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Social publisher LadBible has seen revenue growth through its investment in short-form video across its vast portfolio of social platforms, three of its executives told Adweek on stage during Social Media Week Europe. Its scale offers it the opportunity to drive meaningful revenue from short-form, where other publishers would struggle due to the comparatively lower CPMs.
In the fiscal half-year ending in July, the youth-focused publisher saw its indirect social revenues grow 13%, to $18.8 million, by increasing its viewership on Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat, according to public filings.
The growth on these platforms, which offer publishers revenue-share agreements that pay out based on impressions, has helped LadBible fund growth on TikTok and Reels, which do not yet offer such splits.
“We have direct revenues that we’re getting through brands and commercial partnerships, and then all the indirect revenues that we’re sharing with the platforms,” said Lindsay Turner, director of marketing and communications at LadBible Group. “And underneath that, we have loads of different capabilities.”
Increasing viewership by tweaking video strategy
LadBible has achieved this growth, in large part, by tweaking its content strategy on Facebook, according to operations lead at LadBible Group, Jack Strong-Jones.
Last fall, roughly 95% of LadBible content on Facebook was three minutes in length or more, said Strong-Jones. For years, Facebook incentivized publishers to produce three-minute videos by boosting their reach and, in the process, improving their monetization.
But as the Facebook algorithm shifted to prioritize shorter-form content, LadBible saw the CPMs and distribution rates of its 60-second videos pick up, which prompted the publisher to lean into the trend. Now, 90% of LadBible content is 60 seconds or less, according to Strong-Jones.
This pivot allowed the publisher to grow its audiences on its most lucrative platforms. Across the LadBible Group portfolio, its total follower count has risen from 29.8 million to 45.8 million as of January, according to a Press Gazette analysis, a 65% increase. Total video views rose from 2.5 billion to 7.4 billion from 2021 to 2022.
