The era of “one and done” traffic is over, it’s time Aussie news publishers finally weaned themselves off the drug of social traffic and reconsider how they measure value. Pippa Leary, Managing Director & Publisher Free News & Lifestyle
Australian news publishers have navigated a world the social media platforms shaped and dominated for the best part of this century.
Unavoidable trading partners, as the ACCC described news publishers’ relationship with the platforms, they used news content and employed their algorithms to build addictive habit loops inside their walled gardens.
But news publishers have not been idle and, in the midst of fighting for recognition and commercial remuneration from the platforms, we successfully created new subscriber revenue streams.
Above all else news media companies invested in trusted journalism - journalism that campaigns and advocates and tells unique and defining Australian stories that enhance our culture and way of life.
We built app alerts, newsletters and podcasts to build community and give audiences a reason to come back to our sites- not only day after day but multiple times during the day as well.
This content is carefully curated - it is content that fuels our passions and drives a desire to discover new experiences. It is a far cry from the platforms’ algorithmic-driven recommender engines.
These innovations and commitment helped build new and deeper engagement with audiences than we’ve previously had before.
Publishers’ own rich resource of anonymised, first party data that advertisers value highly is one of the fruits this work has borne.
Yet the industry’s traditional way to measure success remains narrowly focused on reach, ignoring the fact that much of the innovation has successfully enhanced and deepened our engagement with audiences.
Essentially, reach can be summed up as the bigger the audience, the greater attractiveness for advertisers. Makes sense, right?
Well, no. The market is evolving and smart marketers increasingly talk about not just the size or reach of the audience but also how engaged it is. They understand that engagement is a key determinant of what return on investment (ROI) the brand earns.
They know the time has come to start discussing engaged reach - a better reflection of consumer behaviour and how the market truly works.
This will enable better planning and improved media decisions.
Engaged reach would not only look at the total number of visitors but also factor in the time they spend on site, their interactions with multiple pages, and their frequency of return visits.
This is not to dismiss reach’s enduring importance.
Certainly at News Corp Australia we always strive to be the biggest publisher network in Australia.
But in today’s world, reach should be seen as only one part of the value proposition. In today’s disrupted, complex media landscape it’s no longer as fit for purpose as in the past.
This is why we have already begun talking to our clients about Engaged Reach.
We want the market, be they marketers or agencies, to be asking informed questions around how engaged are the audiences they are buying? And publishers need to recognise that our clients are increasingly questioning their ROI.
Publishers wanting to remain relevant to this part of the market - that is, advertisers - need to be ready to address such questions.
How engaged someone is and whether they are in a trusted, decluttered environment matters - particularly in terms of the outcomes clients achieve.
The era of 'one and done' clicks where readers skim an article for a couple of seconds, having come to our sites from social media, needs to end and we need to evolve our conversations to be more outcome focused.
In contrast, highly engaged audiences — those readers who come to your homepage every day - are not accidental clicks but deliberately choose to engage with your content.
They seek out your brand, visit multiple pages, consume long-form journalism in-depth and spend real time on your site. They trust your editorial voice, return regularly, and often become subscribers or contributors to your revenue in other ways.
These readers form the backbone of your business—the ones who fuel long-term loyalty, deep relationships, and ultimately, higher value per user.
They are the ones that advertisers value the most.
For Publishers, Engaged Reach is a metric simple to calculate - you can find it in the Ipsos iris numbers - simply by dividing page views by unique audience.
This provides an immediate indication of how engaged your audience truly is, and how likely it is that you, as publishers, can turn this audience engagement into outcomes for your clients.
This metric paints a much clearer picture of the true value that publishers provide to their audiences and, in turn, to advertisers.
This shift would reward publishers who invest in meaningful content that fosters loyalty rather than short-term traffic spikes. By focusing on engaged reach, we move toward a better model that promotes quality and trust in Australian journalism over clickbait and social media hits.
Publishers would be motivated to build deeper relationships with their readers, creating an ecosystem where content is designed to enrich and inform, not simply to provoke a momentary spike in clicks.
A piece of content that goes viral can send tens of thousands of visitors to your site, generating a huge spike in traffic for the day. But when we dig deeper, the value of these visitors is found wanting.
To say the digital publishing world is evolving rapidly is an understatement.
All markets are unpredictable. But with digital disruption occurring almost every day, our market may be more so than most. The one certainty we have is that what is unknown and unfamiliar today will likely become very familiar in the future. And that future could be as little as six months from now, or less.
That means it’s time for our industry’s metrics to evolve in lock-step with the industry and the many challenges we confront, including Artificial Intelligence and the platforms’ dominance.
While reach in terms of audience may give us an easy story for a media release, it’s the engaged readers—the ones who come back again and again—who will secure a sustainable future for publishing.
Let's build a system that recognises and values them. Let's ensure our publishing ecosystem is built on the engaged reader and the returns that advertising to them drives for our clients.
Pippa Leary, Managing Director & Publisher Free News & Lifestyle