Meet Vox Media loyalists: the tech consumers you want to reach

At Vox Media, understanding how our audiences engage with our content is key to creating impact for our partners. In Q4 2019 we surveyed over 1,400 audience members - each who were exposed to ads across our networks – around a very simple hypothesis: Does engagement and loyalty impact ad receptivity?

What we found surprised us. Loyal audiences – people who visit our sites daily or multiple times a week – are more than just loyal content consumers, they are loyal spenders.

TL;DR

Together, with technology brands, we should be focusing on targeting loyalists across your many lines of business as we know frequency matters, while those who are coming less often should get very targeted product ads to move them down the funnel faster. The solution to best connect with Vox Media loyalists is an always-on model, as our brands are already integrated into their daily media consumption. A connection to loyalists is a connection to their broader network, as they are tastemakers in their social circles.

Vox Media loyalists are significantly more multicultural

Our loyalists are more likely to be diverse, educated, and working full-time. Vox Media loyalists fit the profile that every brand is trying to reach—new multicultural consumers!

• Our loyal audience (compared to our non-loyal audience) have a:
• 50% higher composition of African American
• 55% higher composition of Latinx users
• 120% higher composition of Asian American users

 Vox Media loyalists are especially valuable for tech advertisers

Regardless of what the specific product was (laptop, cloud storage, smartphone, etc.) we consistently found that Vox Media loyalists are more aware of, more likely to be in-market, and more likely to be recommenders of the brand. Especially for product launches, these are the influential audiences you want to be speaking to.

They’re attuned to what tech brands are advertising

63% of Vox Media loyalists remember seeing an ad from a major tech company in the past 7 days compared to 47% for non-readers. Because they’re tuned into what brands are pushing, it’s important to connect with them often to stay top of mind.

Frequent Verge readers are 2-3x more likely to purchase products that we’ve featured

The trust that we’ve earned with readers make our sites valuable platforms to deliver your message and draw attention to your brand. Our loyal readers are 2-3x more likely to purchase a product because it was featured on our site.

The composition of users who agree “I am more likely to purchase a product if I see it on The Verge”:

• 51% of daily visitors
• 20% of visitors multiple times a week
• 12% of once a week visitors
• 2% of less than once a week visitors

The Verge loyalists are the highest brand loyalists

Our research finds that 74% of daily Verge readers prefer to purchase technology from the same brand ecosystem compared to 44% for non-readers. With these insights, we can start to bifurcate your strategy across Vox Media, where loyalists see your full suite of products as a tech brand, as opposed to individual product launches. The Verge’s reporting, reviews, and guides are crucial paths to purchase for our loyalists.

Appendix

When analyzing the cross-sections of visitation and perception for each of our brands, a strong trend emerged with our daily visitors for each brand being over twice as likely to agree: “I am more likely to purchase a product if I see it on (brand)”. We build our loyal audience from creating content on recommendations across every category: technology on The Verge, gaming products on Polygon, restaurants on Eater, home goods on Curbed, and more.