Pornhub Growth Hack During Coronavirus Pandemic

The 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic is an ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The outbreak was first identified in Wuhan, Hubei, China, in December 2019, and was recognized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020.

And during the quarantine, Pornhub, which is owned by Canadian company MindGeek and is one of the world's most popular pornographic sites, is offering free membership to quarantined Italians until April 3.

The X-rated adult site said in a Tweet that Italians could access premium content to "help keep you company during these next weeks at home" -- a move that has won it fans on Twitter.

The company said its global sales in the first two months of the year were 50% ahead of forecast, which it attributed to more demand from Italy, Hong Kong, the United States, Canada and Japan in particular.

"Many people and businesses are affected negatively by the virus and we saw it as a challenge for us as well," spokeswoman Johanna Rief said in a statement to CNN.

"The numbers are therefore surprising. With the prospect of long periods at home either alone or with your partner, people are exploring new ways to make the best of the time available"

And now let's start talking numbers :)

After collecting some data from Google Trends, I have visualized it using the famous Python package, Matplotlib.

As you see, in this graph we have two lines. The red one represents "CoronaVirus" IOT term search on Google engine. While the blue one represents Pornhub IOT website traffic.

First of all, what does IOT mean?

IOT, or Interest Over Time is numbers represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart for the given region and time. A value of 100 is the peak popularity for the term. A value of 50 means that the term is half as popular. A score of 0 means there was not enough data for this term.

Analyzing The Graph:

As we know, Pornhub has announced on 13th of march the free premium access for Italy citizens, and it was such a great idea to keep people indoor during the lockdown. After that announcement, a big spike of Pornhub website traffic IOT was noticed, from 26 to 62 (+138.46%).

And after Italy's offer, Pornhub "free access" has extended to several EU countries: France, Spain... Which leads to another spike from 40 on 16th march to 75 on the next day. Again, the top rated adult content website gains a new +87.5% IOT surge. And if you want to calculate the increment since the Italy's announcement, it will be +188.46% within 4 days, just wow!

Pornhub didn't stop here, so on March 24, another announcement was published, sharing the "paradise news", anybody in any corner of this world who has an internet connection can now (24th March) access Pornhub premium service for free !

This announcement also gave site's traffic a new "pump". Interest over time index increased from 53 to 67 level, and it hits a new level on 28th of March (78).

About the red trend:

This trend line doesn't require any analysis or explanation, it's already clear by showing "CoronaVirus" term interest over the time values. But we notice that this term reaches its all time high on 13th March and achieved the peak of popularity.

But there is something interesting:

It may be interesting or a funny thing :)

Have you noticed the spike on April 4? Have you asked yourself why Pornhub website traffic reached 88 level on that specific date?

Well, according to the first Italy offer, its length was for the 4th of April. So it means the last "free" premium access experiment for them. But I guess most of them didn't read the announcement of March 24. According to that, and on by trying to help in "flattening the curve", worldwide free access is available for April 24.

Conclusion:

Pornhub has done a "smart game" to save people and keep them "enjoyed" indoor at the same time. Also, with this large traffic surge, certainty Pornhub has an incensement in Ads revenue.