Mail Online turnabout to look at overseas advertising

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Mail Online is looking at a shift of commercial focus - away from concentrating solely on the UK market - to reap the potential offered by its large international readership.

Despite revealing traffic figures - little over a month ago - that suggested that 80 per cent of its 12 million users were outside the UK, the Mail's editorial director Martin Clarke told Journalism.co.uk that its commercial focus would remain domestic .

"All our efforts are focused on the UK traffic, we judge ourselves on that growth because they are the people our advertisers, at the moment, are interested in," he said.

"No British newspaper website - and we all have masses of traffic from abroad particularly the States - has really figured out how you effectively monetise it.

"In the short term the traffic we are interested in is the UK traffic."

What a difference five weeks makes, as Media Week reports Mr Clarke saying that Mail advertising teams are now looking into effective ways of selling digital ad space tailored to an international audience.

"While we will concentrate on growing our UK readership for the moment, we would be foolish not to take advantage of our following overseas, and we are investigating ways of increasing our commercial revenue through these channels," he said.

Clarke added that the Mail website is developing a redesigned site with a great emphasis on video. However, he would not be drawn on a launch date.