Forbes Media reports digital ad revenues comprise 53% of total ad revenues in 2013, versus 47% from print; Forbes.com reaches 24.8 million unique visitors in August, compared to 19 million in year-ago period

Kendall Sinclair

NEW YORK , October 11, 2013 (press release) – Fastest-Growing Premium Advertising Platform on Forbes.com Continues to Evolve, Attract Top Brands and Increase Revenues

Forbes today marked the three-year anniversary of BrandVoice, its thought leadership and storytelling platform for marketers. Since its launch, BrandVoice has attracted more than 30 partners – across print and digital – from blue chip brands, including NetApp NTAP -0.96%, SAP , Xerox XRX -0.38% and EY, and it has become the fastest-growing premium advertising platform on Forbes.com. Forbes plans to launch a dozen new partners by the end of 2013. The company estimates that approximately 20 percent of its total advertising revenues this year will be generated by BrandVoice partners and projects an increase to about 30 percent by 2014.

“Brands are embracing thought leadership marketing as a way to attract and engage directly with their target audiences via compelling, informative and clearly labeled content,” said Mike Perlis, President and CEO of Forbes Media. “We’re not only seeing immense traction with BrandVoice as our partners find value in publishing on Forbes.com and our readers look for the domain expertise that these marketers can offer, but we’re also extending thought leadership opportunities to our partners through research and events.”

BrandVoice posts often appear on the “Most Popular BPOP -1.03% Articles” module on Forbes.com.

“When we first set out to become thought leaders, we knew we had to create original yet authentic content that not only catered to business audiences, but also met them where they receive their news. Naturally, Forbes.com was our ideal destination,” said Julie Parrish, CMO, NetApp. “With BrandVoice, we’re able to reach the right audience, create insightful content and position NetApp as a thought leader in our industry. In fact, we recently won a marketing award for our content, which is a true testament to how sponsored news, when authentic and delivered via a product such as BrandVoice, is changing the industry.”

Since launching over a year ago, NetAppVoice has generated more than 2.4 million page views from more than 1.7 million unique visitors, according to Forbes.com analytics. NetAppVoice’s content has resulted in more than 130,000 actions on social media networks.

Forbes Media Digital Growth: Advertising Revenues and Traffic

For Forbes Media, digital advertising revenues now make up approximately 53 percent of total advertising revenues versus 47 percent from print – achieving yet another milestone in 2013 as digital advertising revenues now surpass print for the first time. Through September this year, advertising revenues for Forbes.com are up about 27 percent compared to the same period last year. This increase in digital advertising revenues is supported by sustained traffic growth on Forbes.com. In August this year, Forbes.com reached 24.8 million unique visitors as compared to 19 million in August 2012, according to comScore SCOR +1.23% worldwide.

Evolution of BrandVoice

Forbes is also dedicated to meeting partner demands by enhancing and continuing to evolve its BrandVoice platform. The company launched a new analytics suite designed to measure the impact of marketers’ content and track how it performs on Forbes.com and across the social Web.

The suite includes Forbes’ new proprietary dashboard, Stats Dash, which gives marketers the insights they need to improve their content marketing efforts, engage with the right audience and amplify their social reach. The suite also features SimpleReach, a measurement technology for content on the social Web, which shows marketers what content is most popular, how the content travels across multiple social networks and which networks generate the highest views and levels of engagement.

“BrandVoice is a one-of-a-kind program in that it is not just an ad product, but a content publishing platform,” said Edward Kim, SimpleReach CEO. “We’ve seen how successful campaigns can be when using SimpleReach to offer marketers on BrandVoice real-time visibility and social insights.”

About Forbes Media

Forbes Media LLC, publisher of Forbes magazine and forbes.com, is an authoritative source of news and information on business, investing, technology, entrepreneurship, leadership and affluent lifestyles. Through August, Forbes.com, a leading business website, reached 25 million unique visitors, according to comScore worldwide. Forbes magazine, Forbes Asia and Forbes Europe attract a global audience of more than 5 million readers. The Forbes magazine iPad app merges the power of print storytelling with social sharing and the Web. The Company also publishes ForbesLife magazine, as well as 30 licensed local editions around the world.

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