Website Closers® presents an enormously successful Internet Publisher that has thrived by generating revenue from display ads placed across its 10 popular online Conservative News Content Sites through Ad Networks like AdSense, among others. The key to this media publishing company’s success has been their ability to amass a stunning email database of 3.7 Million Subscribers, which has become the core of their entire operation.
The brand’s email newsletters have become the prime method for generating traffic to their news sites, which are geared toward conservative readers. All content is curated in-house by a team of highly skilled writers. The company’s demographics skew toward readers in the 55+ age range, a very appealing demographic to advertisers, both politically and commercially. By placing display ads on this company’s online news articles as well as in their newsletters, advertisers know that their messages will be viewed by millions of highly engaged readers every day. With such an immense email database, advertisers know they’re guaranteed a top return on their ad spend.
And all of this growth continues in 2021 despite the fact that Donald J Trump is no longer in office, the Pandemic News Cycle is waning and conservative discussions are nowhere near as pervasive as they were in 2020 with Trump, BLM, COVID and the Election all wrapped up into one perfect storm of activity. This continued growth in 2021 goes to show that the company is resilient to the ebbs and flows of the normal conservative news cycle and can continue to generate ad revenue in a democratically run government. While that is phenomenal by itself, knowing that 2024 is likely going to showcase another showdown between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, this company is sitting in an enviable spot to publish news articles in the midst of all this back and forth and the foundation is set to continue to grow for many years to come.
This company is a cash cow, throwing off a tremendous amount of cash flow to ownership, all with very little operating expenses, and highly scalable without additional working capital constraints – the true definition of Economies of Scale. The company has 10 political news sites, each one offering readers 20 to 45 news articles that are posted daily to maximize traffic and repeat consumerism. The content is entirely original and crafted in-house so that it can’t be found elsewhere. This is a massive amount of content published on a daily basis. The brand generally carries 6 ad placements on each news post, including one placed at the top of the article, one placed in the middle, and one at the end of the piece. There are additional ads in sidebars. Multiply all those ads across 10 news sites with jaw dropping traffic rates and it becomes clear just how much exposure this company is giving its advertisers. How can advertisers be certain that content is being read? The company’s own Google Analytics accounts provides conclusive evidence of that. The sites now average around 1.7 million website users, which translates into a phenomenal 7.4 million monthly page views. Are those readers actually reading the newsletters? The company’s average Click Through Rate on their email Newsletters is 28%, meaning those advertisers are finding their customers and bringing them in. This is a very high rate for any publisher, notwithstanding the high value nature of this particular demographic group.
So, how did the company create such a highly successful business model for generating advertising revenue? The company started by looking at how other conservative online news sites were operating and generating revenue, then took some different approaches. First launched in 2019, the business saw an opportunity at a time when more and more readers, regardless of their political affiliation, were looking for news content that reflected their own views. That includes conservative readers who distrust the reporting of the mainstream news sites and are looking for more ideologically suitable content.
The company launched its news websites and accompanying email newsletters rooted deep in the politically conservative community to drive unmatched reach and profitability. On five of their news sites, the company sends out two daily emails. On the five content/promotional sites, they send out two newsletters and one morning promo each day.
This strategy has set them apart from other conservative news sites. Many conservative sites have faced censorship restrictions on social media networks and search engines. This business opted not to use social media marketing, which most of their competitors rely on. This brand’s viewpoint has been that their email list allows them to more strategically own their web traffic, which in turns allows them to demonstrate to advertisers that they can reliably earn and sustain a lucrative traffic stream. This gives them a huge advantage over competitors who rely more heavily on social media, while running the risk that their content might get judged as unsuitable by the social media site’s standards.
The brand generates 28% of its gross revenue from display ads placed in their news content, and 28% for ads included in their email newsletters.
In terms of their own marketing efforts, the company has relied on PPC ads on Google, which has proven to be the most cost-effective lead generation tool for them. They have also seen success with dedicated advertisements which they run in other conservative newsletters. That’s given the brand a high engagement rate with its readers, which in turn leads to higher revenues.
There are some creative ways to scale this business. The most obvious would be to dramatically increase the marketing budget to acquire more email leads and readers. Every new reader who discovers one of the company’s news sites from either a Google display ad or one in a political newsletter represents a prospective buyer for their advertisers. Dedicating some growth capital to these goals would enable the company to scale.
A second opportunity can be found in employing a tactic being used by many other online news sites, which is to offer a subscription-based, premium content approach to one or more of their sites. For a monthly fee, the subscriber would have access to ad-free content, the ability to comment on posts, and other membership perks.
A third approach would be to expand the company’s reach beyond their email list, discovering opportunities through new marketing options, whether it’s on social media, video marketing on sites such as YouTube and TikTok, or an SEO plan for each of the 10 sites.
With an experienced team in place that includes a content manager, brand manager, and manager of the editorial team and writers, this is a smooth and highly efficient operation that requires no more than two hours per week of work from the current owner, who devotes more time to brainstorming about potential growth opportunities.
The owner is interested in remaining in a consultant role post-acquisition to help ensure the new owner is successful and can grow the business. In addition to the owner’s insights into how the conservative media world operates, the owner has invaluable relationships with their media partners and email service providers that would prove to be highly beneficial to a buyer.
Today, as millions of people search for news sites reflective of their own values, online sites that offer hard-hitting news, solid commentary and interesting analysis are continuing to grow and find their viewers. Many of them are experiencing huge year-over-year gains in unique visitors, which in turn gives them a much wider readership to present to their advertisers. This company has demonstrated just how effectively that model can be utilized.
Their decision to turn their email newsletter into a one-stop shop for attracting readers, giving advertisers a prime spot for their display ads and for demonstrating their have millions of active users has been a tremendous success. It goes back to the very founding notion of display advertising: give the reader what they want in terms of content, and the reader will discover the ad you put in front of them.
Since political news sites remain among the most popular today, this company has a strong future and is guaranteed to keep expanding. A lucky buyer has several effective ways to put that growth into overdrive.
