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A maypole against a blue sky, used as the logo for the Tradfolk.co website

Advertising with Tradfolk

For specific information about advertising on Tradfolk.co, please get in touch on hello@tradfolk.co.

Although the website has only been running since November 2021, we have a fast-growing, highly-engaged audience that tells us they value the sense of community that Tradfolk offers.

On this page, you’ll find…

Numbers and engagement rates

Our rapid growth plays out in our numbers. We’re averaging a growth rate of 18% per month (in terms of number of visitors). Although we may be smaller than many sites (we’re young, after all), our carefully curated focus on traditions – an increasingly popular area of interest, post-pandemic – means that we have an engaged crowd who know exactly what to expect when they visit.

By the 12th month of publication, we were averaging 11,200 monthly visitors reading an average of 23,200 pages per month. That’s not bad at all for a new site, but as most people in the digital ads world will tell you, it’s less about audience size these days and much more about levels of engagement. After all, there’s no point in advertising to people who simply bounce off the page.

So, here are a few engagement numbers for you.

In short: people spend time with and remember Tradfolk content.

Our readership

Our audience is truly cross-generational, and trends towards a younger crowd than many people associate with traditional music, arts and crafts. Across the first 8 months of publishing, nearly 40% of our visitors were between 25 and 44 years old, 54% female, 46% male.

73% of our readership is in the UK (20% of those in London), 11% is in the United States, and the remainder are mostly in New Zealand, Canada and Australia.

It seems that many of them come for the folk music but stay for the other bits and pieces. They’re an eco-conscious, arts-loving, politically-minded crowd. In a sample of approximately 30% of our audience, the most common affinity categories were:

  • Green living enthusiasts (4.13%)
  • Cooking enthusiasts (3.69%)
  • Book lovers (3.47%)
  • News and politics readers (3.15%)
  • Art & theatre afficianados (2.99%)

Events listings: How to upload events to the Tradfolk Events Calendar

We launched our events listings pages in July 2022. In the first six months of publishing, they averaged 1,730 engaged folk fans per month.

Individual gigs/events

We do not charge to include events on our calendar, however, we do appreciate donations. If you’d like us to include your event on the Tradfolk calendar, please fill out this Google Form. Note that we don’t offer this option to festivals (if you are a festival organiser, please get in touch directly at hello@tradfolk.co and we can discuss advertising fees).

Festivals

We also worked closely with FolkEast, creating a bespoke FolkEast festival hub on our website, creating bespoke video content for them to push out to their audience during the weekend and beyond, and facilitating a digital gig guide for the festival-goers to use while onsite. The content drove approximately 6,800 page views, 5,000 of which took place during the festival month of August. It continues to attract a regular stream of visitors to our website six months on.

According to data collected by the FolkEast organisers, 14% of those attending the 2022 festival were first-timers. 18.5% came via Tradfolk website.

Tours

If you are a musician/band planning a tour, you are welcome to input your tour dates one by one into our Events Calendar Google Form. However, if you would like help, we can import your entire tour for a small cost per gig. Please get in touch at hello@tradfolk.co to discuss this.

The Old Songs Podcast

The Old Songs Podcast, sponsored by the English Folk Dance and Song Society, averaged 1,000 downloads per episode. The top streaming platform is Buzzsprout (28%), followed by Apple Podcasts (18%) and Spotify (14%).

68% of people listen on mobile devices, 18% on their computer, and 3% on a smart speaker.

68% of listeners are in the UK (the top cities are London, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds), 10% in the USA, 6% in India, and 2& in Australia.

To date, the most popular episode has been Jackie Oates discussing ‘The Sweet Nightingale’, which topped 2,500 downloads in February 2023.

What people have said about Tradfolk

“Best place online to follow all things folk!” – Sam Sweeney, folk musician

Tradfolk is brilliant in so many ways. It’s a fantastic resource for anyone who wants to find out more about folk traditions and music. It’s almost like a living creature that knows everything folk-related that’s going on, no matter where in the world it’s happening. But maybe the best thing is the sense of community you get from Tradfolk – like there’s this big, joyous, multifaceted folk revival going on, and you’re part of it.” – Angeline Morrison, folk singer

“Tradfolk.co is a hugely important publication for me as an artist and a person interested in folk culture. There really isn’t an equivalent out there in terms of the type of coverage or the reach to a very targeted and enthusiastic audience. The reviews are always sensitive and informative and there simply isn’t anyone else providing the kind of one-stop shop for events and music information.” – Debbie Armour, Burd Ellen

Tradfolk is a wonderful thing and its presence in the folk scene is long overdue. There are many other platforms that do reviews and interviews, often very well, but Tradfolk seems to stand alone in presenting lengthier articles that are serious yet engaging.” – Nick Hart, folk singer

“At the English Folk Dance and Song Society we have admired Tradfolk from its very start. We love how Tradfolk is introducing so many diverse people to the wonderful folk arts of England, while simultaneously and equally successfully producing fascinating and entertaining content for those who have always placed folk at the centre of their cultural lives. We are delighted to support Tradfolk with its Old Songs podcast, and we hope that you look forward to listening to it as much as we are.” – Peter Craik, Director of Marketing and Communications, English Folk Dance and Song Society

“FolkEast is delighted to welcome Tradfolk on board as official 2022 media partners for the 10-year celebrations. Tradfolk‘s inclusive approach to folk reaches beyond the music and embraces the arts, heritage and people, tapping into what we hold very dear to our hearts here at FolkEast.” – Becky Marshall-Potter, Festival Director, FolkEast

“Tradfolk feels like a very important thing at the moment. Jon and his team select their subjects very well, do proper research and the articles are always well-written, informative and engaging. It’s already one of the first websites I check, and The Old Songs Podcast is top of my listening list. It’s great to know that these traditions are in such safe hands.” – Ant Miles, Fancourt Music

Advertising opportunities

Our range of advertising opportunities includes:

  • Media partnerships with festivals (see our FolkEast content hub as an example)
  • Inclusion of gigs, concerts, sessions and festivals on our events page. We don’t currently charge for listings, but some people choose to contribute support to the website (see the ‘support’ page) at their own discretion.
  • Sponsored blog posts
  • Sponsored social media posts
  • Inclusion in our weekly newsletter

How to get in touch

Get in touch on hello@tradfolk.co to discuss possibilities.