😐 Antifragile Acquisition

No Reliance on Big G

The youth media holding company LBG Media has purchased Betches, a site focusing on younger women, for $24m+:

What caught our eye was the size of their newsletter, at 1.8M subs strong. One of our key beliefs is the power of a newsletter to enhance a media brand either to drive traffic and perferably as a standalone business.

The other eye-opener is their lack of reliance on Google search. They only generate 64,000 visitors per month from their 6000+ pages - chicken feed for a site of this size.

Instead, social media, a popular podcast, video, and, in particular, the aforementioned newsletter provide most of the eyeballs ad partners seem so willing to pay for.

So a bit of a relief for those hit by the HCU: Google’s not the only game in town.

Market Update

This week, Duuce reported 15 new digital media listings that came onto the marketplaces, with Empire Flippers fighting back for the top spot:

11.7M Visits = £115.6M Revenue

The UK online finance media company MoneySuperMarket has just posted revenue of £115.6M ($140M) in the last quarter, on traffic of 12M a month.

If our maths is correct, that’s a staggering $3-$4 per visit.

Like its US counterpart Nerdwallet, MoneySuperMarket’s properties are basically huge affiliate and lead generation sites for personal finance products.

They are masters of conversion optimisation, and their sites make it very easy to compare and inquire about credit cards, mortgages etc.

📰 Classifieds

Beehiiv Done For You: Letter Operators, by Richard, is currently running a $199 offer to set up a new beehiiv account, helping you to quickly launch your newsletter (or switch from legacy platforms such as Convertkit). It even includes a copy of The Newsletter Is The Business. Check it out

Online Magazine Blueprint: Discover 300 profitable niches to launch a successful paid magazine, in this free guide by Chris. Get your copy

The New York Times’ ‘Gaming’ Strategy

Newsletter owners, like any other media operator, have to fight for the attention and engagement of their audience.

There are some great examples of this out there - giveaways, contests, exclusive content etc. But the following article highlights how the New York Times and others are using games and puzzles.

The Times bought ‘Wordle’ the mildly addictive daily word puzzle, in 2022 and has since expanded to a whole suite of crosswords, suduko and other games to build community and engagement with its readers.

Its recently launched ‘Gameplay’ weekly newsletter, which provides solution tips and exclusive games, extends this further. As well as being a way to engage existing and potential newspaper subscribers, it’s a stand-alone product, with its own ad inventory.

Here’s more on the Times and its “gaming” strategy.

Newsletter Shoutout of the Week