Daily Mail Does An About-Turn; Decides To Advertise To Overseas Readers
Finally, after years of ignoring the revenue potential in its huge overseas audience, Mail Online has decided the best thing would be to monetise those readers. Some 75 percent (8.6 million) of the news site’s 11.6 million monthly users came from outside the UK in August, according to yesterday’s ABCe figures (higher than any other British online paper), but consecutive bosses have considered advertising to them “pointless”.
Today, however, editorial director Martin Clarke tells Media Week the outfit is “looking into effective ways of selling digital ad space tailored to an international audience”:
The #1 source for the Daily Mail's international traffic is from DrudgeReport.com. It probably accounts for 90%. What the Mail won't admit to though, is that they pay Drudge for posting a link to a Mail story. Pretty much every day…almost like clockwork…Drudge links to them. The Mail web editors send him a few links to their juiciest stories (must have USA appeal, of course) and then Drudge or his staff choose one. It's basically a pay-per-click model, meaning that the Mail pays Drudge around a penny a click. A sizable investment on their part, but as long as there are ads on the landing page, it's simply a matter of arbitrage. i.e. they make more money on the ads on the landing page than it costs them for the click. The challenge is to make sure that UK advertisers don't get all snarky about paying for advertising their UK products to a USA audience. Hence this latest discussion. Clarke is basically dissembling. He knows that this whole thing could blow up in his face. It's a dirty little secret for many sites, that their advertisers waste about 20% of their ad pounds (or dollars) on ads that are seen by an "irrelevant" audience.