The Meghan Markle effect on Daily Mail Fashion Finder

Focusing on key events or celebrities is one strategy to grow publishers commerce revenue. One of the biggest media events of 2018 was the wedding of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle.

We spoke to Lisa Potter, Femail Fashion Finder Editor at Daily Mail US, about what “the Meghan effect” has been on their commerce revenue, their wider strategy and how Skimlinks ensures they stay on top of the latest trends for their users.

Tell us about your commerce content strategy at Daily Mail?

For Fashion Finder we want to engage our readers and give them an instant shopping experience, but the editorial integrity is always key. It’s a great way to create reader engagement and the potential opportunities to further develop our commerce footprint are very exciting.

How has the revenue from your commerce content grown over the past 12 months?

We have seen an increase in sales and engagement during the last 12 months thanks in part to some very fashion forward names dominating the news headlines, from Meghan Markle to Melania Trump. With the Royal Wedding we had a lot of fashion-heavy articles focusing on Meghan in Fashion Finder. She is becoming a big revenue generator like Kate Middleton.

Is there a specific success story/example that you can highlight?

With the impact of the Meghan effect, we’ve seen great success optimising for the fashion and brands she is wearing. We saw an over 8% conversion rate to Givenchy for her wedding dress and the Goat dress she wore on her first official engagement as the Duchess of Sussex, from Matches Fashion sold incredibly well. And it’s not only what Meghan is wearing, we found during the Royal Wedding that our readers were just as interested in the guests’ outfits, in particular the red Valentino dress worn by James Blunt’s wife, Sofia Wellesley, was very popular.

What were the major pain points of your process prior to Skimlinks?

Not having one universal affiliate system that looked after our favorite brands. Having to create links by hand and no easy way to access performance analytics.

What benefits have you seen since working with Skimlinks?

Skimlinks saves us a lot of time with the easy to use Editor Toolbar, it shows us there and then which merchants we can get an increased rate from. The Publisher Hub also lets us see daily which merchants our readers enjoy buying from so we can make informed choices going forward about who to optimise for. I love having access to the Skimlinks Publisher Hub, so I can see what our readers are engaging with and what merchants I should prioritze. I love the super simple Editor Toolbar which saves the team a lot of time converting links. And last but not least, the support from the Skimlinks team is fantastic!

What is your advice to other publishers who might be considering using Skimlinks?

If you want personalized support from a wonderful and knowledgeable team and you want an easy to use and implement commerce platform, then check them out!

Signup for Skimlinks today and start your commerce journey!