Pandemic-driven E-Commerce Boom Lifts Affiliate Marketing Strategies PLUS AI Company Pitches Its Services as Part of Reader Revenue Strategy

June 14, 2021

A journalist uses NFT sales to launch a newsletter, and BuzzFeed is looking to bonds and a SPAC to fund its acquisitions.

E-commerce has boomed during the pandemic as lockdown has kept people at home. Yes, it's been good for Amazon and delivery companies, but for those publishers with affiliate marketing strategies, it's been a lift as well. With many people saying that the pandemic accelerated digital trends such as e-commerce, affiliate marketing provides another revenue stream.

Quartz has been such an innovator over the years both with content and technology. I used to love their chat-driven app. But the service has really struggled going through two sales in the last few years before a management buyout. Simon Owens speaks to Quartz's leaders to find out what comes next.

The Texas Tribune is looking for a director for its revenue lab, and Vox's podcasting acquisition is part of its expanding reader revenue push.

Pandemic-driven E-commerce Boom Supports Affiliate Marketing

Global eCommerce sales hit $4T in 2020 and are expected to reach nearly $5T in 2021, according to eMarketer. The affiliate market alone is worth over $12B, and a “growing market represents growing opportunities,” states a new guide by publisher technology platform, Sovrn. The guide, “5 Ways to Make Affiliate Marketing Work for You in …

With the rise in e-commerce due to the pandemic, affiliate marketing - getting a slice of each e-commerce transaction via a link - can add another revenue stream for publishers.

Whither Quartz? What's Next for This Innovator?

The business news site went independent in 2020 and is betting much of its future on paid memberships.

I agree with Simon that Quartz has been an impressive innovator that has yet to find a stable business model or possibly an audience. The common argument has been that it is not niche enough to carve out a space in the business media to seriously grow subscriptions and not big enough to compete in the scale-driven ad economy. Simon spoke to Quartz's leaders to find out the direction they want to chart.

Journalist Launches Newsletter with Funding from NFT Sales

It shows that NFTs could provide a sustainable funding model for media, said the author.

"Buyers of the NFTs were also awarded "DIRT" tokens named after the newsletter, which gave them special access to members exclusive content. In total, there were 14,000 tokens distributed across all NFT buyers.

BuzzFeed Using Traditional and SPAC Funding to Pay for Acquisitions

BuzzFeed is in discussions to raise about $200 million in convertible bonds to supplement cash it will raise by merging with a special purpose acquisition company, say people familiar with the situation. The financing will help BuzzFeed fund the acquisition of digital lifestyle publisher Complex ...

Local Journalism's: Supply-Side or Demand-Side Problem?

Despite all the impassioned pleas to salvage local news coverage, the reality is there’s a demand-side problem.

Demand-side but also supply-side issues: "(A) 2018 finding by Pewrevealed that only 16 percent of Americans get their news “often” from a newspaper, further lowering the status of the press. Another marker of how scarce local news has become: Last year, when Facebook went prospecting for local news to include in a new section called “Today In,” it found that one in three of its users lived in places where there wasn’t enough local news published to sustain the section."

US Job Alert: Texas Tribune Revenue Lab Director

We’re hiring a director to lead the Texas Tribune’s Revenue Lab, a training and innovation center housed within our pioneering online news organization.

If you're in the US, have some business side experience, you'll be interested in this gig with the Texas Tribune. It's a storied publication with a solid foundation and an entrepreneurial culture.

Case Study: AI's Impact on Reader Revenue Strategy

Press Gazette has been reporting on British journalism without fear or favour since 1965. Our mission is to provide a news and information service which helps the UK journalism.

Interesting details about a service that is already providing 4m automated stories for 100 publishers. The service uses structured data from topics including weather, sports, real estate sales and traffic. The provider says that it frees up journalists time so that that they can cover higher value-added stories.

US: Vox's Podcast Acquisition Part of Deeper Subscription Strategy

For both Vox Media and Cafe Studios, the motivation behind the deal extends beyond the world of audio and into subscriptions.

"Meanwhile, Cafe Studios moves its new parent company further into the subscription business. Vox Media already sells subscriptions via New York Magazine and dabbles in donations via its news publication Vox. But Cafe Studios, which sells subscriptions through its Cafe Insider program, introduces it into the world of subscription-based podcasting."