LaVozTx.com part of EPMG Digital Network, Trevor Hansen on the Network’s Progress

Digital advertising sales on Hispanic newspaper websites have not yet been the revenue driver they could be, with the exception, perhaps, of Impremedia digital sales and some efforts of Latin American newspapers to monetize their U.S. Hispanic traffic. There is a new effort under way to capture a substantial part of the annual US$ 300 million U.S. Hispanic digital advertising market. In January we reported that EPMG, one of the leaders in Hispanic newspaper advertising placement, is building a new Hispanic newspaper digital network.

Trevor Hansen (photo) tells us that LaVoztx.com which was introduced by the The Houston Chronicle two weeks ago is also part of the EPMG Digital network. Hansen also notes that the network currently has “has 12 digital properties (web and mobile) that are live and are thriving with an average of 75,000 unique visits per month/per site.”

Below is a list of the sites that are currently part of the network:

Hansen adds that the network has “two additional publishers in key markets that will be launching in July which puts us just about half way to our 2012 goal of 30.  Our publisher recruitment is non-exclusive and we are pleased to extend the invitation to any audited Hispanic publisher with a strong content strategy that is ready to have a thriving digital presence.“

Reach and Traffic
Hansen notes that the network currently has 653,000 unique visitors/month and 1.1 million page views. (These stats are reflective in the above table of the publishers from hoylosangeles.com  to lagangaonline.com). “We anticipate that with the addition of our phase 2 publisher launch – in the above list these are lavoztx.com – reportehispano.com and the 2 publishers in beta – our monthly network traffic for the 14 sites will be roughly 1 million visitors.“ According to Hansen, “the platform’s technology is rapidly catapulting traffic.  For example, prior to joining EPMG’s platform,  www.hoylosangeles.com did not have a standalone web presence.   In it’s first month after launch, the site had 8,109 total visitors, after 4 months, 83,500 total visitors, and to date it is seeing about 135,000 visitors per month.   We are seeing this growth trend on all of our publisher sites across the network.” Hansen concludes that the level of scale offers a very attractive Hispanic online buying opportunity for both national and local advertisers. “

Partnership for Online Video
Some of EPMG Network’s online properties have a widget called “Quieres Videos Latinos en tu website”, which is owned by NGLC Media.   Hansen says that “EPMG is very excited to be partnered with NGL Media.  We believe NGL’s high quality Hispanic video content is a great multi-media supplement to the engaging editorial content featured on our publisher sites.  EPMG is constantly looking to form content partnership with companies that will enhance the users experience on our sites.”

Mobile and Latam traffic  
Hansen tells Portada, that each web property EPMG deploys, features a mobile component which is optimized for a smart phone user: “To date, our mobile audience is roughly 1/5 of the websites and represents a very similar geo-graphical make-up.”  Many U.S. Hispanic websites do have substantial traffic coming from Latin America. According to Hansen, “75% of the total platform audience is US domestic while only 10% is from Latin America, 7% of which is from Mexico.”

“One thing we have learned is that content is king.  Content is the key ingredient to attract and engage visitors as well as organically grow audience through search engines & social media,” Hansen concludes.