Launched in 1922, Reader’s Digest has built 90 years of trust with a loyal audience and has become the largest circulating magazine in the world with a strong online presence.

The Brief

Reader’s Digest was already performing well at generating a good amount of ad revenue from web. However, more of their traffic was going towards mobile and although they had AMP-powered pages they were never optimized for AMP Ads.

  • Optimization of AMP pages
  • Implement AMP monetization strategy
  • Increase display ad revenue
  • Increase eCPM

We went from having zero revenue from AMP to a 33% boost in overall revenue in 30 days. I am delighted with Freestar and the results they have generated, and I would recommend others to get an audit of their ad stack and see what results they can get for you!

Julie Leach

Managing Director, Reader’s Digest

Our Approach

Reader’s Digest was already doing well, and they had amp-enabled pages however none of them were configured and optimized for monetization. Our aim was to drive instant results for a site that had a lot of traffic but AMP was being underutilized.

Our solution also needed to focus on a great user experience with our ads placements and delivering higher viewability with a focus on improving eCPM.

A Clean Slate

Reader’s Digest was a clean slate for us to work on since they never had AMP Ads installed on their site. It meant we could start fresh from the start without having to do in-depth analysis on their data.

AMP Code

We double-checked all their AMP code to ensure that there were no validation issues.

User Experience

We focused on improving their user experience as this has a direct impact on their speed, rankings and helps overall engagement.

Best Practices

We used our best practices in our AMP monetization set up so that we could get the best possible results in improving viewability and increasing eCPM.

We built Reader’s Digest AMP monetization to deliver immediate results based on their current setup. We then consult and help implement these recommendations with the development team over at Reader’s Digest to ensure everything is installed correctly.

The Results

32%

increase in AMP CPM vs Web

35%

increase in eCPM vs Web

Optimized ad placements

Traffic increase from Higher Rankings in Google

AMP Revenue surpassed Web Revenue