Readers spend nearly 5 minutes on the FT’s How to Spend It

How To Spend It, The Financial Times’ luxury and lifestyle supplement, has mastered how to entice wealthy shoppers in to browse and purchase, spending nearly five minutes per visit on site, reports Lucinda Southern of Digiday.

Southern reports, “These price tags are befitting the FT’s affluent readers, which make up 70% of the How To Spend It’s traffic. Readers from the FT.com spend on average 4 minutes and 40 seconds per visit on site, according to the publisher. For non-FT readers, this drops to 52 seconds. Industry dwell-time benchmarks vary across sector, but above two minutes is usually a success.

“‘Initially when we were researching how to approach homepage design, we saw two distinct readers: those who came to research something and those who came for inspiration or window shopping,’ said Gillian de Bono, who is seeing out her final month as editor of How To Spend It, a position she took in 1998. ‘We’ve been careful to include search for both types of readers.’

“How To Spend It is on track for a record year in terms of digital ad revenue, which comes from display ads and branded content, according to the publisher. The FT doesn’t split out the revenue from its supplements. However, all signs point to the title as a profitable asset for the FT, due to its access to high-net-worth audiences in their leisure time.”

Read more here.