At The Audiencers’ Festival in London this June 24th, Panos Sarlanis, Co-founder of IamExpat Media, invited by kind invitation by code.store, the media tech and low-code experts, shared their journey of empowering expats navigate every aspect of life in a new country.
The secret? Understanding their audience’s needs, building revenue streams around this and continuously innovating to serve evolving needs.
Key takeaways to copy & share
> IamExpat serves a million monthly users across the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland, with revenue spread across four streams: advertising, classifieds, events and affiliates. No single one carries the business > Products came from asking what readers needed rather than how to monetise content. Directories of trusted professionals, tax advisors, lawyers, English-speaking dentists, now contribute more than the job board or the housing platform > The fairs have drawn over 40,000 visitors and 600 exhibitors since 2015, putting readers and advertisers in the same room. Direct contact turns out to be how new products get sold > When Covid killed the fairs they moved to webinars as a stopgap. It became permanent, and pulled in advertisers who would never have bought online display > Panos Sarlanis is candid about the fragility. Platform shifts, cookie deprecation, creators and AI are all live threats, which is the argument for spreading revenue rather than optimising one stream
From personal need to pioneering platform
