As Mobile Traffic Ramps Up, Hearst Looks to Monetize

Mobile traffic is booming at Hearst: Overall volume across its magazines’ websites is up nearly 2000% year-over-year, vastly outpacing global mobile traffic growth, according to internal measurements. But like Facebook and other digital publishers, the company is still looking for ways to monetize that traffic.

In April, approximately 19% of all traffic came from mobile devices including tablets, Hearst tell us. (For context, 10% of total global Internet traffic comes from mobile devices, up from 5% last year, according to the chart from KPCB below.) At Cosmopolitan magazine’s website, a full third of pages are viewed on mobile devices. Google is the primary driver of that traffic, accounting for 39% of mobile pageviews. Facebook is a distant second, making up for between 1% and 7% of referrals depending on the site.

A year ago, a mere 5% of traffic came from mobile. That’s largely because Hearst’s online properties weren’t well optimized for viewing on those devices.

“Some smart people — and I was not one of them — saw what was happening with smartphones and tablets and realized we needed… [to enable] access to our core sites on those devices,” says Grant Whitmore, who became VP of digital at Hearst after his previous employer, Hachette Filipacchi Media, was acquired by the company in 2011.