The entertainment verticals see a 56% rise in ad spend from March to April: Taboola Report

• 4X more people trust ads on news sites than social media in the current pandemic.
• 291% increase in pageview traffic for articles around home, business and personal loans.

Taboola has released latest readership trends for most read topics in the past seven weeks (53 days) in India. As the lockdown got extended in many parts of the country, there has been a significant change in peoples’ reading patterns.

The Taboola network sees a surge in traffic around subjects related to automotive, home loans, security of video conferencing applications, and remote learning for students stuck at home. Here are some of the key insights revealed from the readership trends released for the period between 23 March 2020 – 14 May 2020:

Readership Trends & Insights for advertisers:

• The entertainment vertical has seen a 56% month-on-month rise in terms of ad spend from March to April
• People have clicked more on ads, from March to April, in many categories such as Entertainment (13%), Finance (7%), Home (5%), and Travel (34%)
• Interestingly, when the data for the past one month (20 April 2020 – 10 May 2020) was analyzed, remote learning for adults and kids saw a 75% increase in attention in India during COVID. There is a steady increase in engagement (+29%) and Ad spend (+23%), projecting an immediate opportunity for Indian education advertisers

What is India reading?

Taboola Publishers network in India shows an increase in traffic about topics such as health insurance and bank loans in the past few weeks in India as people’s finances have been impacted by the ongoing coronavirus situation. The long period of staying home has also opened opportunities for shopping online, these indicators offer deeper insights to brands seeking opportunities to reach out to products and services related to indicated trends. Following trending topics from the past 53 days from Taboola Newsroom reveals what people are reading most about:

• Automotive: Interestingly, people are still reading about new car models during this time even though it is unclear whether they will commit to purchasing a vehicle.
• Security issues with Zoom: Pageview traffic to articles about Zoom’s security issues increased 161% during this period.
• Online Learning: Pageview traffic to articles about online learning for students increased 38% during this period especially as schools are closed and students are doing classes at home.
• Taxes: Income tax filing season has been extended until 31 July this year due to COVID-19. There has been an increase in traffic related to articles about income tax, and the Taboola Network recorded 2.6M page views on this topic.
• Finance: Articles about loans recorded 1.2M pageviews across the Taboola Network. Articles about home loans, personal loans and business loans have seen a 291% increase in pageview traffic this month.
• Technology: In the last month, pageview traffic to articles about the Apple iPhone increased 25% The Taboola Network recorded 8.3M pageviews about stories related to this topic.
• Immunity Boosting Foods: Pageview traffic to articles about how to boost immunity, and recipes involving turmeric have seen a 39% increase in pageview traffic. The Taboola Network recorded 5.6M pageviews about stories related to health benefits of turmeric and recipes for immunity-boosting foods.

The latest data shared by Taboola relates to COVID-19, revealing shifts in how readers are consuming content during the lockdown which also impact various brand strategies and how advertisers plan their future budget spend during and post pandemic. This enables advertisers to get a view of opportunities where they can get the maximum output for their advertising dollar.

Data from Taboola Newsroom identifies topics and news categories which have seen an increase in pageview traffic for the past 53 days. This data comes from the wide network of Indian news publishers Taboola works with.