INNOVATION IN MEDIA - Editors Juan Señor Jayant Sriram Inês Bravo - FIPP
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INNO VA TI ON
I N M ED IA
20 22 /2 3
W OR LD
RE PO RT
Editors
Juan Señor
Jayant Sriram
Inês Bravo
A handbook on media
innovation for FIPP
by Innovation Media
Consulting Group
Table of Contents
4
Introduction
James Hewes, FIPP President & CEO
6
Editors’ Note
Juan Señor, Jayant Sriram and Inês Bravo, Innovation Media Consulting
8
Beyond the Third-Party Data Play
— How to Build Your Own First-Party Data Operation
20
The Reinvention of a Medium — The Newsletter Economy
36
What's Next? — The Evolution of Audio
52
How to Run a Product Team & Build a Data-Driven Newsroom
66
New Media Tech — Artificial Intelligence, Robo Journalism
and NFTs in Publishing
84
Best Retention Strategies - After the Covid subscription bump,
( AD missing )
how do you stop churn and retain reader revenue?
98
Best Digital Magazine Narratives — a showcase of best multimedia
storytelling formats and products in the past year
118
Print & Offbeat: Our Annual Showcase of Creativity and Imagination
Editors Publisher ISBN
Juan Señor, President James Hewes, FIPP President & CEO IMWR Digital Edition: 978872274706
INNOVATION Media Consulting james@fipp.com IMWR Print Edition: 978872274690
Innovation or sustainability?
www.innovation.media
senor@innovation.media FIPP Editor Digital Edition: free to FIPP members
Jamie Gavin
Jayant Sriram jamie@fipp.com To order, go to:
Pick both.
INNOVATION Media Consulting www.fipp.com
Commercial
www.innovation.media John Schlaefli
sriram@innovation.media john@fipp.com
Inês Bravo Content Management
INNOVATION Media Consulting Cobus Heyl
Being a PressReader partner goes beyond monetising your www.innovation.media cobus@fipp.com
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extend reach and find new audiences as readers discover your Design
Vasco Ferreira
info@fipp.com www.fipp.com 2022/23 World Report
content across our diverse business verticals. Drive subscriptions A Survey and Analysis by On Behalf of
Marketing, Sales & Finance
in new markets, explore new technologies, all with fair and Marta Torres
sustainable compensation.
First edition published 2010, 14th edition copyright © 2021 by INNOVATION Media Consulting Group and FIPP. All rights reserved.
We innovate. So you can be sustainable. No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the copyright owners.
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4 Introduction INNOVATION
IN MEDIA
2022/23
WORLD
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A New Age of
Innovation
T
he past two years have reaffirmed the need for flexibility,
creativity, and diversification in our industry, not to mention the
value of real-world experiences, be they in-person or in print.
For FIPP’s part, we are delighted that our World Media Congress
has returned to a real-world setting in 2022, as has our wider
programme of annual events.
OUR
But today, innovation is no longer just about re-emergence
from Covid. Other key trends too, have been significantly
accelerated in recent years. The shift towards reader revenues has been a
timely one, particularly with the ‘Cookiepocalypse’ now well and truly upon
PERSPECTIVE
us. Publishers are finding new and innovative ways to leverage first-party
data, and stand to be at the forefront of a new wave of contextual advertising
environments.
ON PRINT
We’ve seen podcasts finally realise their potential, and a resurgence in
the popularity of the humble newsletter, as consumers search for more
personalised and engaging experiences. NFTs have gone mainstream,
while a whole host of what were once thought of as periphery plays like
AI, gamification, and visual storytelling are now finding more pragmatic
applications. Reliable, evolving, global
More broadly, we’ve witnessed a world coming to terms with the awesome
power – both positive and negative – of its media, and the need for greater
tech regulation. At the time of writing, we find Elon Musk preparing to
complete his proposed takeover of Twitter, and await the next chapter in that
particular saga…
This year’s incarnation of Innovation is more relevant to the global media
industry than ever before. At a time when longstanding trends have been
accelerated – through necessity – into the mainstream, media owners are
beginning to truly recognise the importance of agility, and investing the
Follow us online at
profits from their legacy businesses into the products of tomorrow.
This year’s book offers a great starting point, and reflects an industry www.upmpaper.com
entering a new age not only in the wake of Covid, but as the content of media
begins to re-emerge from the dominance of digital tech.
UPM Communication Papers
James Hewes FIPP PRESIDENT & CEO
6 7
We're
Editor's Note INNOVATION
IN MEDIA
INNOVATION
IN MEDIA
2022/23 2022/23
WORLD WORLD
REPORT REPORT
Juan Señor
Jayant Sriram
back!
Inês Bravo
After two years of
1 3
There is a seismic shift coming in the Audio isn’t far behind in the old is ence behavior, improve the presentation of con-
world of digital advertising. 2023 will gold stakes, proving to have multiple tent and optimise customer service. And though
uncertainty through be the year of the much-vaunted ‘cook- uses for publishers. We know, of there is still a healthy degree of skepticism we
which we published iepocalypse’, when third-party cookies course, about the boom in podcasts are seeing more examples of actual articles
on Google’s chrome browser will be phased and their potential for bringing in advertising being written by robots for some subject areas.
digital-only editions, out, thus ending programmatic advertising as revenue. Added to that reliable revenue tool now Could this be a cause for concern or a reason
we know it. Should we fret, or see this as an are new possibilities and technology for text-to- for optimism that journalists might be freed up
we are back in print opportunity? Digital advertising has long prov- voice features for articles, which are proving to from mundane work? We’ll let you make up
this year and back en to be a fickle friend for publishers, stacked be particularly effective at engaging audiences your minds as we also give you the latest on the
as it is in favour of Big Tech. With global and building habit, and now a boom in live NFT craze currently sweeping through media as
with a live in-person privacy concerns putting an end to third-party audio with Clubhouse and its antecedents like a possible revenue stream of the future.
event to launch
6
data tracking there is an opportunity for pub- Twitter Spaces. Could it be that years of digital
lishers to focus instead on leveraging their own innovation are taking us back to a place where The last two years have come with
this book. And you, first-party data as a proposition to sell to ad- the spoken word goes back to being our primary significant business challenges but
our dear readers, vertisers. And that’s what makes this story so medium? That’s not an outlandish theory at all. they have proven to be a golden age
4
compelling - a real live example of how good of sorts for subscriptions as audiences
are back at work, journalism can be good business. “If you’re The past two years have seen breath- around the world looked to get news from trusted
and back navigating thoughtful about it, the subscriptions business less innovation as news organisations sources and finally realised that quality journal-
powers your advertising business. You have a have raced to launch new podcasts, ism is worth paying for. But as the big news stories
the real world. The direct reader relationship, great data comes newsletters, live blogs, instant analysis that brought this subscription bump fade into the
world of media has from that relationship and can drive a much and more. What stays and what doesn’t beyond rear view, how do we keep a hold of these new
more effective, analytical, targeted advertising the pandemic and how can this process of change subscribers and ensure that the momentum to-
changed though, business,” Jon Slade, chief commercial officer be made more sustainable? There has never been ward reader revenue stays? There are a variety of
at Financial Times recently said in a interview. a more important time for news organisations to fascinating strategies on offer, all centred on differ-
irrevocably in some We couldn’t agree more. think of product teams and product thinking, to ent understandings of audiences, particularly on
respects, and there
2
break silos and to place the audience experience the ‘light readers’ who now represent the biggest
Ignore the old mediums at your first in any strategy. The definition and roles of opportunities for growth in all news organisations.
are new technological peril. In this case, the humble email, product thinkers are rapidly evolving however,
paradigms to contend widely referenced through the and we try to bring some clarity to this space We end this year’s book with a visual treat
years as being “the cockroach of the through outstanding case studies. A related, but and a study in contrasts - a round-up of the best
with. We have internet.” The email newsletter was having a equally important question here - how do we visual storytelling formats in digital over the past
identified six such moment even before the pandemic but it has introduce more data and analytics to newsrooms year, followed by our annual roundup of the best
emerged now as the single most versatile and without causing too much anxiety? offbeat print and physical campaigns. Print is, af-
areas for publishers
5
valuable tool in a publisher’s arsenal. Use it ter all, where we started and where we will con-
to consider as we as a ‘pop-up’ tool to capitalise on big news Keep an eye on what’s next with the tinue to venture, even as we enjoy and marvel at
stories, as a medium to promote personalities new technologies that help news- the innovation and change taking place around
begin the process of within your newsroom, as a direct conduit to rooms function better. We are talking us. We are happy to be in your hands once again
your readers or as a publishing business model Artificial Intelligence and we go along with your screens, and long may it be so.
building for a better in itself. In the newsletter economy, there are through an array of machine learning functions Happy reading, and here’s to a great recovery
and brighter future. only possibilities. that publishers are relying on to predict audi- from a fragile world.
Beyond the Third Party Play: How to Build a First- Party Data Operation for Your Media Business A great realignment is coming in the world of digital advertising, and publishers could be in the driving seat if they prepare themselves now
10 Beyond the Third
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Brace THE AD COMEBACK
This is an exciting story and a potentially pivotal
moment for media but before we dive full on
The Rise of Third-
Party Cookies
The Cost of
the Cookiepocalyspe
yourselves into Google Chrome and the proposed phase-
out of third party cookies in 2023 (itself an
event that has had many twists and turns), let’s
IN THE MID 90s, the pioneers of the internet
faced a serious challenge. Entrepreneurs had
already recognised the potential of the new
In a paper published in April 2012, consulting
firm Mckinsey tried to assess how the shift away
from third-party cookies would threaten the
for the go back a bit and take a look at digital advertis-
ing from two perspectives. The first is the story
of the news business and publishers over the
medium for e-commerce, but the industry’s
key players were not keen on having to store
information relating to each user.
US digital advertising industry—and compel its
transformation. Some insights from the analysis:
The publishing industry will have to
cookie- last two years when the media business as we
knew it seemed to be turning on its head. As
The solution was created by Lou Montulli,
a 23-year-old engineer working for Netscape,
replace up to $10 billion in ad revenue with
a combination of first-party data gathered
pocalypse!
advertising spends cratered across the globe which at the time was the most advanced and through a combination of paywalls and required
and other businesses looked doomed, a surge popular web browser. Montulli came up with the registrations, and updated contextual targeting
in demand for news and online subscriptions concept of the cookie – a small amount of data and probabilistic audience modeling (analytics
provided media businesses with a ray of hope. that could be stored on an individual’s computer that incorporate an array of unknown elements).
Editors, CEOs and digital leaders invested in to archive information such as login details and Many major US publishers currently use first-
And then breathe… reader-focused business models and moved to passwords. It also kept a roll call of the pages party data in their ad targeting, and executives
launch paywalls. The big stories of 2020, partic- the person had visited. interviewed said that they believe the data
and start to look ularly interest in Covid, carried some momen- — extract from FIPP’s report on the Death of Third-Party Cookies changes will not have a significant impact on
tum into early 2021, but of course it couldn’t their businesses. Other publishers, mostly
beyond, for there last. By January this year, outlets like Axios were non-premium players, depend on third-party
is life after the reporting that news engagement had fallen off targeted ads for more than 80 percent of their
a cliff over the past year as compared to the According to an Adobe report, more than ad revenue.
cookie (and other extraordinary news cycle that the Trump era 77 percent of websites use tracking cookies, Third-party data’s exact effect on ad revenue
and the onset of Covid provided. as do 82 percent of all digital ads. As extensive is unclear: one study found that publishers only
types of third-party By the middle of 2021, another seismic shift profiles were built on users, the internet thus increased ad revenue by 4 percent from use of
was underway. Advertising was rebounding became ultra-personal, recognizing users’ third-party data; another estimated that turning
data). In fact, from the Covid-slump, and rebounding big. locations, browsing history, preferences, and off third-party data decreased ad revenue by 50
“Welcome to the roaring ‘20s,” was how the crucially, gaining the ability to target ads at to 60 percent. However, the Mckinsey analysis
it could be a far global media investment company GroupM them. Third-party cookies were identified as a suggests that up to $10 billion in US publisher
described the scene in their mid-year forecast considerable privacy threat as far back as 1996 revenue is at risk.
better world for for 2021, noting that they expected digital but the system continued until users’ privacy
publishers, one they advertising to grow by 33% for the year. Those concerns resulted in major changes over the
gains would continue into 2022 with ad spend- last few years.
may even have a key ing poised to grow 9.7 percent to $836.9 billion, Firefox began blocking third-party cookies BEYOND THE COOKIEPOCALYPSE
GroupM said, by the end of the year. And so in 2019 and Apple followed suit in 2020. Apart Let’s be clear here. Big Tech companies have
role in shaping as a in a topsy-turvy way, completely emblematic from disabling third-party cookies in Safari, everything to gain from the phase-out of third-
of the times we live in, the message was once iOS14 prompted iPhone and iPad users to opt party cookies. “We have to be aware that the
part of the digital again reinforced to publishers: when thinking out of tracking in apps that monitor their be- international tech platforms already do have
of business models, don't put all your eggs in haviour and share that data with third parties. excellent first-party data,” said Patrick Radem-
advertising system one basket. Aim for flexibility and for a mixed- The enactment of laws like the General Data acher, senior manager/strategy at Ringier in
business model, because the loss of ad money Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Switzerland who was quoted in an INMA report
finally hives off overnight may have precipitated a round of Union in 2016-2018, and the California Con- on The Third-Party Cookie Trigger in 2020.
from Big-Tech and useful and productive soul-searching, but ad sumer Privacy Act (CCPA), placed further legal “Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc., have 60%
money is definitely key to the recovery. pressures on Big Tech companies. The final nail to 100% logged-in users. So moving away from
the hellish world of in the coffin was when Google announced it third-party is something that will strengthen
THE COOKIE CRUMBLES would block all-third party cookies in Chrome their competitive advantage even more – if the
scale, clicks and When the internet first came into being, the - initially planned for the end of 2022 and then media industry doesn’t act.”
browsing experience was the same for every- extended to the end of 2023 as the company And therein lies the rub. Digital ad spending
eyeballs that they one, and data privacy concerns were non- tries to work out an alternative for advertisers is back around the world but the way in which
existent. In 1994, the Netscape browser for (more on that later). Given that Chrome holds publishers interfaced with the system – through
have imposed on us Web communications developed a tool called a an estimated 64 percent of the web browser machine-based ad sales fueled by third-party
cookie to verify whether a user had visited the market share, and third-party cookies are the cookies – is on the way out. This is not necessar-
for decades. site, enabling the site to remember preferences. glue that holds the whole system of targeted ily a bad thing. Programmatic advertising was
While meant to primarily help e-commerce advertising together, you can see why marketers initially embraced by publishers as they looked
companies, the technology changed digital and advertisers alike generally view this as an for ways to monetise their web-based content
advertising forever. extinction-level event. but with largely machine-based advertising
12 Beyond the Third
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sales that prioritised reach and eyeballs, things
soured over the years. “CPMs have fallen, reve-
a new “client” of their first-party data. That is
because the key difference between advanced
A Primer on Types What Comes After
nues dropped and in many ways the cookie has subscription publishers and non-advanced sub- of Data Third-Party Cookies
created a wall between the publishers and their scription publishers is first-party data,” INMA First-party data is the data you collect on your Google is the last of the Big Tech companies to
audiences. For some, their ad inventory has Executive Director and CEO Earl J. Wilkinson audience based on their behaviors directly on be holding out on phasing out third party cookies.
become just a cheaply acquired afterthought write. There is perhaps no better way to sum your website and/or app. This data is the most In fact, the company pushed its end-2022
for brands looking to cement their relation- up just why this story should be the primary valuable and has the least challenges with regard deadline by a year because it said it needed
ship with consumers across numerous sites focus for all publishers from here on. If 2020 to privacy. The challenge is that it can be hard to time to work out alternatives for advertisers.
and platforms,” a FIPP report on The Death of and 2021 gave publishers the perfect opportu- scale since it’s only coming from your efforts. In January 2022, Google announced plans to
Third-Party Cookies notes. Moreover, as Greg nity to focus on subscriptions, experiment with Second-party data is basically someone else’s rollout a new system called Topics, in which
Piechota, INMA’s researcher in residence points products, gather audience data and know their first-party data that you have to pay or partner advertisers will place ads via a limited number of
out, the programmatic market is dominated by readers, now is the time to mobilise the learn- up for. The seller collects data straight from their topics determined by users' browser activity.
tech companies that take nearly half of the ad- ings and of course, the data. audience, and it all comes from one source. You Google said Topics would be ‘easier to
vertising purchase because they organised the “Instead of a “subscription model” and an can feel confident in its accuracy and privacy understand’ for users and it replaces the
basic bidding platforms. “advertising model” being at opposite ends of since it's coming from one source. earlier plan called FLoC (Federated Learning
Both media companies and brands want the publisher strategy continuum, the embrace Third-party data is a collection of multiple of Cohorts), which was certainly more of a
to target and build relationships with actual of first-party data and on-site content consump- first-party data sources aggregated across mouthful. FLoC came under heavy criticism by
people. What third-party data held by others tion better merges the two models,” Wilkinson websites and applications by independent privacy advocates who worried the new ad-
offered was aggregations layered upon each concluded. researchers and companies, and is also targeting solution would inadvertently make it
other to create customer attributes rather than purchased. The provider doesn’t explicitly have easier for advertisers to gather user information.
people. It worked for Big Tech, but not for ev- SCALING UP FIRST PARTY a connection or direct relationship with the Interestingly, the move came days after a
erybody else. What if brands got together with DATA OPERATION customers it collects information from. There are group of German publishers, led by Axel Springer,
publishers to provide smaller groups of custom-
Direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands have a huge many data providers selling many different types submitted a report to the European Union
ers with higher-calibre, increasingly person-
advantage in terms of collecting first-party data of data around the world. claiming that Google’s plan to remove access
alised experiences? “To replace indiscriminate
by virtue of having a business model built on Some basic examples of first-party data to third-party cookies from Chrome was anti-
targeting with real value at every step of the
direct relationships with their customers. Over include: competitive. Should publishers just accept the
customer journey,” as the Adobe report puts
the last few years, successful media companies Number of unique visitors reality and move on with alternatives? We can
it, with first party data acquired by publishers
have transitioned away from the transactional Location of users certainly make a case for that.
would be the foundation for strategic partner-
print-advertising model to one built on reader- Audience demographics (e.g. age, gender,
ships. relationships. The Covid years accelerated income, education) HOW IT WORKS:
Like it or not, publishers are now part of the
this process, as it did for many trends already Data from your subscription-based emails or According to reporting by FIPP, Topics learns
ad tech ecosystem. “Looking across the global
evident in the world, leading to experimenta- products about a person’s interest by logging their moves
news media landscape, the irony appears to be
tion and innovation in digital subscription Data from your social media profiles around the web. The company categorises the
that publishers more advanced in subscriptions
businesses, membership and partnership sites that the user has visited and segments
are best prepared to integrate advertising as
models, e-commerce, e-learning and virtual or them into one of 300 topics. Advertisers will
hybrid events. While all of then be invited to display ads on one of the three
these are excellent building prioritize investment and garner buy-in topics that it has allocated based on a user’s
blocks, scale and strategy Test, learn, and measure to determine the browsing history.
are the two most important best activation methods The system resets every three weeks and for
factors to consider when Build robust in-house tech capabilities sites that it hasn’t categorised before it will use
“If we assume that the use of it comes to building out a while relying on strategic partners for other machine learning to provide an estimated topic.
third-party data by publishers is first-party data play. kinds of expertise
going away, or at least shrinking Over 2020, as compa-
nies first grappled with the DATA STRATEGY
in value (which I do), then it’s news of Chrome's impend- Let’s flesh each of these principles out further. publishers? For starters, your organisation
still important to participate in ing third-party cookie The BCG report points out that many brands needs business executives who understand
the discussion. Otherwise the risk phaseout, Boston Consult- simply collect as much of that data as possible data and a person designated as manager for
ing Group and Google in the belief that collection itself would some- these strategies, especially if you are looking
is we end up with a solution which interviewed marketing how translate to value. But attempting to collect to mobilise new revenue streams. Historically,
claims to be privacy-preserving executives at 23 companies unneeded data burdens customers, increases publishers and brands have kept data around
but will conveniently provide and seven advertising agen- the cost of technology and personnel and raises ad revenue, subscriptions, content engagement
cies across the U.S. Their the risk of data breaches and other privacy and customer profiles stored separately. This
more market dominance to the big key findings show that top violations. The best brands create organisation- thinking should change. As the INMA Third-
platforms.” brands take the following wide strategic goals for collection and invest- Party Cookie report puts it, “If the sale of on-site
three actions: ment in such data and also identify what data is advertising revenue becomes newly reliant
— Tom Betts, chief data officer of the Develop a compre- essential.w on the same first-party data used for a media
Financial Times, speaking to INMA. hensive data strategy to How do we apply this crucial learning to company’s subscription business, then data
14 Beyond the Third
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strategies will require a re-thinking. What data
does an advertiser need to visualize digestible
What publishers Prepare your news platform at the end of 2019. Digiday reported
that even with the shock of the pandemic that
segments for purchase, and might those user should think about organisation to be struck a few months following Vox’s launch,
segments simultaneously inform the art and when collecting truly data-ready Forte wound up having a very good year. More
science behind subscription sales and engage-
ment?”
first party data The INMA report on the The Third-Party
than 100 brands tried using the platform and by
the end of 2020, Forte data was used to drive
Mark Challinor, INMA’s Advertising Initiative Cookie Trigger lists out the different ways “nearly half” of Vox Media’s display ad revenue,
TEST AND LEARN Lead, has some tips to think about. in which the role of data within media chief revenue officer Ryan Pauley told the pub-
First party data can be great for delivering Begin to be more creative to get first- companies has changed over the years. lication. That share grew to about 66% in 2021
personalised experiences. BCG recommends party data in every customer touch point Before you move toward thinking about and is expected to grow further. Vox is still trying
that companies should use a test-and-learn where possible (still allowing, of course, for harnessing your first party data it is useful to to figure out the way in which clients can use it
approach to determine what should be person- customer consent). look through the list and actually consider it and how widely it wants to make Forte segments
alised and what level of personalisation is need- Make sure you are open with customers as a step-by-step guide to ensuring that you available outside of its own ecosystem.
ed. “This could mean, for example, focusing on to make them give you that data, i.e. be have the preconditions in place to achieve The bulk of the data Forte uses to infer
only one customer segment and investing only transparent as to why you want it. success. audience interests and intent comes from the
in the data and technology required to test that As part of being transparent, allow your What has changed at (successful) media content Vox Media’s audience consumes across
particular use case,” the report notes. Once customers to change their mind easily about companies: both Vox Media and New York Media, which
value is proven, brands can deploy additional what they want to give you. 1. The emergence of real-time data Vox acquired in 2019. But it draws from other
technology such as artificial intelligence and analytics from Web browsing behaviours. sources too, including offline data about people
machine learning and expand personalisation 2. CEOs and fiduciary boards understand who have attended in-person events, such as
efforts to new customer segments and journeys. “data is the new oil” and are investing in data Eater’s dinner series Young Guns, as well as
“Collect more data over time by thinking year that the publisher would start offering infrastructure. subscriber data gathered from New York Media
through the right moment in the customer companies proprietary first-party audience seg- 3. Newsrooms have become moderately and commerce data gathered from New York
journey to ask for it. At each stage, aim to ments to target ads which would be broken into accepting of data to guide content decisions, Media’s commerce brand, The Strategist.
understand how to move users deeper into the five broad categories: age, income, business, notably behaviours between subscribers and
funnel with the right offers that will net you demographic, and interest. "This can only work non-subscribers. INSIDER - SAGA
more data to round out your customer profile. because we have 6 million subscribers and mil- 4. Media companies are creating teams Insider launched its first-party data platform in
Don’t try to collect too much data at one time,” lions more registered users that we can identify to strategise data and collect data using early 2020 and spent much of that year getting
Micheal Silberman, SVP Strategy of the busi- and because we have a breadth of content," standards that continue to evolve. advertisers comfortable with their product. In
ness analytics platform Piano, wrote in What’s Allison Murphy, Senior Vice President of Ad 4. Media companies are hiring business 2021, over 140 advertisers ran ad campaigns on
New in Publishing. Innovation, told Axios. executives who understand the data Insider using Saga data, up from 48 the previ-
At an INMA conference in October 2021, The ecosystem and know how to put the data to ous year, the publisher told Digiday. While
BUILD IN-HOUSE TECH CAPABILITIES Times said there were three key areas in which good use: subscriber acquisition, subscriber many of those were first-time customers, a sig-
Brands need to think more strategically about they were focused on building products. retention and engagement, advertising sales, nificant percentage were not. What’s more, the
working with agencies rather than outsourcing personalisation, business efficiencies. advertisers that bought ads from Insider using
all aspects of marketing to them, BCG notes, 1. Contextual products: Targets users based 5. The acceptance by leaders and the Saga had a renewal rate of 48%, and the amount
adding that it is more efficient and effective to on page context. emergence of data best practices are of money those advertisers spent on average
consider which capabilities are best kept in- 2. Behavioural products: Groups users into beginning to change media corporate cultures tripled, according to a company spokesperson.
house and which ones an agency can provide. segments like demos, age, interest. toward being more data-informed. On the whole, the amount of revenue Insider
They recommend a hybrid approach where the 3. Insights products: Match what is known 6. Data records on people have become generated on campaigns using Saga rose 175%,
technology stack and capabilities related to data about the user, content, products, and ads to more unified as hardware, software, and data from a not-insignificant base. “We went from
analysis are kept in house while agencies can back up targeting recommendations. sets have improved. millions to tens of millions [in revenue],” said
provide strategic advice. Jana Meron, Insider’s SVP of programmatic and
A number of leading publishers have already data strategy.
made significant strides in building up their Above and beyond these very impressive
own first party-data platforms over the last 12 The ad team also developed motivation tar- numbers, Meron said that Saga is now being
months and beyond. Apart from the collection “Any company with geting, which looks at how an article motivates used by different parts of the Insider’s orga-
of scaleable and authentic data, these efforts the reader, and topic targeting, where they nization for a number of different initiatives,
include creating easily accessible audience seg- a meaningful direct scanned a few years of NYT content and spotted including audience extension projects designed
ments for advertisers to use that data. Let’s run digital relationship themes or clusters of content the newspaper to drive subscription growth.
through a few prominent examples: with customers could consistently wrote about. “Today we have about
20 emotions, seven motivations and 100 or JP/POLITIKENS HUS
THE NEW YORK TIMES stand to benefit from more topic clusters,” the publisher told WAN- The Danish publisher also developed its own
The New York Times announced in 2020 that the cookie-less world,” IFRA in September 2021. proprietary first-party data platform in 2020.
it would stop using third-party data to target Describing the platform for an INMA report, the
ads in 2021 and work on creating a proprietary — Julia Clyne, Head of Media & VOX MEDIA - FORTE company said it organises data into segments,
first-party data platform. Axios reported that The Trust, APAC at Dow Jones. Vox announced the launch of its first-party data creating buckets of interest, then does audience
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profiling. How much do they interact, and what
are they interacting with? The publisher then
lishers that have a great, ongoing relationship
with audiences to really benefit and present
overall 25% higher click-through rate. This is based
on machine-learned contextual adjacency when
Choose your
tries to get as much descriptive data as possible, something interesting [comes from] building applied to high- quality content. platform
asking them questions as they log in about gen- out not just an ID with an attribute attached to Better ad performance and recall: Ads per- Publishers often differentiate between
der, age, and more. JP/Politiken offers 600 audi- it, but a broad profile that really talks to them as formed better and reduced the amount of re- data management platforms (DMPs) and
ences/segments for direct and programmatic individuals.” call when they were content-based rather than customer data platforms (CDPs). Here’s a
buying and saw a 70% increase in audience cookie-based. Readers of brand-aligned journalism quick breakdown of the differences from
segment sizes by utilising first-party data. WASHINGTON POST can yield better results than third-party cookies, Oracle that you need to keep in mind when
— ZEUS INSIGHTS especially for net-new customers. you’re looking at a first-party data play.
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST - The Washington Post developed a first-party Lowest cost-per-click: Content had twice the Both platforms handle first-party data,
LIGHTHOUSE data ad targeting tool called Zeus Insights in click-through rate and the lowest cost-per-click. second-party data (data provided from other
The Hong-Kong-based publisher launched its 2019 which is licensed out to publishers and High-quality journalism can, by itself, be used as a companies, such as partners, resellers, etc.),
first-party data platform Lighthouse in 2019 allows them to utilise first-party reader data performance driver — especially on platforms omit- and third-party data (data from multiple
to better understand its users and provide to sell highly-targeted adverts. The platform ting contextual adjacency. sources).
advertisers with the tools necessary to target monitors contextual data such as what article As Earl. J. Wilkinson summarised in the re- However, what they target differs. DMPs
audiences with greater precision. Speaking at a person is reading or watching, what position port, The Post’s research suggests the emerging primarily pursue third-party data (cookies
an INMA conference in July 2021, Ian Hocking, they have scrolled to on a page, what URL they game is convincing advertisers that a person’s and segmented customer IDs) and then
vice president of digital at South China Morning have used to arrive there and what they’re click- content consumption and brand engagement store that data for a short time. CDPs
Post in Hong Kong, shared the amazing range ing on. It currently has over 200 publishers who are better signals to serve up relevant advertis- focus on structured, semistructured, and
and types of data that Lighthouse could offer as are at various stages of using the Zeus platform. ing than a person’s cross-site shopping. unstructured PII first-party data.
audience segments. These were: Speaking at an event organised by Insider A CDP stores this data over long periods
Preference: A long-term attribute unlikely to on “how advertisers can navigate the death FUTURE PLC - APERTURE of time so marketers can build in-depth,
change. of third-party cookies, The Post’s VP of Com- Future PLC, the U.K. company which published accurate customer profiles and nurture
Opinion: Current way of thinking, which mercial Technology Jarrod Dicker said that the over 50 magazines, was another early mover, customer relationships.
might change based on circumstances. publisher is seeing it as an opportunity “both in launching its first-party data platform in Decem-
Sentiment: The positive, neutral, or negative terms of the investments we’re making on the ber 2020. The publisher spent months building Deciding on whether to use a CDP, DMP
feeling about an article. Post and also how we represent all of our Zeus out a tech stack to collect, streamline and scale or both comes down to:
Intent: Declared action to do something. partners, which is now at 200+ publishers.” the first-party data that it gets from its more than Understanding the differences between
Behavioural: A predictable, usual way of “We’ve seen trends over the past few years 350 million monthly visitors to its portfolio of 130 the two platforms
being. where [the client-publisher] relationship has special interest sites and enthusiast publications. Determining how each platform can
Interest: Declared passion for something. been growing: more focussed on direct, more “The specialist piece is a key differentia- help you achieve your marketing objectives
focus on unique products even beyond branded tor,” Future’s global chief revenue officer Mike Knowing how you want to use your data
“When we put all of that together in a profile, content, but how we target, how we under- Peralta told Digiday in December 2020. “That’s Establishing if you can dedicate enough
we start to build what we think looks much stand consumption. Publishers have a unique because enthusiast audiences naturally have resources to using these platforms to
more like a person,” Hocking said. “I think pub- advantage in this next phase because consump- higher purchase intent for products that are optimize their potential
tion data is something that endemic to their passions.”. Future has run over Examples of CDPs - Piano, Blue Conic,
we’ve always deeply under- 200 campaigns through the platform to date Blue Venn, Deep.BI, Lytics, Mather
stood – we know what type and has seen a range of 50-70% better perfor- Examples of DMPs - Lotame Audience
of content users prefer, mance on campaigns that use its first-party Management, Permutive, Oracle Data
how they navigate through audience segment data than campaigns that Cloud, Salesforce Audience Studio, Adobe
“For users to provide that login sites, and all of this can be rely on third-party data, Peralta added. Audience Manager
information, they need to see worked out without ever In one sense, from an advertising perspective, Examples of software developed by peer
value in what they get in return having to know a user’s first-party data actually represents something of media companies to manage data and ad
identity,” Dicker added. a throwback to a system of contextual advertis- targeting: The Washington Post’s Arc, Vox Me-
for their personal data, and According to the INMA re- ing where ads are placed next to relevant con- dia’s Chorus, or Ringier Axel Springer’s Ring
publishers will need to grow the port, the Post’s Research Ex- tent. What the publisher is doing essentially is
value of their offerings and use perimentation and Develop- to divide those audiences into segments based
ment (RED) group has data on interests and sell ad space to advertisers
the information to drive a better to support the prioritisation who want to target those segments. The ways gies, there are a number of recent publisher en-
consumer experience. When we look of first-party data based on in which this is being done, however, is already tries to the first-party platform space, including
at this from the consumer point of content consumption over becoming incredibly sophisticated. Each of the News UK’s Nucleus, Penske Media’s Atlas Data
third-party crosssite shop- examples we highlight are perfect illustrations Studio, Livingly’s IRIS, Forbes’ ForbesOne and
view, we have to look at why they ping data: of the breadth and complexity of audience data Buzzfeed’s Lighthouse. With Google pushing
want to give us that information.” Higher click-through rate: that a publisher is able to collect because of back the time limit on the cookie phaseout to
Ads that ran without any their unique one-to-one relationship with audi- the end of 2023,he the good news for publish-
— Jarrod Dicker, VP of Commercial behavioural context from a ences. While we focused on the early movers ers around the world is that there is ample time
Technology, The Washington Post third-party cookie had an who have had some time to develop their strate- to learn and experiment.
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There are already strong indications that
publishers' first-party data has begun to sig-
The Importance set up a joint data warehouse which collects in
real time first-party customer data from all the
nificantly alter the landscape in some markets. of Logins news sites.
Publishers’ conversations about 2022 with Logging in to a news website should provide The pilot phase of the project included three
advertisers and agencies are underway, and subscribers and users access to content and regional publishers: Mittelbayerische Zeitung
publishers’ first-party data is a newly prominent other experiences. Yet it also should create (Regensburg), Badische Zeitung (Freiburg) and
topic for an unusually wide range of publishers, pools of known users from which audience Aachener Zeitung (Aachen).n the second half
Digiday reported in December 2021. Where last segments can be optimised for advertisers, of 2020, five new publishers joined up: Lens-
year many publishers were either readying or according to INMA’s report. With content ing Media (Dortmund), Aschendorff (Münster),
launching their first-party data offerings, this consumption patterns as the currency behind Südwest Presse (Ulm), Zeitungsgruppe Ost-
year, most have something in the market. And digital advertising, publishers will have to be friesland (Emden), and Rheinpfalz (Ludwig-
conversely, advertisers have gotten their own much more forceful in requiring user logins. shafen). Up to 15 publishers are now part of the
data in order, and are increasingly willing to Some shining examples: initiative.
share it with publishers. In the United Kingdom, The Guardian has In October 2021, Nieman Lab reported on
The deals and partnerships being forged now experimented with a registration wall to serve the Swiss Digital Alliance launched in 2018 and
are more complicated — and in some cases, up more relevant ads. Yet it is the incentives includes the major private media companies
more expensive — than some are used to, but to log in that are of particular interest: signed- in Switzerland: CH Media, NZZ Media Group,
it will make the industry more comfortable in users can leave comments, gain access to Ringier, and Tamedia as well as the Swiss public
with the change, while also moving ad buyers newsletters, and opt in for special discounted broadcasting corporation SRG. (There are simi-
and sellers closer to understanding how much offers. Gannett’s USA Today has offered lar alliances throughout Europe: Czech Repub-
value publishers’ audience data really has when visitors sweepstakes entries in exchange for lic, France, Hungary, Portugal, Spain, and the
third-party cookies are phased out, Max Willens registration, while its local news sites unlock United Kingdom) Some of their news sites are
writes in the article. content when a reader hits a paywall. free, others require a paid subscription, but they
So is a strong first-party data play the right The Amedia Group in Norway, which pub- came together to launch OneLog, a plan that
move for your organisation? There is over- lishes 75 small community newspapers has brings all the companies together to a single
whelming evidence to support the case, but about 80% of its users logged-in. For a pub- sign-on solution.
scaling up will be the biggest challenge. Small lisher, that is an extraordinary figure that rivals The initiative originated with a conversation
publishers in particular will feel that they the 60%-100% range of Big Tech platforms between leading publishers who were wor-
cannot compete in this world. Half of small and major entertainment brands like Netflix. ried about the looming battles over third-party
publishers plan to rely more on non-advertising cookies and their losing ground in the advertis-
sources of revenue when third-party cookies ing market. They wanted to find ways to work
are phased out at the end of 2021, according to together to regain a direct relationship with
a survey Digiday conducted in the first quarter ens Hus told INMA. “But I would at least recom- their readers and news consumers online. They
of 2021. mend they start thinking about what they can all agreed that having more first-party data and
“Without third-party cookies and targeting, do on first-party data. If they can’t build some- increasing the share of registered visitors would
they don’t have the scale to compete,” said Fran thing themselves, then they could probably talk allow them to build better relationships with
Wills, the CEO of the Local Media Consortium, to some of the companies out there trying to readers and more relevant news products, Nie-
a trade group that negotiates preferred rates help media companies organise first-party data. man Lab reported.
with vendors and platforms for over 5,000 local Start first with evaluating or finding what you The Swiss Digital Alliance hopes the lack of
news publisher sites, told Digiday. actually have on the first-party side and then try friction will prompt readers to log in even if a
“I fully understand not all publishers can afford to look for some other media companies and news site has no paywall. And there are signs
such a thing, '' Thomas Lue Lytzen of JP Politik- work with them,” he added. that the idea is already catching on. In April this
Could these collaborations between media year, The Fix reported that some publishers in
companies be the way of the future? Take for the Czech Republic were preparing to adopt
instance, the “Drive” effort by a collective of Czech Ad ID, a unified login system across the
German regional publishers. In 2020, the Ger- majority of big news websites to be able to
“Collect more data man news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur track users. The plan was similarly a response
and the publishing consultancy Schickler to Google Chrome’s impending replacement of
over time by thinking created a cooperation between publishers the third-party cookie system.
through the right with a simple idea: share resources, share data Whether you find strength in the collective
moment in the customer and share insights. The reasoning was that for or work on your data teams and capabilities to
smaller publishers, collection of data can be make a strong individual play, the good news
journey to ask for it. costly and tedious – each publisher has to re- is that you have time, and plenty of examples
Don’t try to collect cruit its own data science teams, build the data to learn from. And remember, it's your chance
too much data at one infrastructure and go through all the experi- to place the odds in your favour rather than
ments only to realize that the critical amount of waiting around for Big Tech to come up with
time.” data is lacking. The data experts from Schickler another system to exploit you.
— Micheal Silberman, SVP,
Strategy at PianoINNOVATION INNOVATION
The
IN MEDIA IN MEDIA
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Newsletter
Economy
In these heady times of product
innovation, subscriber battles
and the pivot to reader revenue,
the media world is awash with
shiny new technologies and
avenues that promise to be
the next big thing. You might
have heard of NFTs, AI driven
paywalls, synthetic text-to-
audio features and personalised
apps (don’t fret: we write about
all of those in this book as
well!). Oh, and you may also
have heard that the world’s most
famous publisher simply acquired
the internet’s hottest word
game. Because engagement.22 The Newsletter
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And yet, amidst
W Newsletter Data
elcome to the new newsletter
economy. It’s the old medium
all of the com- that never quite went away, the
publisher’s swiss army knife
The Reuters Institute Digital News Report of 2020 was one of the first comprehensive attempts to
compile newsletter consumption data for newsletters. Here are two key charts.
petition, one that keeps adding blades. “The great survivors”
is how Sarah Ebner, head of newsletters at
tool in the pub- Financial Times, describes them, pointing out
One in six people access news through newsletters each week
lisher’s arse- that they keep working because the reader has
specifically signed up to read what you’re offer- % of survey respondents who access news via email weekly
nal stands tall, ing.
All the way back in 2014, the renowned
All 40 countries surveyed 16
boasting not one
Belgium 28
media columnist David Carr mused that despite South Africa 24
many predictions to the contrary, the death of
but many super- the email newsletter was greatly exaggerated.
USA
Brazil
21
20
powers. It can: “How can that be?” he asks. “With social media,
mobile apps and dynamic websites that practi-
Turkey
Germany
19
18
cally stalk the reader, how can something that Philippines 17
Build direct, intimate sometimes gets caught in a spam filter really be Australia 16
taking off?” Poland 16
relationships with readers Newsletters, Carr theorised, are clicking France 15
because readers have grown tired of the end- Spain 15
Build habits, drive traffic less stream of information on the Internet, and Japan 12
having something finite and recognisable show Ireland 12
and monetise relationships up in your inbox can impose order on all that Norway 10
chaos. Subscribe if you want it, unsubscribe UK 9
Be a key driver for if you don’t. It’s a neat analysis that still holds Selected countries shown Source : Reuters Digital News Report 2020
good in 2022, though not even Carr, we suspect,
collecting first-party data could have foreseen what commentators de-
insights scribed as “peak newsletter” – a time just before Newsletters are popular with older readers
% of each age group that accessed news by email and mobile notifications in the last week
the pandemic hit in 2020.
“In the age of ceaseless content, everyone Email Mobile notifications
Be adaptable in content seems to have a TinyLetter or a Substack, and 18-24 10 23
and format, such that A/B the personal-newsletter backlash is predictably 25-34 16 18
testing is a dream here,” Claire Landsbaum wrote in Vanity Fair in 35-44 17 22
July 2019. It might be a misguided backlash, she 45-54 23 26
added, and so it proved during the pandemic 55+ 28 21
Be tailored to deliver when people were stuck at home and hungry Source : Reuters Digital News Report 2020
specific content to niche for any and all kinds of information.
audience segments STACK UPON SUBSTACK
It turned out that there was enough space for new version of human interaction.” efforts to get more people to think about paying
Give your star writers a everyone to co-exist and newsletters actually The combination of efficient business model for high quality journalism is a positive thing."
became a huge driver of paid subscriptions, a and evergreen medium, allied to the pandemic- Sure enough, the American news site Axios
new lease of life, or a trend propelled by Substack. Now five years old, inspired thirst for content, brought Substack to was soon reporting that the Substack threat
shiny new project the company that lets creators create, send, and a major milestone: 1 million paid subscribers in to newsrooms was overblown and the bigger
charge for newsletter content came along at the November 2021. It underscored people’s will- publishers were hitting back, embracing the
perfect moment, the newsletter writer Dave Pell ingness to pay for quality content and despite idea of the independent-operator model. “Pres-
Pair well as a companion to wrote in The Atlantic in November 2021. “The the fact that they may have lost some of their sure from new publishing platforms has finally
your podcasts and other new Trump years created a unique obsession with star writers to Substack and other newsletter pushed newsrooms to create programs that
storytelling ventures the media and raised the profile of countless platforms, publishers were optimistic that the give writers more pay, autonomy and flexibility,
journalists. Many of these journalists took their portends were good for their own subscription Axios’ media reporter Sarah Fischer noted. And
raised profile and left established publications efforts. those changes were bringing some prominent
Be the foundation for an to go direct-to-consumer with their writing. "I would regard anything that is about helping independent writers back to traditional news
entire business model (if What we’re seeing is an indie news-delivery make the market for paid digital journalism as companies.
revolution,” Pell writes. “What we’re not seeing good," New York Times CEO Meredith Kopit More superb reporting from Fischer followed
done right) is a technological revolution. This movement Levien told investors in the same month. "This on the creator economy as a whole, which was
is not about hiring 10,000 engineers to build a is still a forming market. And I would regard all supposed to democratise media, but it turned24 The Newsletter
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out that a small portion of creators still reap the
most revenue for their work across multiple
ing executives showed 87% of publishers and
marketers actively investing in email and 94%
Journalist David Tvrdon at The Fix has been
platforms. One figure that stood out in particular scaling their email programs in 2021, a trend maintaining a list of all the ways publishers
for newsletters - Fischer reported that the the top
ten publications on Substack collectively make
that is set only to grow this year.
Now that we’ve surveyed the frontier, let’s set
are making money from newsletters.
more than $20 million a year in subscription out the new rules of engagement. What strategy Here, we summarise his last update:
revenue, while less popular newsletters typically should you follow, who is getting things right
make tens of thousands annually.
THE NEW FRONTIER
Not that long ago, being relegated to a newslet-
ter was considered a journalistic demotion, Jack
and which are the companies making the big
moves? Here’s our comprehensive rundown:
METRICS - BEYOND OPENS
Here’s Dan Oshinsky, former Newsletters
1 PAID NEWSLETTERS
Paid newsletters with access only
for paying subscribers are the most
straightforward way news publishers can
grow their paying members or subscribers.
paywalled articles was successfully used by
Funke Mediengruppe who managed to convert 5
to 10%of their newsletter subscribers to pay for
their online subscription.
Shafer writes in Politico. It was Substack that
arguably changed this irrevocably, to a time
when writing a newsletter has become some-
thing of a prestige beat for writers. For pub-
lishers of course, as Shafer notes, the business
Director of both The New Yorker and BuzzFeed,
talking about newsletter metrics in an interview
with The Fix in 2020.
“First of all, no organisation sees 100% of
readers open their emails. If you can get 30%
It’s not a simple task by any means. There are
different strategies you can choose from. But
having a paid newsletter connected with your
membership/subscription offering is easy to
communicate. Of course, this goes without
5 FREE NEWSLETTERS WITH
MEMBERSHIP/SUBSCRIPTION
PROMOTION (support us)
This is a similar approach as in the previous
point with the exception that you are
imperative is huge. “The newsletter form offers of your readers to open your newsletter, that saying, if you want people to pay for your actively promoting your digital subscription
publishers something advertisers crave: a target- is very good. A 25% click to open – meaning content, it has to be good. in the newsletter. NYT is doing this, Funke
ed audience. When you subscribe to a newslet- 25% of readers who open a newsletter click on Mediengruppe tried this but had more success
ter, you reveal that part of your identity defined
by your interests and that has value. Advertisers
would rather reach the right 50,000 readers
than 5,000,000 randos, and they especially
something – that’s really, really good.” The other
number Oshinsky shared is that the best news-
rooms convert about 10% of unique visitors to
newsletter subscribers.
2 EXTRA CONTENT FOR PAYING
SUBSCRIBERS (I.E. SUNDAY EDITION,
SPECIAL Q&A)
Recently, Bloomberg launched new personality
with sending readers to paywalled articles. You
can do this also to promote memberships for a
news site that does not have paywalled content.
covet audiences to whom they can repeatedly
serve targeted content”, Shafer notes. “Instead
of letting all those precious eyeballs disappear
into the Substack writers’ room, publishers have
found that they can provide plenty of room for
The open rate was formerly the standard by
which to measure the success of a newsletter.
But by 2021, Oshinsky and others were warning
that publishers needed to start looking at other
measures and do more to engage with readers of
driven newsletters and one of them, “Power
On” written by Mark Gurman about Apple and
consumer technology, has two versions. One
version is for any free subscribers with all the
weekly Apple news. Another version goes out
6 EAAS – EMAIL AS A SERVICE (full
articles straight into inbox)
What if your subscriber’s inbox was
the main touch point with your content?
The resurgence of independent writers using
newsletter writers to roam.” their newsletters. Central to this is data privacy to Bloomberg paying subscribers sooner and platforms like Substack, Ghost and Revue shows
For the star writer or the lesser light, for the policies being instituted across the board by Big includes an exclusive Q&A section. the power of the inbox. Readers subscribe to the
legacy newsroom or the digital upstart, this is Tech companies and in this case, Oshinsky is newsletter and get the full experience of each
now the new golden age of newsletters, and the
numbers show it. “There are so many ways tech-
nology has helped email newsletters become a
replacement for the newspaper and magazine
referring in particular to Apple releasing mail pri-
vacy protection in the fall of 2021, a new feature
that “helps users prevent senders from knowing
when they open an email, and masks their IP ad-
3 EXTRA FEATURES FOR PAYING
SUBSCRIBERS (i.e. access to online
community).
One of the best practices for building a loyal
content within the email sent by the writer. No
need to click and visit the website to read the
whole article.
as people’s view into the world and how they
get news and information,” Kerel Cooper, CMO
of email service provider LiveIntent, told Digital
Content Next. LiveIntent’s Industry Pulse
Survey of 200 senior marketing and publish-
dress so it can’t be linked to other online activity
or used to determine their location.”
The result, Oshinskt told an International
News Media Association (INMA) conference
in July 2021, would be that media companies
following is creating exclusive and “safe spaces”
for members and subscribers to interact with
the newsroom and each other. Taking this into
account, some independent and also small news
publishers are experimenting with creating online
7 NEWSLETTER AS A RETENTION TOOL
(losing less subscribers)
Sometimes growing your members or
subscribers means you are not losing the existing
ones. As Adam Pasick of the NYT quoted above
may start to see differences in their metrics communities on Discord or in closed Facebook says, newsletters are a great habit forming tool.
since Apple was essentially opening up people’s groups. Entry is only for paying supporters.
“One-to-one replies
emails behind the scenes before it hit a user’s
inbox. Remember that Apple Mail is the domi-
nant email platform in the U.S. and elsewhere.
As a result of this change, Oshinsky says com-
panies may start to see inflated open rates and
4 FREE NEWSLETTERS WITH LINKS
TO PAYWALLED ARTICLES
If you have a big base of readers, going
the indirect way of converting them to paying
8 REFERRAL PROGRAMS
Referral programs are primarily used to
build up the newsletter list. You create
incentives for your newsletter subscribers to
share the sign up link to get their friends or
to subscribers is more find that location data isn’t accurate. customers might be more successful even if it followers to join your newsletter.
valuable now than it's To battle back, he recommends that news- is a longer term project. One of the big news
ever been. Clicks are
better than opens to
drive habits.”
rooms focus on progressive profiling and ask
questions to gather information on readers:
“What are they interested in? Where do they
live? What do they do? What do they want
more of? We can start to personalise the user
publishers going down this route is The New
York Times. “Newsletters are a great way to
grow a subscription business. Subscribing to a
newsletter is a healthy habit that can bear fruits
down the line,” Adam Pasick, editorial director of
9 CREATE A NEWSLETTER
SUBSCRIPTION PLATFORM
The last and hardest one to pull off. If you
have the resources, the market power and the
incentives for independent writers to join your
— Dan Oshinsky, former journey and the specific newsletters to serve newsletters at The Times told Digiday. platforms, you can have your own newsletter
Newsletters Director of both these audiences.” The strategy of free newsletters linking to subscription platform.
The New Yorker and BuzzFeedYou can also read
