scale efficiently but can make growth more sensitive to platform and market shifts. The mixed channel model also creates clear consultant opportunities in pricing, salesforce design, retention, and portfolio monetization.

9. In What Geographies Does Ziff Davis Operate?

Ziff Davis is headquartered in New York, but its operational and customer footprint is broader than a single-office view suggests because much of the company is digital. The United States remains the center of gravity for revenue, advertising relationships, and much of the health-focused business. That is especially true in healthcare-related marketing, where the customer base and regulatory environment are U.S.-specific.

At the same time, several of Ziff Davis’s brands and products have meaningful international reach. IGN serves gaming audiences well beyond the United States. Humble’s digital commerce model is inherently cross-border. Ookla’s Speedtest and Downdetector utilities are global in usage, which supports enterprise and carrier relationships outside the United States. Cybersecurity and martech subscriptions can also scale internationally more easily than health-media businesses.

Operationally, Ziff Davis’s footprint is best thought of as a network of editorial, product, engineering, sales, and support teams rather than factories or distribution centers. That makes the company geographically diversified in customer reach, while still more concentrated in knowledge-work hubs than in physical infrastructure.

10. Who Are the Owners of Ziff Davis?

Ziff Davis is a publicly traded company listed on Nasdaq under the ticker ZD. As of early 2025, ownership appeared broadly dispersed, with large institutional asset managers such as The Vanguard Group, BlackRock, and State Street among the better-known holders in public filings. No controlling shareholder was disclosed, which means Ziff Davis operates as a widely held public company rather than a founder-controlled or private-equity-controlled business.

11. How Is Ziff Davis Organized?

Ziff Davis is organized as a holding company with a portfolio of digital businesses grouped into five reportable segments as of FY2024. At a practical level, the company appears to use a decentralized operating model: individual brands and platforms retain business-specific focus, while the corporate center manages capital allocation, M&A, governance, and shared oversight functions.

This structure matters because it allows Ziff Davis to combine specialist operating focus with portfolio-level capital allocation. It is not a single-platform software company with one sales motion. It is a collection of vertical businesses managed inside one financial and strategic umbrella.

12. How Does Ziff Davis Operate?

Day to day, Ziff Davis operates very differently by segment, but the underlying operating logic is consistent: build or own digital assets that users trust or rely on, grow audience or subscriber relationships, and monetize those relationships through the most suitable mix of ads, commerce, subscriptions, data, and software.

• Media operations. Editorial teams produce reviews, guides, news, video, and service content. Audience-development teams manage search visibility, direct traffic, social distribution, newsletters, and app usage. Revenue teams monetize traffic through direct ad sales, programmatic channels, and affiliate commerce.

• Utility and data operations. Platforms such as Speedtest and Downdetector capture user interactions that can be turned into measurement, benchmarking, and enterprise insights. Product and engineering teams maintain the platform, while enterprise teams sell higher-value analytics.

• Subscription software operations. Cybersecurity and martech businesses focus on acquisition funnels, onboarding, billing, support, renewals, and customer retention. These businesses look more like software or consumer subscription companies than publishers.

• Health operations. Health and wellness properties require stronger compliance discipline than many other media categories. Content quality, advertiser suitability, healthcare-professional engagement, and privacy practices matter more here than in a general-interest media brand.

The main operational complexities are platform dependency, traffic volatility, subscription churn, privacy regulation, healthcare compliance, cybersecurity, and the integration of acquired assets. Ziff Davis’s execution challenge is not producing one product at scale; it is operating a portfolio without losing the specialist focus that makes each property valuable.

13. What Are the Growth Opportunities for Ziff Davis?

• CNET integration and technology-media scale. The 2024 CNET acquisition creates a clear opportunity to improve monetization, strengthen advertiser relationships, and deepen commerce in the Technology & Shopping segment.

• More recurring revenue from subscriptions and enterprise tools. Cybersecurity, martech, and connectivity offer a path to a more predictable revenue base through renewals, upsells, and contract-driven economics.

• Broader monetization of Ookla, Speedtest, and Downdetector data. Demand for network analytics, benchmarking, outage insight, and wireless optimization could support expansion with carriers, enterprises, and public-sector customers.

• Gaming ecosystem expansion. IGN and Humble give Ziff Davis the ability to combine content, commerce, subscriptions, and publisher relationships in a large global entertainment category.

• Health-market specialization. Everyday Health and related assets can benefit from targeted healthcare marketing, professional audience products, and condition-based audience segmentation if Ziff Davis continues to execute carefully in a regulated category.

• Tuck-in acquisitions. Ziff Davis has a long record of using M&A to add brands, tools, and adjacencies. More portfolio expansion remains a plausible growth lever if valuation and integration conditions are attractive.

• International growth. Connectivity tools, cybersecurity subscriptions, gaming media, and digital commerce can scale internationally more easily than some U.S.-centric media categories.

The main constraints are equally clear: search and platform shifts, ad-market cyclicality, privacy regulation, competitive pressure in software and subscriptions, and the risk that acquisition integration distracts management or dilutes returns.

14. What Is the History of Ziff Davis?

• 1927: Ziff Davis was founded by William B. Ziff Sr. and Bernard G. Davis as a publishing business.

• 20th century: The company became well known through enthusiast and technology publishing, including influential computing titles in later decades.

• 2012: j2 Global acquired Ziff Davis, marking the start of the modern strategy of building a larger digital media and internet-services portfolio around the brand.

• 2013-2021: The portfolio expanded through acquisitions including IGN, Ookla, Everyday Health, Humble Bundle, Spiceworks-related assets, RetailMeNot, and Moz. Over this period, the company increasingly shifted from legacy publishing roots toward a broader mix of media, data, subscriptions, and software.

• 2021: j2 Global changed its corporate name to Ziff Davis, and the company’s identity became much more closely aligned with the digital media and internet portfolio after the spin-off of Consensus Cloud Solutions.

• 2024: Ziff Davis acquired CNET Media Group, reinforcing its position in technology and shopping media.

The most important historical point is that today’s Ziff Davis is not merely the old magazine publisher in digital form. It is the result of years of portfolio reshaping, acquisitions, and a deliberate shift toward digital properties with stronger data, software, and subscription economics.

15. What Are the Key Brands Owned by Ziff Davis?

Brands are a major strategic lever for Ziff Davis. Much of the company’s value comes from owning trusted category names that attract repeat audiences, advertiser demand, or subscription customers.

16. What Is the Technology Strategy of Ziff Davis?

Technology is central to Ziff Davis in two different ways. First, technology is the customer offering in several businesses: Ookla’s measurement tools, Ekahau’s wireless planning products, Moz’s SEO software, and cybersecurity subscriptions are all product-led technology businesses. Second, technology is a portfolio-wide internal enabler across content management, ad monetization, subscriber lifecycle management, analytics, experimentation, and audience development.

• Customer-facing technology. In Connectivity and Martech, Ziff Davis competes on product quality, data integrity, usability, and enterprise relevance rather than on media scale alone.

• Data and measurement infrastructure. Utility products such as Speedtest and Downdetector generate datasets that can be turned into analytics and enterprise offerings. That makes technology strategy inseparable from data strategy.

• Monetization technology. Media businesses depend on platforms for ad serving, audience analytics, conversion tracking, and commerce optimization. Better internal systems can materially improve yield and retention even without large audience growth.

• Portfolio model with selective shared capabilities. Ziff Davis appears to favor business-level product focus rather than one monolithic technology stack. The likely goal is to preserve specialized product capability while sharing selected infrastructure, analytics, and governance where it helps.

The strategic implication is that Ziff Davis should be analyzed partly as a digital holding company, but also partly as a collection of product and data businesses. Technology is not just support overhead; in several segments it is the basis of the value proposition.

17. What Is the Finance Strategy of Ziff Davis?

As of FY2024, Ziff Davis’s finance strategy appeared oriented around three goals: preserve strong cash generation, allocate capital selectively across acquisitions and buybacks, and maintain enough balance-sheet flexibility to act when attractive assets become available.

Capital allocation priorities

M&A has been a defining feature of Ziff Davis’s evolution, so finance strategy is tightly linked to acquisition discipline. The company has historically used cash flow and financing capacity to acquire digital assets that fit its vertical portfolio. At the same time, it has also returned capital through share repurchases. That combination signals a management team focused on per-share value creation, not simply top-line expansion.

Margins and cash generation

The portfolio benefits from relatively low capital intensity compared with physical businesses. Cash generation comes from software, subscriptions, and digital advertising/commerce models that require more people and technology than plant and equipment. Margin quality improves as recurring software, data, and subscription revenues grow faster than lower-visibility advertising revenue.

Balance-sheet posture

Ziff Davis has historically used leverage as a tool rather than as the center of the story. The finance challenge is to keep leverage reasonable enough to preserve strategic optionality while still being willing to deploy capital into value-creating acquisitions. In practice, that means balancing debt management with acquisition opportunities and repurchases.

How finance supports strategy

Finance is not a back-office function at Ziff Davis; it is part of the corporate strategy. A company built through acquisitions needs disciplined underwriting, post-deal tracking, and clear segment economics. That is especially true when the portfolio spans ad-supported media, subscriptions, and enterprise tools with different margin structures and risk profiles.

18. What Major Acquisitions Has Ziff Davis Made?

Acquisitions have played a central role in Ziff Davis’s strategy. The company’s current shape is the result of repeated portfolio building rather than purely organic expansion.

The pattern is consistent: Ziff Davis uses M&A to add trusted vertical brands, utility platforms, and recurring-revenue software businesses. This is not incidental dealmaking; it is a core part of how the company has repositioned itself from legacy publishing roots into a broader digital portfolio.

19. How Companies Like Ziff Davis Leverage Independent Consultants through Umbrex

Umbrex has built a global community of more than 8,000 independent management consultants based in more than 50 countries. These consultants are alumni of McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and other top firms. Companies like Ziff Davis use Umbrex when they want that level of training and problem-solving capability without hiring a full consulting team with all the overhead. Umbrex consultants work across strategy, operations, organization, marketing, sales, finance, technology, enterprise resource planning, and artificial intelligence.

For a company like Ziff Davis, the most relevant independent-consultant projects would usually be highly targeted, cross-functional, and tied to portfolio priorities such as acquisition integration, monetization, recurring revenue growth, and operating-model improvement.

• Post-merger integration for acquired media and software assets. Build an integration office for deals such as CNET, including synergy tracking, decision rights, talent retention, and operating-model alignment.

• Portfolio strategy review. Assess which segments deserve more capital, which assets are non-core, and where Ziff Davis should prioritize the next wave of acquisitions or divestitures.

• Traffic-source diversification and audience strategy. Develop plans to reduce overreliance on any single platform by strengthening direct traffic, newsletters, app engagement, and cross-brand audience sharing.

• Subscription pricing and churn reduction. Improve acquisition economics, pricing tiers, trial conversion, and retention for cybersecurity and other subscription businesses.

• Enterprise sales effectiveness for Connectivity and Martech. Redesign sales coverage, segmentation, account planning, compensation, and customer-success processes for Ookla, Ekahau, Moz, and related offerings.

• Advertising and commerce monetization optimization. Analyze yield management, affiliate strategy, direct-versus-programmatic mix, and advertiser packaging across Technology & Shopping and Gaming & Entertainment.

• Health segment growth strategy. Evaluate which combinations of consumer audience, professional content, provider solutions, and healthcare-marketing products create the best returns in Everyday Health-related businesses.

• Shared-services and organization redesign. Determine where Ziff Davis should centralize finance, data, procurement, ad operations, or technology capabilities and where brand-level autonomy should remain.

• Data monetization strategy. Identify new products, pricing models, and enterprise use cases for connectivity and outage data assets while keeping privacy, compliance, and customer trust intact.

• AI and workflow transformation. Design governance, editorial safeguards, productivity use cases, and product opportunities related to AI-assisted content operations, support functions, and customer-facing tools.