Ag Print Ad Revenue Surge

In a month-to-month analysis of print ad revenue for business trade magazines, 2012’s year-over-year sales have risen every month in the ag vertical market, continuing recent trends. For the same time period, sales have fallen every month, compared with the prior year, for business-to-business trade magazines overall.

March 2012 was the “worst” month for the ag market, with ad sales rising only 5.8% compared with March 2011. For that month, total trade print advertising was down 5.5% compared with March 2011.

Agriculture’s best performance came most recently, in July 2012, with sales up 18.8% compared with July 2011. For sales of all print ads in the B2B magazine community, July’s total dollar revenue in 2012 was 4.5% greater than the revenue in July 2011.

In the latest data, released Nov. 26, the trend continued in August, with ag print dollars increasing 8.5% as total industry print revenue decreased 7.4%, compared with the sales data for August 2011.

Looking at actual total page counts, the ag sector closed 5.0% fewer ad pages in August than it did in the same month a year ago, while the entire industry saw total ad page volume fall 9.8%.