Glam Media, the Brisbane, Calif. network of women’s online lifestyle, fashion and other blogs, said it has overtaken iVillage to become the number one women’s Web property.
It is also the fastest growing of the top 100 U.S. Web sites, according to traffic data to be released tomorrow by ComScore for the month of May.
Glam’s network had 17.3 million unique readers during May, compared to iVillage’s 17.1 million readers, according to the data. The rise of Glam Media has been quick. The four-year-old company fell into its groove two years ago, as more women built out blogs, and as Glam has lured them into its network. Glam now has about 350 magazines, websites, and blogs in its network, covering everything from shopping to beauty and health.
We initially expressed skepticism about this company’s prospects, after it raised financing on what seemed to be a very bubbly value of $150 million. After all, how could 50 employees command such a high value when all they’re doing is producing content, and when they don’t really own many of the properties in its network?
But then we visited with the company in January, and began to understand its model (see here for our story). Glam has negotiated long-term contracts with most the independently owned sites, and in return offers those sites highly paid advertising of between $12 and $20 per thousand views (CPM) — which is lucrative enough to keep most of them from straying. Glam keeps a portion of that advertising, though doesn’t disclose how much. It continues to build out fully-owned sites, too, and says it gets up to significant $35 CPM on those sites.
At that time, chief executive Samir Arora said he saw Glam headed toward a $500 million valuation, based on the value of comparable companies. Now he’s more bullish, saying Glam has effectively reached that goal within six months, and that its is worth is headed higher. He uses iVillage as a proxy: That company was sold for $650 million a year and a half ago, and its traffic has continued to grow strongly (see graphic below). Factoring in stock market performance, Arora estimates iVillage is now worth about $1.2 billion. And with Glam overtaking iVillage in traffic, well…
The trends helping Glam are strengthening, he says — as new blogs get created and advertisers search for new ways to reach readers beyond traditional media. “The deeper we go into this,” said Arora in an interview with VentureBeat last week, “the more it seems the fragmentation has increased. It is deeper and wider than we thought.”
Glam continues to build its ad network, including targeting technology so that advertisers know the age of the readers on Glam’s sites, along with other demographic and engagement data. Glam has signed a deal to run Google text ads on sites, beside its other premium and display advertising. It has affiliated with more than 90 other sites, with Hearst being a big one.
Without knowing more about the exact relationships it has with its network of blogs, it’s hard to tell how sound Arora’s value estimates are, and how sustainable this model will be if consumer spending falls, and advertising drops. It’s also hard to say what the barriers to entry by others players are. If Glam can command greater advertising rates because of more sophisticated targeting (due to the size of the network), it could enjoy the so-called network effect — and keep getting bigger. We’re not certain this will happen. However, Glam sure has momentum (see growth rate chart below).
Glam has raised $30 million from Accel Partners, DAG Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Walden Venture Capital, and Information Capital
Glam is making a big deal of its surge. Tomorrow, it launches a full-page ad campaign in the NYT, the WSJ and others to trumpet its surpassing of iVillage, the site that has held the No. 1 spot for more than eight years.
The traffic suggests Glam’s properties reach about 10 percent of the U.S. Internet population.
23 Comments
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Vera Sweeney said:
I have been a member of Glam for quite some time and have nothing but great things to say. They are timely with payment, have a great reporting system to check stats, and their customer service is on point. I cannot say enough about this company.
Vera Sweeney
I’m Not Obsessed Inc.
Http://imnotobsessed.com -
anonymous said:
How does Comscore consider all of this traffic to be exclusively Glam’s? The independent blog and magazine sites that they are claiming traffic from are non-exclusive, and run ads from other ad networks right next to the glam ads - Blogads, Google Adsense, Doubleclick, etc. With this counting methodology, a similar argument could be made that Blogads is the largest gossip / celeb network on the web because they run ads on perezhilton.com, egotastic.com, and others, and consequently are larger than any of the individual players. Or Doubleclick is the third largest site on the web. At the very least, this means that Comscore is double counting this traffic all over the web.
On Alexa (admittedly inaccurate measuring tool) Glam has a rank of 8000, whereas iVillage is 1200.
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Stephanie Rahlfs said:
As a member of the Glam Network, I strongly believe that “anonymous”’s characterization of Glam as nothing more than a advertising network is misguided. While I can’t speak to ComScore’s methodology, I can tell you this: the Glam Network is a strong family of related sites, not just an another ad network. We promote each other’s content and work together to build a strong network, which happens completely in-dependant of our advertising contracts with Glam. Beyond that, Glam actively promotes and incorporates content created by Network members into Glam.com, thereby creating a site that is unique in it’s diversity of viewpoints and opinions. I don’t see Blogads or Doubleclick doing anything even close to this. After all of the support and promotion my site gets from Glam, I consider the revenue from Glam advertising (which, as far as my site goes, far outshines it’s competitors) to be icing on the cake.
Stephanie Rahlfs
Adventures in the Stiletto Jungle
http://stilettojungle.blogspot.com -
Jeremy Wright said:
As one of Glam’s biggest partners (we account for 50-75 of their sites) all I can say is congrats to the team. We’ve been working with Glam for nearly a year now, and while there have been some bumps in the road - they’ve definitely got their act together.
So much so that our revenue from Glam has increased 10x in the last 6 months.
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Bagchick said:
As, I believe, one of the original members of the Glam network of blogs I have to agree with Stephanie from Stiletto Jungle. The idea was first pitched to me as a site where likeminded blogs would be featured creating an online magazine, if you will, where the authors would be the bloggers and they’d have control over their content. That is what appealed to me…the ability to reach a broader audience than I would relying on link exchanges or similar. The Glam team has always been top notch offering help, blogging hints, and support regardless of how much space their ads got on my page, or click throughs. As also said above, the revenue from Glam, which does exceed that from other advertisers I partner with, is just a bonus.
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anonymous said:
It sounds like Glam is doing a great job for it’s members sites, which is fantastic. Glam deserves all the credit in the world for building a great business for their partners.
The question I was raising isn’t one of value add, it’s more a question about how traffic is counted and who gets credit. It’s a big issue given how content is becoming distributed, and the lines are blurred. And it’s relevant in the context of Glam, because they are aggressively touting their traffic numbers vs. the competition, and the issue is at best murky. Is a direct visit to the iVillage or style.com site more valuable than a visit to a blog with some sidebar Glam content that’s personalized to the site but not exclusive? Might be, might not be. It’s worth asking the question.
Stiletto Jungle is a great example. On that site, there are the following partners with a presence:
glam, google adsense, shopzilla, thisnext, bizrate, slide, linkshare, thefind, stylehive and a host of others.Again, it’s not to disparage the value Glam is adding to their partners. It’s a question of semi-accurately capturing traffic numbers and reach.
What is the proper way to account for this traffic?
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glamorous said:
I was told that they no longer accepts low traffic sites cos they can afflord to be picky. When they first started this network, they were more willing to consider low volume sites. I guess they’re getting too arrogant. But I guess that’s how you grow. Based on what people have been saying above, aren’t they a women’s blog network so that they get the aggregate strength to get higher CPMS at the end of the day. It all boils down to numbers.
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Terry Ng said:
Looking at the Comscore traffic data, it’s inspiring to see that Glam has outgrown traditional media and social network giants like FOX, ABC, and Facebook, but it’s not the least bit surprising.
Samir has put together a rockstar team that clearly understands the complex dynamics of blogosphere, to get advertisers and bloggers to work together. Although the CPMs are great, it’s actually the relationship managers like Julieta Alvarado, who makes me proud to be part of this #1 women’s network. Glam truly does their best to ensure that bloggers in their network succeed.
Terry Ng
Kineda
http://www.kineda.com -
Adriana E. Calderon said:
In the past year that I have dealt with Glam and its entire team, it has been my personal experience and feeling that Glam’s success translates into the success of its network members. Glam provides top notch service, support and care for its members; they are always open and flexible to discuss your needs and provide a win-win solution for your site or blog. Glam has an amazing composition of sites and blogs that is inspirational to other group sites. In many ways, being part of the Glam Network has encouraged me to keep on developing my business because of the opportunities they offer through the different deals they close with prestigious companies.
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Rosie said:
Glam team rocks! I’ve started making biz and good friends with Glam.com for over a year and I have nothing but compliments for many many reasons, the most important to ME: personal attention.
Let’s keep on shaking the net!
Best wishes,
Rosie :)
http://thriftyboutique.blogspot.com/ -
FASHIONTRIBES said:
As the fourth blog to enter the Glam Network (oh so long ago on Internet time), I’ve been working with them for a while. I have to second Terry Ng’s comment that while the CPMs are great, it’s people like Julieta Alvarado & Derek Houdyshell, who oversee network relationships and take such a personal interest in us that make the bloggers so loyal to Glam.
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Jeremy Wright said:
Yep, the people make the relationship rock. Julieta and Derek definitely deserve a pay raise ;-)
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comScore Fan said:
Just a quick reply to “ANONYMOUS”… comScore is not double-counting any traffic here, nor “all over the Web”. The data reported for Glam Media is based on visitors to the sites in their Property (either directly owned by Glam, nor assigned over to them by the owner). The actual ads placed on these sites is immaterial to counting visitation to the sites. Web research is still in its infant stages, and your confusion is understandable. :)
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comScore Fan said:
Oops, small correction to my last post… one sentence should have read: …(either directly owned by Glam, OR assigned over to them…)
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anonymous said:
comscore fan.
first, your argument about comscore measurement is wrong. if you look at the above example, you will see that gorillanation.com is shown to have 29mm visitors in may 07. gorilla nation is an ad network. do you think 29mm visitors are going to a static ad network corporate site (google page count - 464), or that the banners and ad units that are being run are making calls to an ad directory of gorilla nation and comscore is registering those visits? i’m sure member sites like sheknows.com (#7 on the women’s list) signed over their traffic to gorilla nation.
second, directly related to the glam metrics, comparing the content of a directly owned site to one that is simply signing traffic over to someone else is comparing apples and oranges. Look at the sites in the glam network - the content being counted as “glam” is sidebar contextual advertising and possibly some sidebar content units. this is much different different than what has historically been considered “in network” in terms of traffic count. just because someone signed over their traffic doesn’t make a fair comparison. sure, ivillage should be making this point, and that’s their fault. however, people should at least consider these numbers in the proper context.
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brighteyes said:
I totally agree with anonymous. Glam is a content aggregator in the same catogory as these guys such as b5media ( http://www.b5media.com/our-bloggers/) and Shiny Media ( http://www.shinymedia.com/about_shiny_media/index.html ), but not as a content producer such as iVillage.
Many blogs on Glam Network site is like this one
http://allieiswired.blogspot.com/2007/06/george-clooneys-secret-fling.htmlThis blog also to BlogBurst Member Networks, as well as Hollywood Blogads Networks….. What Glam’s promotion and advertising are doing is CLAIMING that the traffic that it SHARED with other Blog-Networks such as BlogBurst and Hollywood Blogads, and many other blog networks, are truly GLAM’s own traffic. It is murky and pehaps in violation federal and state laws against Fraud and False Advertising.
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anonymous said:
Good point brighteyes. Topped off by the fact that b5media and glam are partners, so the traffic is being counted in both cases under both networks.
I am not suggesting that Glam is doing anything wrong. Far from it. based on the partner feedback on this posting, they seem to be doing a lot of things right. That’s great.
If Comscore has a completely messed up methodology in capturing traffic, by all means Glam should go to town with it. That’s not their fault, nor should Glam be bashful about taking those numbers out for a media spin. However, once they do aggressively tout those Comscore numbers, then dissecting them is fair game.
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brighteyes said:
Glam’s aggressive promotion and advertising certainly is a trigger point for consumers, investors, and Wall Street analysts to scrutinize its claims. Comscore is not the only one suspect.
Comscore’s report lumps media properties targeting “women” in one category and ranks them. Their errors are twofold. The first is in ranking many very different media categories in one meaningless benchmark. It should have at least broken it down into sub-categories such as Media Aggregator and Media Creator. Media Aggregator being an entity aggregating the majority of content for which they don’t own the copy-right, such as Glam. Media Creator being an entity that owns the copyright of its contents. Another red-flag is that Comscore only measures and reports traffic for companies that are its clients. The double-counting issue would be more apparent to industry constituencies if Comscore measured all of the publisher properties, not just a subset of the Internet (i.e., clients of Comscore). The other blog networks such as Hollywood Blogads, which shares visitors with Glam, might not be on the radar screen if these networks were not the clients of Comscore. It is an industry phenomenon that awaits a solution, a code of conduct…or regulation.
Regarding Glam, we are not talking about how Glam pays its bloggers/partners heavenly sums for its share of advertising revenue to keep them happily coralled within its networks. They should. Why not? The issue is that Glam aggressively nudges the two irrelevant indicators to create a story for its business valuation! In this blog entry “chief executive Samir Arora said he saw Glam headed toward a $500 million valuation, based on the value of comparable companies.”… The only number Samir used to compare Glam with iVillage is the Comscore’s visitor number. But, the truth is that each visitor of iVillage’s website brings 10x or 50x more advertising dollars than that of Glam, the reason being that iVillage owns all ad spaces associated with the webpage and/or visitor. On another hand, Glam Network’s bloggers webpage’s ad spaces are offered to multiple blog networks, as well as Blogger’s direct advertisers. This reduces its earning potential to at least 1/10 of iVillage’s. In additional, for each advertising dollar Glam receives, Glam has to pay a big cut to its bloggers. Glam only earns the advertising broker fee/commission fee in a sense for brokering the advertising sale to its bloggers.
Glam’s aggressive advertising and promotion is heading toward pumping up its valuation for acquisition or IPO. Sounds familiar! The Bubble is here! Or a deja vu of the ERRRRRON, the one that shall not be named. VCs are jumping onto the bandwagon to perpetuate the myth because they expect a windfall from their investment. However, at the end of day, after a few opportunistic players exploit the hype of uncorroborated reports, average consumers, future stock-holders, and Internet professionals are the ones who suffer from the aftermath of the economic bubble…. a roller coaster Internet business climate.
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AE Calderon said:
I have two sites with Glam and as a member of Glam I EXCLUSIVELY grant my entire traffic to them. That’s how my sites are counted in Glam. This is one of the things that sets Glam apart from other Ad networks such as Blog Blurst and Blog Ads and even Yahoo. They are add ons and can be removed. We do not share the traffic with them because our traffic is not assigned to them.
Glam is more akin to a TV Network and its publishers work as its channels. The other networks such as Blogads and Blogburst and Yahoo amount for little revenue, at least in my case and some of the bloggers I know. The MAJORITY of the revenue and prime display and video ads are managed by Glam.
And Ads aside, Glam also does content, links, and unique advertising programs with the publishers. I don’t know of any other network that does that. If you can tell me of another network that can give me money, promotion, make me feel like part of a community AND provide content I can use once in a while then I will consider switching. I am not sure how comscore works or who you are referring to when you say “Regarding Glam, we are not talking about how Glam pays its bloggers/partners heavenly sums for its share of advertising revenue to keep them happily coralled within its networks. They should. Why not?”. I am not a huge blog so I do not get paid a heavenly sum of money, however the compensation I get is much better than any other network I have tried and the ads much better looking. -
John London said:
Are you sure Samir “founded” Tickle? You should check your facts man. He was on and off the BOD for a short time. Never a founder.
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7 Trackbacks
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