Oct 24, 2017

Analysis: Conservative media traffic slump

Sara Fischer

Some of the biggest names in conservative digital media are seeing big traffic declines over the past year, according to comScore data pulled by Activate and Axios. On the other hand, business-centric sites, like CNBC, Business Insider, and Bloomberg are seeing big traffic bumps, per the analysis.

Note: Both IJR and the Daily Caller have challenged the analysis. IJR founder Alex Skatell tweeted that his site had cancelled its comScore subscription, while Daily Caller editor in chief Geoffrey Ingersoll said his site uses Quantcast and tweeted screenshots showing Daily Caller traffic compared to last year.

Data: Activate Tech & Media Outlook 2018 based off comScore numbers Chart: Chris Canipe / Axios

Here are the numbers provided by IJR and The Daily Caller, who use Google Analytics/Quantcast and Quantcast respectively.

  • IJR: August 2017: 15.2 million uniques, per data from Google Analytics. Last 30 days: 20.6 million uniques, per data from Quantcast.
  • Daily Caller: August 2016: 12.2 million uniques. August 2017: 11.9 million uniques

Correction: There are a number of audience measurement companies that can be used to measure website traffic, with comScore considered industry standard. Our analysis should've clarified that not all media companies chose to use comScore metrics and that the analysis we cited was pulled from a mixture of comScore and Alexa analytics analyzed by Activate in their 2018 media and tech report

.Why it matters: This illustrates the challenge brands have in sometimes determining which metrics to use in evaluating publishing partners.

Go deeper: The media measurement mess

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