The Times Traffic Collapses As Paywall Is Erected; MediaMind Research Shows Mobile Inventory Performing Better Than Standard Online Ads

» And so the first chinks of information are making their way into public domain about the Times' "daring" paywall strategy. The Guardian makes some "guestimates" on traffic numbers over at thetimes.co.uk since it introduced its mandatory registration page (the first step before it brings in its pay-as-you-view model). Based on data from Hitwise and previous surveys by the ABCe, the Guardian reckons that the Times' daily visits has dropped from 1.2 million uniques to anything between 84,800 and 195,700 unique users - with only 10% of that figure subscribing to the new paid service. Remember that that new daily unique figure for thetimes.co.uk is going to the reg page, and that those users would have limited access to the rest of the site. That's an unbelievable drop in traffic and is going to absolutely hammer online revenues. Beehivecity reckons the paid subscription number could be anything as low as 15,000 - and each digital subscriber would generate £120 per year. That would mean that subscriptions would only bring in about £1.8 million a year. How does that compare to online revenue? And has the Times sacrificed its traffic for something that will ultimately fail? I will endeavour to put some numbers together on how much thetimes.co.uk is actually losing in online revenue due to cataclysmic drop in traffic. [Guardian]

» Is mobile now the best use of your DR budget? According to a new report by MediaMind on the global performance of automotive ads, it would appear that marketers are missing a big opportunity. The report suggests that mobile banner ads have nearly twice the CTR of standard online ads. Will marketers from the automotive industry put more budget into the mobile channel? Possibly. But there is still a big issue around transparency in mobile. A lot of the current ad nets are blind media buys. Brand safety is a major concern for agencies around mobile - and most of the time they are unsure what sites their ads are appearing on. And there's also the issue of tracking performance. In most cases agencies have to depend on the word of mobile ad networks when reporting campaign performance to clients. Not acceptable. Google's launch of DFA for mobile should see all this change - with the result being a shift in budget to mobile. Big media buying agencies will not have to roll specialist units to buy mobile inventory. It can all be done from their trusty DFA ad server. I think that’s when you will see ad budget flow into the mobile channel. [eMarketer]