‘All about the girl’ publisher Sheology hones in on hard data

Other online publishers "talk of female bias", but Sheology Digital, the company behind MummyPages.ie, MagicMum.com and Shemazing.net, claims it is "all about the girl".

Instead of using “soft data” from web cookies to guess the gender of site visitors and make age assumptions, Sheology uses “explicit declarations” from logged-in social media profiles to create a “more pure play” offer to advertisers, says co-founder Cormac McKenna.

Sheology is inviting brands to target users of Shemazing.net, which it launched in 2013, according to four age cohorts: 13-17-year-olds, 18-24s, 25-29s and 30-34s. While other sites might have bigger reach, McKenna says Sheology’s data usage and highly targeted content gives theirs an edge for brands keen to avoid budget “wastage” in their media plans.

Personal information

Indeed, Shemazing.net is draped with prominent display ads for cosmetics companies, while over on MummyPages.ie,

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, Cadbury and Kellogg’s are among the brands with a heavy presence.

McKenna isn’t overly worried about the risk that young media consumers might in future tighten up the personal information they share online. They’re already conscious that their data is being used, he says. “What people say annoys them is when the ads are of no relevance to them.”