How Ekstra Bladet increased their affiliate revenue by 724%

Ekstra Bladet is Denmark’s largest tabloid, reaching more than 50 million monthly visitors. Over decades, it has built one of the country’s strongest media platforms, with a large editorial operation and a well-established advertising business.

“Just one year in, our collaboration with Nordpar has proven extremely valuable. Their strategic guidance and analytical tools have given us the confidence to scale our performance marketing, allowing us to consistently integrate new elements based on solid data.”

Emil Rath, Growth & Performance Lead

The situation

Like many large publishers, Ekstra Bladet saw an opportunity to expand its affiliate channel. Not as a side project, but as a scalable and meaningful source of revenue that could grow alongside its core business.

To make that happen, they needed both the right infrastructure and the right operational setup.

Ekstra Bladet had two primary goals.

The first was to expand their product comparison and commerce content through Ekstra Bladet Pristjek. The ambition was to build a scalable section that could help readers compare products and prices while generating affiliate revenue in a structured way.

The second goal was to integrate affiliate campaigns into their existing ad delivery setup, allowing affiliate demand to compete directly with traditional advertisers.

Both goals required a system that could scale across large volumes of content and traffic, without introducing operational complexity.

Scaling product comparison content with widgets

Ekstra Bladet had the ambition to expand their comparison and commerce section, Pristjek, into a scalable and reliable part of their business.

Building comparison content manually created limitations. Product availability, pricing, and retailer data change frequently, and keeping this information updated across large volumes of content requires continuous maintenance.

Without automation, scaling comparison content meant increasing operational workload. Each product page and comparison required manual updates to ensure accuracy and relevance.

This made it difficult to expand the section efficiently, especially during peak periods such as Black Friday, where demand for comparison content increases significantly.

To scale the initiative properly, Ekstra Bladet needed a way to present up-to-date product comparisons directly within their content, without introducing ongoing manual maintenance.

The solution: Scalable comparison widgets

Nordpar developed custom comparison widgets aligned with Ekstra Bladet’s brand and technical requirements.

These widgets automatically source product data, compare retailer prices, and present the results directly within articles and comparison pages.

The data updates multiple times per day, ensuring that readers always see accurate and current information.

Instead of manually maintaining product comparisons, Ekstra Bladet could integrate widgets directly into their content. This made it possible to scale comparison pages efficiently and support seasonal initiatives with dedicated pages built to handle increased demand.

Commerce content could now expand without increasing operational complexity.

Integrating affiliate demand into native ad delivery

Ekstra Bladet operates a large native ad delivery platform that allocates placements based on advertiser demand.

Affiliate campaigns were traditionally managed outside of this system. This meant affiliate demand did not compete directly with traditional advertisers for placements, limiting its ability to scale as a revenue channel.

Managing affiliate campaigns across multiple networks also created fragmentation. Campaign availability, performance, and commission data were spread across different platforms.

Without a unified system, it was difficult to evaluate affiliate campaigns alongside other monetisation sources and optimise traffic allocation based on actual value.

To fully unlock the potential of the affiliate channel, Ekstra Bladet needed a way to integrate affiliate demand directly into their existing ad delivery workflow.

The solution: Affiliate dashboard and native ad integration

Using Nordpar’s affiliate dashboard, Ekstra Bladet was able to source and manage campaigns from multiple affiliate networks in one place.

Nordpar enabled affiliate campaign data to be connected directly to Ekstra Bladet’s native ad delivery platform. This made it possible to report the effective CPA value of affiliate campaigns and allow them to compete alongside traditional advertisers.

Traffic allocation could now be based on actual campaign performance, ensuring that the highest-value opportunities received placement.

Affiliate demand became part of the same optimisation process as other advertising, rather than being managed separately.

This allowed Ekstra Bladet to scale affiliate monetisation within their existing infrastructure and grow it into a structured and reliable revenue stream.

“Using the affiliate dashboard gave us a clear overview of performance across multiple networks. It made it easier to understand which campaigns were generating revenue and manage the channel in a more structured way.”

Emil Rath, Growth & Performance Lead

Conclusion: Affiliate as a growing revenue stream

With the right infrastructure in place, Ekstra Bladet was able to scale its affiliate channel in a structured and sustainable way.

Product comparison content could expand efficiently through automated widgets and scalable page templates.

Affiliate campaigns could compete directly within the ad delivery system, ensuring optimal revenue allocation.

Through a combination of tooling and operational integration, Nordpar helped transform affiliate from a fragmented revenue source into a growing and scalable part of Ekstra Bladet’s business.

The affiliate channel is now an important contributor to overall revenue and continues to scale alongside their content and traffic.