The owner of ad-funded lifestle publisher Ladbible said it now has seventeen $1m-plus advertisers as it predicted 10% revenue growth for the current financial year.
LBG Media, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is worth more than £200m, said 12 of these clients are in the UK and five are in the US where it is seeing “positive momentum with large brands and blue-chip advertisers” such as Netflix, Dunkin’ Donuts and Pepsico.
Chief executive Solly Solomou said in the latest half-year results statement: “Our primary focus in the medium-term is on growing the number of clients delivering more than $1m in annual revenues.
“We will achieve this by building deeper, longer-term, relationships with major advertisers and blue-chip companies. In turn, these larger clients support visibility of revenues.”
LBG’s adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) was up 18% year on year to £12.2m, with the adjusted EBITDA margin increasing from 26.4% to 27.8%.
Profit before tax was up 165% from £3.3m to £8.6m in the half year.
LBG’s brands also include Unilad, Sportbible and US-based women’s brand Betches.
The publisher said its total audience was 520 million in the 12 months to 31 March 2025, combining average monthly website users, social followers and unique podcast listeners. This was up 3% from 503 million in the year before.
Its US audience was up 11% to 145 million, it said.
The half-year results showed revenue growth of 13% to £43.9m in the six months to 31 March, with 10% growth expected in the full year (at constant currency) which would put it at almost £100m annual revenue. The company has already set a goal of reaching £200m “as soon as possible”.
In last year’s H1 results, direct revenues (creating content for brands and agencies to help them reach young adults, put out across LBG’s websites and social accounts) crossed 50% of the total for the first time. This year, it was up 8% year on year to £19.3m which meant it made up 44% of the H1 total.
Indirect revenue (revenue shared by platforms like Facebook and Youtube from advertising shown alongside content, plus programmatic website advertising) was up 18% in H1 2025 to £24.5m. Social revenue specifically was up 12%.
LBG Media had a weaker year in H1 last year because of Facebook’s algorithm changes, but many publishers have seen Facebook referral traffic begin to increase again since an algorithm change reprioritising news and politics made by the platform at the start of this year. Facebook has also this year begun paying signed-up publishers for generating engagement on the platform.
Outgoing LBG Media director of editorial strategy Jon Birchall wrote on Linkedin that he was “delighted” with web revenue growth of 27% “during what has been [a] period of significant change in the digital publishing space” and said the broader indirect revenue growth was “hugely encouraging”.
US expansion is particularly cited as a “growth lens” across both direct and indirect revenues.
The acquisition of Betches in October 2023 was seen as a way to help LBG “accelerate its presence and understanding of the North American market”.
Betches was acquired for an initial cash consideration of $24m with up to a further $30m payable in instalments subject to it achieving certain revenue and profitability targets to 2026. It met its revenue target for 2024, triggering a $5.5m earnout paid in May this year.
Betches UK is set to launch in July, the results statement revealed.
Solomou said: “LBG Media has positive momentum, with double digit growth in the first half of 2025. This reflects our diversified and agile model, which offers blue-chip brands access to the hard-to-reach 16-34 year old demographic. In the US, we were pleased to secure several clients exceeding $1m and build a healthy pipeline of near-term opportunities.
“Our confidence of progress in the second half of the year is underpinned by our audience, the power of LBG Media’s brands, our attractiveness to brands and celebrities, and the relevance of our content. Whilst mindful of the macroeconomic environment, we remain confident of delivering 10% revenue growth at constant currency.”
The half-year results also revealed that LBG is now publishing AI-generated content, “sometimes separately and sometimes seamlessly integrated” into human-created material.
Solomou said in his statement: “The value of human-created content is not in doubt and will rise significantly in this next chapter for content. This is mutually compatible with the increasing use of AI-generated material.
“LBG Media is well-positioned to capitalise on this shift, given the strength of our position within the young adult audience and the depth of our distribution channels. This gives us a tangible market advantage as we see an increase in AI-generated content.”
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