888-397-9494 [email protected]

In today’s ever-changing advertising landscape, where mobile advertising and uniting content and commerce are ongoing areas of focus and opportunity, Legacy has built a unique ecommerce platform that drives revenue. Our ecommerce solutions offer a broad range of relevant products and services to our mourners such as printed Guest Books, charity donations, and our highest revenue driver – sympathy flowers. The portfolio of offerings we provide aligns perfectly with the needs of the families we serve and helps them honor and remember their loved ones, leading to more sales and more revenue for our newspaper partners.

Historic Ecommerce Growth
As we continue to enhance and expand our ecommerce, we are selling more flowers now than we ever have before. In January, we reached a historic milestone, our best flower-sales month on record. In 2016, flower orders grew by 23% compared to the previous year.

As orders have increased, we’ve partnered with more flower vendors to accommodate this growth. We’ve also continued to invest in other areas of our ecommerce platform to fulfill other user needs we’ve identified by bringing in new memorialization products, like our printed Guest Books, and allowing users to purchase multiple quantities of the printed Guest Books at a time.

Ecommerce Drives Your Growing Revenue Share
Our newspaper partners see huge benefits from our ecommerce platform in the form of revenue share. We share back revenue to our partners on every purchase made on their obituary pages. Since 2012, we’ve grown revenue share for our affiliates by an average of 19% each year, driven by our consistent ecommerce growth.

This growth is driven by our continuous efforts to optimize our ecommerce platform. We are always innovating and testing new solutions to improve the user experience and drive even more purchases. Pete Matarangas, Legacy’s Vice President of Advertising & Commerce, says, “Our ecommerce team is focused on coming up with new ways to increase revenue for our newspaper partners. We are constantly A/B and user testing to get a better understanding of what resonates most with our users.”

Strong Mobile Monetization
Industry-wide, mobile users are overtaking desktop. According to a recent article in Editor & Publisher, “44 out of the top 50 U.S. newspapers now say their websites get more unique visitors on mobile devices than desktops.”  In 2016, Legacy’s mobile users rose by 28% compared to the previous year, while desktop users decreased by 8%. This growing mobile user base makes it incredibly important to have a strong mobile monetization strategy. Monetizing on mobile is a challenge for most publishers, but our ecommerce platform drives over 50% of our mobile monetization.

Ecommerce ‘Makes Sense’ to Users
Legacy understands its users, and we know who visits online obituaries and why. More than half are those we call mourners, who have recently experienced a death and have a set of specific needs when they visit our site, such as signing the Guest Book, making a donation in honor of their deceased loved one, or sending sympathy flowers. Our ecommerce is targeted toward meeting those needs and providing useful services that mourners expect after a death.

Unlike display advertising, our flowers ads are integrated into the design of the obituary, making it easier than ever for your families to send sympathy flowers. This seamless integration is valued by the families that we serve. During research, one user said, “This is fitting. You’ve got a memorial here, and there’s pictures of flowers that you could send. That makes sense.”

Legacy’s Ecommerce: A Win-Win Scenario
Legacy’s ecommerce platform benefits you and your readers simultaneously. It helps them honor their deceased loved ones and makes your obituary page the one place for providing all of their needs throughout the bereavement process, all while increasing your bottom line.

To read more about how Legacy drives you revenue, visit sales.legacy.com/monetization.