IAB SA NARRATIIVE REPORT

• Despite total page views being up for April 2022, we see that all of the top 10 websites, except for thesouthafrican.com, experienced a decline in page views month on month.
• The decline in the page views across the above sites can largely be attributed to a quieter month in breaking news in both business and politics.
• thesouthafrican.com did however show very strong month on month growth and this was due to success in lifestyle and sports content..

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• When looking at the top 10 websites as measured by Narratiive we see a very congruent trend across these sites of a roughly 11% increase in page views month on month which is in line with March being 11% longer than February.
• Three significant outliers to this trend were BusinessTech, which experienced a higher than average 21% growth in page views, Gumtree, which experienced a lower than average 3% growth in page views and Mybroadband, which experienced a lower than average –5% decline in page views.

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• As website traffic increased 11% month on month, most of the top 10 sites listed above saw a strong month on month growth. This is due to the usual seasonal trends of increased internet usage in January post the December holidays.
• Most notably CareersPortal experienced 151% growth in page views and 101% growth in unique browsers. Overall matric results, education, careers, and career planning saw large increases in readership. As a result, sites that published matric results and education and careers related content performed well.
• Classifieds also performed well with Gumtree experiencing a 27% increase in page views.

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• As would be expected in December, with the summer holidays, overall internet readership, as measured by Narratiive, declined month on month by 17% with the News category of sites declining by 13%. In line with that, all the above top 10 sites, except for BusinessInsider, experienced a month on month decline in traffic.
• BusinessInsider was the one exception to the top 10 and achieved good month on month growth in readership of 20% in page views and 10% in unique browsers. This was on the back of successful content like the list of South Africa’s most expensive schools and a wide range of COVID-19 related articles.

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• November saw increased interest in news content. Overall, the News category saw a 17% increase in page views and a 14% increase in unique browsers. This was largely driven by an interest in breaking news around the Municipal elections held on the 1st of November 2021. Additionally, the imminent fourth wave of COVID-19 attracted interest in breaking news content as well.
• As a result, most of the above sites, being news websites, showed significant month on month growth.

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• Largely traffic stayed stable across the above list of top 10 sites. Most notable month on month changes were across;
  • BusinessTech and MyBroadband both saw a 20% increase in page views. BusinessTech succeeded with content across business, motoring and energy while motoring, cryptocurrency, banking, and internet content did well on MyBroadband.
  • TimesLive saw a 7% decline in page views largely driven by a decline in content covering entertainment, general news and sport.
  • Similarly, IOL saw a decline of 5% in page views largely driven by a decline in general news, travel and personal finance content.

Read the full report on the IAB SA website.

• As the News category of sites experienced an overall decline of 11% in page views and 16% in unique browsers month on month, so too did most of the top 10 sites list above experience a similar decline in traffic (as they are mostly categorised as News sites)
• The South African and TimesLive in particular saw a large decline in Lifestyle content which contributed significantly to their overall decline in traffic.

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• Although the above table suggests a significant decline in month on month traffic, this is in fact not the case. Across all websites measured by Narratiive, we saw a 32% growth in page views year on year and 2% growth month on month.
• There was however an overall decline in readership in the News, Business and Broadcast Media categories, which most of the above sites are categorized into. These categories of sites declined to more average levels of readership which meant that large month on month declines was represented because of very high traffic volumes in July due to keen interest in breaking news around the looting and unrest during July.

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• In total Narratiive measured approximately 1,17 billion page views and 75 million unique browsers in South Africa during June 2021.
• Overall internet readership as measured by Narratiive stayed relatively flat month on month with a 2% increase in unique browsers but a 2% decline in page views.
• However, in contrast, there was a significant year on year growth with a 21% growth in page views and an 8% growth in unique browsers for June 2020 versus June 2021.

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• Overall internet readership as measured by Narratiive saw a steady increase in page views for May 2021. An increase in page views generated per unique browser as well as increased average visit duration saw total page views increase by 11% month on month and 9% year on year.
• We believe this speaks to the value that domestic publishers have provided SA internet users over the past year which has resulted in internet users spending more time and reading more articles on domestic publishers.

Read the full report on the IAB SA website.

• April 2021 saw a significant decline in traffic across the board. Easter Holidays in the
  beginning of the month and school holidays at the end of the month resulted in a month on month decline of 16% in Unique Browsers while Page Views stayed stable. Year on Year we saw a 9% decline in Page Views and 12% decline in Unique Browsers.
• Overall a significant decline was observed across news, lifestyle and finance content while sport, business and travel content saw increased readership.
• Another notable insight is that traffic from Mobile devices declined by 4% month on month to 82.95%.

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• March 2021 saw a slight month on month increase in total traffic of 6% increase in unique browsers and 4% increase in page views. This is expected on the back of a short month in February.
• However, year on year comparison showed a dip in traffic of 13% in page views and 4% in unique browsers. This is as March 2020 recorded record traffic due to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and an increased interest in breaking news.

Read the full report on the IAB SA website.

• January 2021 saw strong growth in overall traffic. This is in line with a seasonal increase in traffic, as people return to work after the December holidays. However, this increase was off a high base from record December traffic. Month on month, January saw a 16% growth in PVs while year on year there was a 4% increase in PVs.
• This seasonal increase together with increased interest in breaking news around the second wave of Covid-19, meant all of the above top 10 sites saw a strong month on month growth.
• Traffic generated from mobile devices continues to steadily increase. As a comparison, 68% of total traffic was generated from Mobile devices in 2019 versus 85% in January 2021.

Read the full report on the IAB SA website.

• January 2021 saw strong growth in overall traffic. This is in line with a seasonal increase in traffic, as people return to work after the December holidays. However, this increase was off a high base from record December traffic. Month on month, January saw a 16% growth in PVs while year on year there was a 4% increase in PVs.
• This seasonal increase together with increased interest in breaking news around the second wave of Covid-19, meant all of the above top 10 sites saw a strong month on month growth.
• Traffic generated from mobile devices continues to steadily increase. As a comparison, 68% of total traffic was generated from Mobile devices in 2019 versus 85% in January 2021.

Read the full report on the IAB SA website.

• Overall traffic increased slightly in December with just over 1 billion page impressions and 87 million unique browsers measured across all Narratiive tagged sites in South Africa. This is however against the usual annual trend of approximately 15% month on month decline in web traffic for December. In contrast, this year traffic was up 3% month on month and 6% year on year.
• Content that performed well in December was largely focused COVID breaking news as the second wave hit South Africa in December. As a result, large domestic news sites again acted as the go-to resources for breaking news on the latest COVID news and potential restrictions imposed over the festive season.

Read the full report on the IAB SA website.