New York – Mail Online, the world’s largest global newspaper website, today announced the appointment of two experienced U.S. digital executives to run ad sales and marketing, signaling an emerging strategy to monetize its strong audience growth in North America. Rich Sutton will oversee advertising as Chief Revenue Officer and Sean O’Neal will head marketing as Global Chief Marketing Officer.
UK-based Mail Online has traffic of well over 100 million monthly unique browsers globally. It is also one of the largest news and entertainment properties in the U.S. with 18.8 million monthly unique visitors and 2.1 million daily visits.
Both new appointments, based in New York, will report to Mail Online Publisher Martin Clarke who says: “Over the past few years we have had great success in building a substantial audience in the U.S. and are now America’s third biggest online newspaper behind the NYTimes.com and WashingtonPost.com, according to comScore. Sean and Rich , both accomplished digital executives in the U.S., position us well to capitalize on our huge traffic growth in the States.”
“When I started running ad sales at Warner Bros. in 1996, it was just a few weeks after Yahoo had run their first online ad. I am looking forward to bringing 17 years of experience in the digital space to Mail Online,“ says Mr. Sutton.
“Mail Online traffic is growing by 5% a month, as well as enjoying huge mobile and video growth. I am excited to begin the journey of marketing its highly attractive audience to the advertising community and introducing the site to new consumers,” adds Mr. O’Neal.
Mr. O’Neal most recently served as President of Vizu Corporation, the online ad research company recently sold to Nielsen. Previously, he was a member of the founding team at Datran Media, and before that, held executive positions at Sony Online Entertainment and CD-Now. Mr. O’Neal is also an adviser to a number of digital media and technology companies and is frequent editorial contributor and speaker on marketing, entertainment, and media.
Mr. Sutton comes to Mail Online from CBS Interactive Music Group where he was Global Head of Sales. Before that, Mr. Sutton was SVP/Consumer Markets for WebMD. He spent nearly 13 years with Warner Bros. and Time Warner where he lead the start up of Warner Bros. Online. Mr. Sutton’s work with brands has been recognized by Ad Age, Forbes, AAAA, AdWeek and other industry publications. He’s a published author (Best Practices in Branded Entertainment) and the recipient of numerous online and marketing awards.
Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ushome/index.html) is a division of UK-based DMGT, an international portfolio of digital, information, media and events businesses, which employs over 12,000 people and is listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE: DMGT.L). In the U.S., Mail Online boasts more daily unique visits than any other newspaper web site and is known for its unique blend of entertainment/celebrity buzz, pop culture news, female lifestyle editorial, and phenomenal images. Mail Online delivers a highly desirable audience to advertisers in the U.S. Its visitors are 20% more likely to live in households with income over $100,000/year and the overall property has a median Household Income of over $74,000/year. In candid video interviews, U.S. visitors call the site “addictive, revealing, funny, honest, and probing.”
