Mail Online’s digital advertising grew 16% in the last 11 months ending August 2015, marking a significant drop on the same period last year for one of the world’s biggest online publications.
Last year, Mail Online saw a 49% digital advertising growth. The slowdown comes as traditional publishers compete with upstarts such as BuzzFeed and Google and Faceboook making bigger strides into news aggregation.
Its revenue reached £62 million, a £9 million increase, but it also probably means it won’t hit its £100 million by the end of next year target.
Stephen Daintith, finance director at DMGT, said the company expects Mail Online to “comfortably” pass £70m for its full financial year to the end of September, The Guardian wrote in a report.
The company has previously said that it was aiming to make £80m in revenue this year, although it has said this is not a “hard target”.
“We see the recent revenue slowdown of Mail Online (despite strong audience growth) as more structural than cyclical, with mobile, ad blocking and social media all bringing new challenges to monetisation,” said William Packer, analyst at Exane. “We now expect Mail Online to miss their £100m revenue target.”
The slowdown prompted analysts at Exane to publish a note to investors earlier this month warning that Mail Online was likely to miss its stated revenue target of £100m by the end of next year.
“We see the recent revenue slowdown of Mail Online (despite strong audience growth) as more structural than cyclical, with mobile, ad blocking and social media all bringing new challenges to monetisation,” said William Packer, analyst at Exane. “We now expect Mail Online to miss their £100m revenue target.”
Daintith said: “In light of the current performance, it remains an ambitious target but we like to set big goals,” he said. “It is fair to say it is a more challenging target than it was a year ago. It remains a terrific aspiration and an indication of the direction we are pursuing. It will be achieved in the medium term.”
DMGT said total underlying advertising revenues across Mail Online, the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday were down 5% for the year to the end of August.
The newspaper titles have seen ad revenues fall 9% in the 11 months to the end of August.