TotallyHer Launches as Native-Only Site for Brands
Evolve Media launches TotallyHer.com, a display ad-free native-only platform that is dedicated to content discovery.
Evolve Media launches TotallyHer.com, a display ad-free native-only platform that is dedicated to content discovery.
Publisher Evolve Media is diving in headfirst into the native advertising boom with TotallyHer.com, a women’s lifestyle publication that just came out of beta. As many as one in three articles on the site will be branded content with no other ad formats at all.
“We wanted to create an environment that was specifically dedicated to content discovery. [We want] to help women discover more of what they love. By offering an uncluttered, [display] ad-free environment on TotallyHer.com we are making good on that promise,” says Geoff Schiller, chief revenue officer, Evolve Media.
As part of the native advertising model, brands are able to contribute different formats of content including articles, listicles and videos. And this content can appear on TotallyHer either online with other articles in an ever-scroll format, or as a teaser where clicking through takes the reader to the full story.
Campaigns will be customized for each advertiser and will typically be sold as part of a sponsorship package that also includes traditional ad buys on the Evolve network. Burt’s Bees is the first brand partner to advertise on the site and its first content piece includes an article on lip color trends for fall. Schiller says that each channel within TotallyHer.com will be able to host an advertiser, so there’s plenty of room to avoid conflicts.
But that is not all. Evolve is using another unique content strategy whereby TotallyHer.com will only publish the most engaging content from the publisher’s network of approximately 200 owned and partner sites, including theFashionSpot and Momtastic. This content is identified via Content IQ, Evolve’s proprietary platform with algorithms that take into account how many times content is shared.
“From a marketer’s standpoint, content distribution is often more challenging than creating great content so TotallyHer.com’s content integration and distribution solutions provide an organic answer to this industry question.
“Each site creates great content, and this is a way to amplify the reach beyond the single-site destination. Just as sites use content distribution services like Taboola or Outbrain, we are creating that ability in-house. That’s not to say we don’t work with them but we see the greatest return on our own asset,” Schiller explains.
The editors and writers working on other sites in the network, whether or not they’re owned by Evolve, may work with sponsors to help produce branded content, and Evolve is bulking up editorial staff on its owned properties to meet advertisers’ needs. Just recently, former editor of Elle.com, Amina Akhtar, was hired to oversee both editorial and brand content for theFashionSpot.