Social Rocket
At the British publisher The Independent, revenue from social commerce has for the first time sat just above revenue from search-driven commerce. CEO Christian Broughton reported this for September 2026 at a media conference in London. The figures were not published individually. According to him, the lead is small and should therefore be read neither as the end of the SEO business nor as a general industry benchmark.
Commerce revenue is not the same as social traffic
Digiday reported on Broughton's comments in October. The comparison concerns two revenue sources within the commerce business: sales or commissions generated through social media activity, and those originating from search engine traffic. It does not say that social media now delivers more readers or advertising revenue overall than Google.
The example nevertheless shows why publishers are moving sales revenue closer to the formats and platforms where their audience already consumes content. Alongside classic recommendation articles, this can include creator videos, direct product presentations and suitable shopping partnerships. How the link between creator networks and commerce infrastructure is changing is also illustrated by the acquisition of Express Checkout by Morning Brew.
The strategic shift began long before September
The Independent presents its economic transition not just through a single commerce month. In a own interim review from 19 June 2026, the publisher reported that AI projects already accounted for ten percent of company revenue. The four growth pillars at the time, AI, Studio, E-commerce and US expansion, together made up more than 60 percent of revenue. These are company statements, not an independent audit of each division's profitability.
The new commerce comparison fits this restructuring without alone proving its success. Above all, it remains open how large absolute social commerce revenues are, which commissions are included, and how much effort goes into creator production and distribution. A small lead within a single month can be shifted by seasonality or campaigns.
Users are moving, the economic relationship must follow
The structural shift is better documented than this single publisher case. The Digital News Report 2026 from the Reuters Institute shows that, on average across 48 markets, 54 percent use social media and video platforms for news, compared with 51 percent for news providers' own websites and apps. This measures news consumption, not purchase conversions. The figures nonetheless explain why publishers need new distribution and revenue paths beyond their homepages.
At the same time, direct customer relationships remain strategically important. Another approach is free registration as a response to declining search traffic. The Independent, by contrast, focuses also on marketing its own content and commerce experiences via external platforms. The consolidation of creator commerce service providers shows that specialised infrastructure is emerging for this purpose.
For German publishers and brands, this does not lead to a blanket recommendation to shift SEO budgets into social media. A more sensible approach is to evaluate reach, attributable orders, revenue and production costs separately for each channel. Only then can one tell whether social commerce is an additional sales channel or merely reassigns existing sales.