TalkTalk

Taking digital monetisation strategy to the next level

At the start of 2018, TalkTalk began exploring alternatives to their existing monetisation solution, which tied them to a managed service providing both content and ad sales. This legacy arrangement came with unfavourable terms, limited transparency, restricted influence, and declining performance. Their goal was to decouple content delivery from the monetisation strategy and make their sizable audience more profitable while maintaining a seamless, rich user experience. From the outset, Trade House Media adopted a consultative approach to understand the challenges and intricacies TalkTalk would face during such a significant transitional phase. With an agency already appointed to develop a new content portal, and an incumbent tech vendor managing TalkTalk’s webmail infrastructure, a new monetisation strategy needed to be planned and executed in a way that integrated with both evolving platforms.

Throughout the partnership, Trade House Media collaboratively guided the project to reshape the ad offering across both environments, applying a sound and considered methodology to ensure the ad technology operated seamlessly in each. The strength of the relationships formed, the depth of planning undertaken, and the thorough testing of trading models were pivotal to the unequivocal success achieved at launch, delivering an impressive 41% uplift in revenue compared to performance prior to THM’s involvement. To measure success, Trade House Media tracked performance using an audience-based metric that correlated revenue to both current and historical audience numbers, reinforcing results with ongoing optimisation to maximise revenue streams. TalkTalk have been consistently impressed by THM’s agility, service focus, communication strategy, and deep technological expertise, factors that have been central to both the immediate and sustained success of the partnership.