Recruitment revenues have driven a bounceback in growth for digital publishers, with several verticals benefiting from triple-digit increases.
According to the latest Digital Publishers’ Revenue Index from the Association of Online Publishers and Deloitte, digital publishing revenues continued to grow in Q4 2021, up 13.4% from Q4 2020 when the industry was rocked by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The largest category of growth in the quarter was recruitment classified, which increased by 59.9% to £5.6m.
Recruitment advertising in publishing has been decimated in recent years with the advent of professional networking on LinkedIn, but the sector has been particularly buoyant in the UK over the last two years due to a surge in job moves often dubbed “The Great Resignation”.
This was followed by similarly high growth in sponsorship revenues (29.1% growth) and subscriptions (19.1% growth).
Meanwhile, video revenue saw impressive four-fold (325%) growth on mobile devices compared to the previous year, as did audio revenue which tripled (200% growth), and display advertising which more than doubled (117.1% growth).
B2B and B2C also experienced an uptick in publishing revenues, increasing by 19.1% year-on-year to £15.6m and 12.8% to £158.4m respectively.
While certainly positive news for the digital publishing industry, Dan Isson, lead partner for telecommunications, media, and entertainment at Deloitte also noted that, “as households face a rise in everyday living expenses, the cost of digital publishing subscriptions may be called into question.
He added: “To maintain a strong subscriber base, publishers must focus on emphasising the rigour of their reporting, while improving the accessibility of their online platforms.”
