Marketing - Wednesday, July 28, 2010 15:09 - 0 Comments

MailOnline set to make a profit

The Daily Mail’s online offering is set to become profitable in 2011, with success attributed to the expansion of display advertising, according to Media Week.

As reported by The Independent, the site has seen a growth of 46 per cent in the last year, with advertising at consumer titles up by 13 per cent.

MailOnline includes content from both The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday and is completely free to use. This news provides a boost to the newspaper industry and makes interesting reading for the News International-owned papers – The Times and Sunday Times, who have erected a paywall system.

Some of MailOnline’s most popular content is celebrity and showbiz news, which is a large traffic driver for the site. Since the re-launch of its website in 2008, the paper has become the biggest online news provider, trumping the likes of The Guardian, who previously held the top spot.

Finance director at The Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT), Peter Williams, spoke to marketing news publication Media Week about the positive news, saying: ”I am hopeful that we will move into profit during 2011.”

”Display advertising in itself is about delivering eyeballs, and we’ve always believed that if you get the eyeballs then you can sell the inventory.”

Speaking about the paywall vs free content debate, Williams told The Independent, ”We think the free model is the right place – not necessarily for every title in DMGT – but the volume model is working.”