Digital Economy

Google launches Offerwall: the answer to the traffic collapse caused by Ai

The Mountain View giant presents a new solution to help publishers monetise while artificial intelligence erodes traditional visits

2 July 2025

3' min read

We start with a fact: artificial intelligence is revolutionising the way users use online information. Until recently, the mechanism was simple: one searched for 'best smartphones 2025' on Google, got a list of results, clicked on specialised sites and read (or watched) the full reviews. Every click generated traffic, page views and advertising revenue for publishers (or creators). Now everything changes: with the introduction of AI search engines, many users skip the step of clicking on the source, because artificial intelligence gives the answer directly. In practice, the Ai informs itself for us, 'reading' the sources and serving us a ready-made summary. Cooked and eaten.

A paradigm shift that Google itself helped to shape. After having introduced on its search engine the 'AI Overview' functionalities, which provide direct answers without the need to click on sites, and even 'Audio Overviews' voice summaries, the company now officially launches Offerwall: a tool designed to offer a lifesaver to publishers who see their organic traffic eroding.

What is Offerwall

Tested for over a year with more than 1,000 publishers before the official launch, Offerwall uses artificial intelligence to determine the best time to propose the offer to each visitor, thereby optimising engagement and revenue. In practice, it allows publishers to offer different ways to access content: from micropayments to filling out surveys, from viewing advertisements to subscribing to a newsletter.

The numbers (for now) reward

The first data provided by Google show promising, though still limited, signs. During the test phase, publishers saw an average revenue increase of 9 per million views through AdSense for rewarded ads. Google Ad Manager customers saw increases between 5% and 15%. One of the most significant case studies comes from India: the publishing group Sakal Media implemented Offerwall on esakal.com, achieving a 20 per cent revenue increase and up to 2 million additional impressions in three months.

The return of micropayments

However, the strategy is not without its challenges. Micropayments - one of the pillars on which Offerwall rests - have a troubled history in the publishing industry. Many attempts, few successes: too high running costs, friction in the user experience, little inclination to pay even small sums for a single article. A recent example is that of Post, a social start-up financed by Andreessen Horowitz that relied precisely on micropayments to remunerate publishers. Despite the money, it closed its doors in 2024.

Google, for its part, has decided to collaborate with Supertab, a platform that allows minimum payments to access content for limited periods (24 hours, a few days, a week). The service, still in beta, also supports subscriptions and integrates directly with Google Ad Manager.

Personalisation, branding and control

Offerwall is designed to be flexible and brandable: publishers can customise it with their own logo and introductory texts, and decide which options to show to users. A function that is active by default allows users to watch short advertisements to earn access to content: this is the only option that generates revenue according to the standard Ad Manager mechanisms. And there is also an option that allows users to indicate their topics of interest: this information is then used to improve advertising customisation.

A balance to be found

The real challenge for Google will be to find a balance between technological innovation and the sustainability of the publishing ecosystem - on which many of the contents that feed Google's own Ai depend. Publishers, for their part, will have to decide whether to get on the train of new forms of monetisation or continue to focus on organic traffic that could become increasingly residual, in a market in which the link between content and reader is no longer the click, but an algorithm that 'summarises everything for you'.