Texas Tribune Site Changes Double Advertisers, Time Spent Per Branded Content Post

What kind of impact can a local media organization create through development work on native articles, site transitions, and studying the effects of proper disclosure? The Texas Tribune took on these challenges with their Branded Content Project testing, and the initial results are impressive.

Background on the Branded Content Project:

The Branded Content Project, funded by the Facebook Journalism Project in partnership with Local Media Association and Local Media Consortium, has challenged the project alpha group to create large action plans and take giant leaps toward new revenue possibilities with branded content.

The seven teams have jumped into enormous initiatives and are seeing the first round of results come in with exciting success. Graham Media Group’s Taking Off initiative was our first feature; our second was The Dallas Morning News and their FWD > DFW initiative; our third was Shaw Media and their work toward improving reporting for advertisers; our fourth is WRAL’s multiple branded content initiatives and their efforts toward a re-branding campaign that will grow revenue, advertisers, awareness and help educate along the way; our fifth is Creative Lab @McClatchy’s use of events to educate advertisers and account executives; our sixth feature focuses on a uniquely branded event hosted by Localish.

The seventh, and final feature, shows the development work by the Texas Tribune and the background involved in moving their branded content articles to their main site, to grow their audience and their revenue.

As stated on their website, “The Texas Tribune is the only member-supported, digital-first, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government, and statewide issues.”

This unique local media organization focused on offering thought leaders a statewide forum to engage an audience with important policy issues, utilized branded content in a slightly different way than many of the other publishers participating in the Branded Content Project. Rodney Gibbs, chief product officer for the Texas Tribune, explained, “A few years ago we started experimenting with branded content on a small site separate from our main one. At the time, we thought we needed to segregate branded content from our primary site and its content. Over time, we grew more comfortable with branded content — its presentation, workflow, and solicitation — and we believe that our readers are more acclimated to it now as well. That’s why we’re now shuttering that separate site, TribTalk, and moving branded content onto our main site, where it will benefit from a much larger audience. The strongest elements of our program are its crisp design and proximity to our editorial content.”

There were multiple challenges with previous placements of the sponsored posts. The audience on their main Texas Tribune site was larger, so transitioning the branded content articles on the main site would immediately improve audience metrics. There was a concern about making sure Texas Tribune readers understood that some of these articles were paid content from an advertiser, whether read on the Tribune’s site or on third-party platforms. And the third concern was creating a sustainable workflow and SEO strategy