Capital Economics is an independent economic data and information service operating globally out of London, Toronto, New York and Singapore.  Founded in 1999, the company has always produced written macroeconomic analysis targeted at financial market participants and has an international client base of financial service and corporate institutions. In 2012 it won the Wolfson Economics Prize for the best proposal on how a member state could leave the Eurozone. In recent years it has developed an increasing range of proprietary data and forecasts, data APIs and applications, and opportunities for clients to interact with and commission projects with our economists.  

Capital Economics traditionally delivered the bulk of its research and analysis by email, but its customers increasingly required a digital content experience. There was a clear need to replace the existing website and back-office systems to be able to compete with new customer demands according to Ray Fawcett, Capital’s director of technology.

“Our clients were telling us they were looking for a more personalised and multimedia service.” he recalled. “We knew we had work to do to get platforms to the right place to meet this opportunity, but that the prize could be substantial.”

Capital Economics blueprint for the future

A fresh approach was clearly needed and the Capital Economics team realised a digitally led solution was essential to retain existing – and attract new – clients.

“Customer expectations had changed,” explained Fawcett. “We’d been sending people PDFs attached to emails but they were now expecting a more digital experience.”

This meant packaging up graphics, multimedia-rich content and plenty of easily digestible data in a format that could be updated quickly if the macroeconomic drivers and events changed.

Teaming up with Full Fat Things, a London-based digital agency, they put together a blueprint for a fully integrated, flexible website that could provide customers with a personalised experience.

“The goal was to get off the existing cumbersome platforms and start building new products,” said Fawcett. “A lot of cosmetic factors such as branding and email templates were also needed.”

Combining data and content

However, there were a few puzzles to solve. For example, prior to the revamp, data and content had been treated almost as separate entities, whereas readers wanted them to work in tandem.

“Over the past five years, customers have wanted more data and to integrate it into their own platforms,” said Fawcett. “While there’s a huge amount of data available, if we can get it to them quickly and easily then that’s a huge advantage.”

Another issue was how to move away from a one-size-fits-all approach to providing content that was more tailored to the individual needs of subscribers.

“A chief investment officer might only log-on when they have a major decision to make, whereas an analyst could be on every day and be reading everything,” explained Fawcett. “We had to take a more granular approach when it came to who was accessing our content.”

Adapting to meet the demands of an ever-changing events cycle, particularly given the volatile economic backdrop of the last few years, was also seen as crucial.

“We needed a flexible entitlement model that allowed us to share content between different subscriptions very easily,” said Fawcett. “This includes being able to package up related articles when a particular macro event breaks in order to give readers more context. Our clients know we are the first to make sense of what matters in the global economy so the speed of our platform delivery is also important.”  

Streamlining CMS from ‘clunky’ WordPress-based system

The first step in the remodelling was updating the infrastructure, which had previously been centred around WordPress.

However, the various custom integrations that had been added over time only served to make everything clunky and unnecessarily complicated.

“We wanted to move away from too much customisation and more towards standard plug-in methodologies because this involves less maintenance,” explained Fawcett.

The route chosen was to build an entire website structure as a wraparound to the Salesforce CPQ solution, according to Stewart Robinson, founder of Full Fat Things.

“Capital wanted an end-to-end reinvention of their platform to have everything synchronised,” he explained. “The idea was to have sales, accounts and content providers all working together.”

Such an approach enables everyone to see what is being read, how customers are interacting with the site, and whether there are opportunities to upsell to them.

“We also gave Capital editorial tools via the Drupal web system that enabled them to automate manual tasks such as sending out newsletters,” said Robinson. “The team was also able to explore different ways of chopping up and repackaging content.”

Concision and clarity

Capital Economics has forged a reputation on providing concise articles in clear language, which has always been an effective approach for the most successful publishing groups.

“People don’t want to read an 80-page document to reach a conclusion, especially when a buy/sell decision is at stake with a lot of money involved,” said Fawcett. “Whoever’s first normally has a huge advantage over the competition.”

The analytics capability was also a game-changer in so much as economists realising analysis and data to the site could see whether their content was connecting with audience.

The new set-up provided solid foundations on which to build products such as CE Advance, its premium product featuring embedded videos, podcasts and audio files alongside content and data.

“It even has a Q&A function where subscribers can have questions answered by economists, which saves them having to recruit specialists in different areas,” added Fawcett.

The platform provides exclusive access to a range of proprietary data and indicators, as well as tools enabling users to create charts for presentations and analysis.

Personalised content feed for subscribers

Another area that needed attention was personalisation. With the amount of information available today, it is essential for subscribers to focus on the content they require.

“We created an interface that allowed customers to be more selective of what they wanted from the various services offered,” said Fawcett. “It enables them to drill down into areas of interest, such as inflation in China.”

Fawcett is delighted with the new-look Capital Economics site and is full of praise for the crucial role played at every stage by Full Fat Things.

“It was able to offer us everything under one roof,” he said. “The Full Fat team was great to work, very flexible and willing to give us extra resources when we needed them.”

Looking ahead, while he accepts that the fast-developing nature of content means the pressure will always be on companies such as Capital Economics to upgrade their offering.

“Our platform was due an update to meet market expectations a few years ago but now it’s overtaking the competition,” he added. “That’s a great place to be.”

The post How Capital Economics made leap to personalised multimedia publishing appeared first on Press Gazette.

Tom Gunter, the experienced co-founder of Avid Collective believes focusing on branded content can help solve the advertising revenue conundrum for many UK publishers.

“Branded content is unique because it enables businesses to speak directly to potential customers,” he said. “This makes it an incredibly powerful channel for advertisers.”

Whether it’s attracting youngsters with TikTok videos or reaching an older demographic through long-form articles, Gunter believes branded content can be a winner for everyone, including publishers.

“Advertisers connect with specific audience targets and publishers benefit from a lucrative source of income, while audiences don’t find these messages intrusive,” he said.

While there are numerous income streams open to publishers, including display ads and programmatic advertising, Gunter believes many of them actually irritate readers and viewers.

“The principal value of branded content is that it’s the least intrusive format for publishers looking to drive their advertising revenue,” he explained.

Value of branded content

Of course, the definition of branded content formats has broadened over recent years to embrace videos, social media posts and podcasts, as well as more traditional sponsored articles.

This includes everything from itineraries on travel websites to entertaining 30-second videos and in-depth articles published in printed and digital magazines.

However, Gunter doesn’t believe UK publishers are making the most of the branded content opportunities and that’s why Avid decided to launch into this market.

“The product we’re selling for the UK market is a bespoke, purpose-built platform that’s available as SaaS (software as a service) to publishers,” said Gunter.

It contains a suite of tools that are focused on either saving publishers money in the creation of branded content or helping facilitate a better client experience.

“It’s a very simple approach,” explained Gunter. “If we can save people money – or help them to make money – then that’s a good spot for us.”

Avid PubSuite solution

The digital tools are part of a platform known as Avid PubSuite and include everything from pre-sales engagement with advertisers to reporting on the performance of campaigns.

For example, there’s an initial advertiser shopfront that can be packed full of key resources such as new opportunities, products and reminders to enrich the potential sales interaction.

The advertiser shopfront includes customisable branding and the ability to load key resources such as new opportunities, new products and updates The focus is on enriching the initial sales interaction and deepening advertiser engagement with your masthead

Then there’s campaign builder, which features standardised products for the sales team to enable bespoke and automated media plans to be built for would-be clients, which transform tedious media plan building from hours to minutes

This is followed by amplification manager. This includes automating ad-set creation across multiple channels and data targeting if required, enabling branded content to be more competitive on plans

Campaign manager, meanwhile, supports every step of the production. “The client can also log in and collaborate,” explained Gunter. “This saves a lot of time in getting campaigns live.”

In addition, there’s automated reporting tools and content analytics that enable everyone to understand, compare and analyse various data points, also reducing publisher time spent on reporting back to clients. 

Memorable campaigns

Gunter, who is experienced in both the UK and Australian markets, is well-positioned to comment as he’s helped international publishers curate numerous memorable ad campaigns for clients.

He’s also been with Avid from the early days when it was making 30-second videos for small businesses right through to the signing of partnership contracts with global giants such as eBay.

“We realised we had a unique offering and a chance to educate agencies about all the fabulous content creators in this space,” he said. “For the last three years, we’ve focused on the background technology.”

For Gunter, the proudest moments have been connecting major brands with unique publishers that they may not have otherwise met.

“Often advertisers don’t realise some of the stories that can be told about their brand, and I think that’s probably one of the misconceptions about branded content,” he added.

He cited the example of work carried out with a tourism body which involved the publication of a bespoke magazine about the Gold Coast by a publisher called Signature Luxury Travel.

“The CEO was walking around the office showing everybody this beautiful content,” said Gunter. “There are many emotive ways to tell a great story and integrate the brand.”

Of course, it’s not foolproof. The key to success is for the branded content to be authentic as the publisher is effectively putting its reputation on the line with this kind of promotion.

“I think audiences have a clear understanding that their publishers have to make money but they will turn off if the endorsement alignment is very poor,” he added. 

Opportunities in the UK

According to Gunter, countries differ in their approach to branded content. Some, such as those based in the US, often favour global campaigns that can cost a small fortune.

Others, meanwhile, favour a more targeted approach.

“Australians will smell a global ad from a mile off, so you’ll need media teams working out how to make US content tangible to smaller markets,” added Gunter.

As far as the UK is concerned, the Avid team is currently on a research mission to establish the best ways to help publishers cut costs and boost revenue.

For example, Gunter’s initial findings suggest widespread concerns about how they can make enough money through advertising channels.

“Having seen a few of the big news sites, the unfortunate answer seems to be putting more ads onto the page, which turns customers and audiences off, and has a negative effect,” he said.

The role branded content can play

Looking to the future, Gunter believes branded content provides one pillar in a publisher’s future-proofing strategy as it’s something exclusive they can offer to advertisers.

“Branded content is a great way to provide something different to advertisers, but we’ve just got to make it a far more seamless and far more competitive proposal to agencies,” he said.

One area of focus is standardising the terminology used in meetings with agencies and making the whole category more accessible.

“We’re actively looking to work with as many publishers as we can,” he said. “The goal is to have really honest, open conversations to understand how we can help solve their problems.”

The post How publishers can use branded content to grow advertising revenue appeared first on Press Gazette.

The news agency which powers much of the original content carried by leading UK news organisations like The Sun and Mail Online is expanding into the US.

Based in Bristol, South West England, with offices in London and other UK cities, the agency has a team of 50 reporters, photographers, videographers and editors who scour the UK as well as digital and social media for amazing news content. Now the agency is expanding its US-based team and it is targeting US news publishers with its service offering high quality, popular and original online news content.

SWNS was founded 50 years ago and recently held an anniversary party in London where Times editor Tony Gallagher was among six UK national editors paying tribute to what he describe as “a mainstay for national newspapers with the vast variety of stories that they produce from all over Britain”.

SWNS started out with a simple format of covering regional ‘patches’ and that has grown into a global newsgathering operation.

It has grown from its local roots into an international news business by focusing on unique and original content.

Laura Elvin, head of News at SWNS who is leading its US editorial expansion, said: “That’s why our clients love using us – because we always have something different.

“We have also learned how important trust is. Our clients put huge value on the fact that everything we distribute is created from scratch by a journalist, checked, verified and fully rights-cleared.”

The SWNS newswire contains a lively mix of human-driven content that is packaged and page-ready with words, images and videos.

Its content verticals include human interest, true crime, positive stories, travel, parenting & family, health & wellbeing, royals, science & tech, animals, and consumer.

Fully verified and rights cleared user-generated content and viral video is now a major part of the business, with all material rights cleared and safe to use.

News exclusives which set the agenda

And SWNS frequently provides clients with exclusive splashes and banner stories that set the agenda for the rest of the media.

For instance, the video of William and Kate shopping after she’d avoided the press for months before officially coming out to announce her cancer diagnosis came from SWNS. It was sold to the Sun and then went to TMZ for distribution in the States.

Describing the SWNS offer to US publishers, Elvin said: “We offer something different – out-of-the-box stories that are packaged with words, pictures and video. That’s unusual.

“We don’t just license videos or scrape from social – we produce fully crafted, page-ready, verified stories, speaking directly to the people at the heart of the narrative.

“Sometimes it’s light and bright and sometimes it’s hard-hitting agenda-setting journalism – but it’s always geared towards digital audiences.

“We have developed a trans-Atlantic sourcing team who use tried and tested techniques to unearth exactly what our clients need, and I’m excited about offering the stories they produce to more US publishers.”

SWNS offers 24/7 coverage via slick content feed

SWNS offers publishers a slick content hub where stories and assets can quickly be downloaded, and it offers multiple feed and technical integrations.

With newsroom costs under pressure, SWNS offers a cost-effective way to help publishers fill the content gap.

The company offers a range of different partnership models ranging from direct sell to revenue share, but all clients benefit from the following:

• 24/7 access to live news platform
• Original stories produced by real journalists
• Breaking story alerts, plus morning and afternoon story lists
• Priority access to exclusive stories
• Direct contact to the SWNS editorial team
• Access to an extensive story archive
• Use of the SWNS commission service for bespoke assignments.

SWNS commercial director Anderson Morgan said: “SWNS stories are fueling remarkable growth and revenue for the UK’s top media organisations. Now, we’re set on replicating this success in the US market.

“We are a dream come true for the right media org. With US mainstream media organisations changing their strategies and reorganising, there seems to be a need now more than ever for easy-to-use, safe and engaging content.

“US audiences have a clear appetite for the compelling stories SWNS delivers. The strong engagement we’re seeing from our current partners in this market only scratches the surface of what we can achieve.”

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The news industry has experienced profound disruption over the past thirty years as audience behaviours change and revenue dollars follow, driving publishers to rethink their business models. While digital consumption has skyrocketed, digital revenue growth has not kept pace.

Many publishers struggle to fully capitalise on the revenue potential of their digital audiences despite having various monetisation opportunities at their disposal. This shortfall stems from the internal disruption caused by digital transformation to their legacy product strategy, organisational structure, and technology infrastructure. It’s not the lack of opportunity that is holding publishers back.

The good news is that we now have enough industry evidence to know there is a path. For example, look at The New York Times’ Q3 2024 quarterly earnings report, which shows total digital revenues up 13.0% year over year and digital subscription and digital advertising revenue up 14.2% and 8.8%, respectively.

To succeed in the digital age, news media publishers must overcome these obstacles and evolve their monetisation approach for consumers and advertisers. This article explores key barriers and opportunities across revenue strategy, organisational structure, and technology.

Strategy: Thinking in terms of a demand curve

One of the key issues with current strategies is that publishers often think of their audience uniformly rather than considering the diversity in potential monetisation approaches for their audience. To fully unlock their digital revenue potential, publishers should adopt a more segmented approach, viewing their audience as existing on a demand curve where specific segments can be monetised differently.

Here’s a breakdown of the potential digital revenue streams by segment based on Mather’s client experience:

Digital revenue streams for publishers:

1) Direct monetisation (10%)

This group, representing approximately 10% of users, can be monetised through various consumer revenue streams such as subscriptions, memberships, paid newsletters, micropayments, and time-based access.

These users are the most valuable, generating the highest digital revenue per user. Offering premium or basic subscriptions ensures a consistent revenue flow, while targeted verticals or specialised content can attract niche subscriptions.

Additionally, due to the high level of engagement and valuable first-party data from these users, there are significant advertising sponsorship opportunities that can complement the paid consumer experience. However, monetising this group requires a strong focus on value delivery and relevant experiences—such as targeted newsletters—to retain them over time. In fact, Mather data shows a ~17% improvement in retention among subscribers who receive targeted newsletters.

2) Premium advertising (15%)

The next group of users to monetise typically shows high engagement but low subscription rates, representing about 15% of the user base. They can be identified using AI-based tools like a dynamic paywall engine. Monetisation strategies for this segment include custom audience segments based on first-party data, e-commerce partnerships, vertical ad networks, and private marketplace advertising. Although they generate less revenue from direct monetisation, they provide more value than mass advertising. Publishers can enhance their worth through data collection and strategic partnerships, making them a vital part of a balanced revenue strategy.

3) Mass advertising (75%)

The remaining 75% of users fall into the mass advertising category, where revenue is primarily generated through programmatic advertising. While the digital revenue per user is the lowest in this group, these users can still contribute to a publisher's bottom line through data enrichment, which allows publishers to leverage valuable insights to improve ad targeting and effectiveness. Monetising this segment efficiently requires a robust programmatic ad stack and innovative approaches to optimise user data collection and advertising exposure.

For this strategy to succeed, publishers need to allocate resources and focus based on where each group lies on the demand curve, ensuring that each segment is being monetised appropriately.

Organisational structure: Breaking down departmental silos

One of the most significant challenges holding back digital revenue growth is how publishers structure their digital revenue functions. Traditionally, publishers organise their digital efforts into two distinct departments, with often competing objectives:

B2C subscription department

This team focuses on gaining and retaining subscribers through marketing strategies, aiming to convert users into paying subscribers, often supporting strict paywalls.

B2B advertising sales department

Responsible for selling ads via direct campaigns or programmatic methods, this department seeks to enhance audience size and ad impressions, typically advocating for looser paywalls to ensure wider content access.

Additionally, advertising departments often face short-term pressure, driving an immediate focus that can conflict with the consumer revenue team's long-term subscriber growth strategy.

The solution lies in integrating these digital revenue functions into a unified department. With a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) overseeing both streams, publishers can eliminate these conflicts and drive a cohesive strategy that maximises revenue across all user segments. This alignment enables publishers to approach paywall decisions, audience segmentation, and user engagement holistically, optimising revenue without compromising one department’s goals for the other and ensuring sustained long-term success.

Technology: Simplifying and integrating the tech stack

Technology poses a significant challenge for publishers. Often, they invest in costly digital tools that are not fully implemented or integrated into their overall technology infrastructure. This leads to missed opportunities to leverage data, enhance user experiences, and optimise audience monetisation.

A significant issue is that very few solutions are designed to address both B2C (business-to-consumer) and B2B (business-to-business) revenue functions. Typically, the subscription department selects subscription platforms, while the ad sales department chooses advertising technology. This lack of integration results in redundant systems that slow down website performance, leading to longer page load times and preventing a comprehensive understanding of the audience. Furthermore, publishers often lack the capital to invest in new technology and the patience to implement solutions fully, and they face the real burden of legacy “tech debt.”

To tackle this challenge, publishers should move away from isolated point solutions and adopt technology platforms focusing on comprehensive audience monetisation. They must also commit to backend data integrations to fully leverage these tools. These platforms should offer the flexibility to achieve both consumer revenue and advertising goals while providing a unified dashboard for data analysis and optimisation. By investing in integrated technology solutions, publishers can enhance user experience, foster greater engagement, and ultimately boost revenue. Below is an illustration of a publisher tech stack that maximises total digital revenue throughout the user journey.

Conclusion: The path forward for digital revenue growth

To thrive in today’s digital landscape, news publishers must adopt a total audience monetisation strategy that optimises the value of every user across both B2C and B2B revenue streams. This requires more than just tactical changes; it demands an integrated approach to strategy, organisational structure, and technology.

First, publishers need to view their audience as existing on a demand curve, where different segments can be monetised differently but contribute to the overall revenue mix. Next, they need to break down the silos between subscription and advertising departments, creating a unified revenue function under a CRO who can align goals and drive holistic revenue growth. Finally, publishers must invest in integrated technology platforms that enable total audience monetisation rather than fragmented solutions that hinder performance.

By making these changes, publishers can unlock their full digital revenue potential and ensure lasting success.

To connect with Pete Doucette, feel free to reach out at pdoucette@mathereconomics.com. Discover more about Mather and their innovative solutions at www.mathereconomics.com

The post Monetising digital audiences: A call for alignment across strategy, teams, and tech appeared first on Press Gazette.

Content Ignite, the publisher-first advertising technology and monetisation platform, has announced its certification as a Google Certified Publishing Partner (GCPP).

The GCPP certification required an extensive multi-step evaluation, emphasising Content Ignite’s commitment to exceptional service, company growth and surpassing publisher expectations. This accreditation underscores the company’s dedication to boosting publisher revenues using Google’s sophisticated monetisation tools consistently over a long period of time.

Benefits of GCPP status

Content Ignite said it provides three key unique benefits to publishers through its Google Certified Publishing Partner status.

Tailored expertise: “Leveraging continuous Google training, our team excels in customising monetisation strategies that suit each publisher’s specific needs, ensuring that you can rely on our deep understanding and agile application of the latest digital content monetisation practices.”

Exclusive Access: “As GCPP partners, we gain early access to Google’s latest products and updates, placing us ahead of industry trends and directly benefiting our clients through state-of-the-art technological integration.”

Proven Results: “Our approach involves crafting bespoke strategies that harness Google’s advanced technologies, proven to consistently enhance advertising revenue and optimise publisher outcomes.”

Content Ignite’s Fusion platform combines with Google Ad Manager

​​James Hanslip, CEO of Content Ignite, said: “Our longstanding relationship with Google has been crucial to our success. Achieving GCPP status is a significant milestone for us, reinforcing our ability to guide publishers through every aspect of their monetisation journey – combining the power of our Fusion platform and Google Ad Manager.

“We are excited to continue our partnership with Google, delivering exceptional results for our clients and helping publishers to prosper in the dynamic digital landscape.”

Content Ignite maximises revenue, efficiency, and control for publishers through one simple integration. The company’s innovative approach centres around Fusion, its cutting-edge advertising technology platform which gives publishers complete control over on-page monetisation, ad technology, and ad management, through one tag. With Fusion, digital publishers now have the power to effortlessly optimise, strategise, and elevate their business, with unparalleled performance.

Learn more at contentignite.com

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The co-owner of SWNS, the UK’s largest independent news agency, has credited its diversified business model and “a culture of excellence” for its success as it celebrates half a century in business.

Still based in its home city of Bristol, today SWNS has reporters around the country, a secondary office in London and says it is the largest supplier of content to the national media after the corporate news agencies.

Its 50 staff reporters, editors and photographers continue to regularly supply headline news to the national press: most recently, it sourced bombshell footage of Labour MP Mike Amesbury appearing to punch a constituent (who has since been charged over the incident).

Only PA Media, which is owned by a consortium of major UK news publishers, is larger than SWNS which is privately owned by three of its directors.

SWNS has always produced ‘a lot of high-calibre people’, says editor

Martin Winter, who also serves as director and editor at SWNS, told Press Gazette that what was to become the South West News Service launched in “the Fleet Street boom days in the mid-70s, when papers had a lot of money to spend”.

“The only way you could find out what was going on in the regions was to have eyes and ears on the ground, and that’s what agencies were. SWNS is one of many agencies that sprung up all over the country to do that.”

The number of those news agencies still running has been whittled down over the last few decades. But SWNS Media Group recorded growing turnover of £23.7m in its most recent accounts.

In part, Winter put the longevity of SWNS down to its staff.

“I just think it’s had a culture of excellence right from the start, and as a result it produced quite a lot of high-calibre people who went on to do very well. And that culture has always continued to exist here, and I think because of that we grew and became one of the bigger agencies… It’s kind of set the tone for the culture of the business.”

It helps, he adds, that those alumni have often ended up occupying significant roles in the media, and as a result “we have lots of friends across Fleet Street and beyond”.

Former SWNS staff include the current editors of The Times and The Daily Telegraph, Tony Gallagher and Chris Evans, as well as former Sunday Telegraph editor Ian MacGregor, former Sunday Mirror editor Tina Weaver, former Sunday People editor James Scott, former Sun editor Stuart Higgins and current Sun head of news Alex Goss.

“If people leave with that enthusiasm for what we do, they take it with them, and that positivity feeds itself back over the years,” Winter said.

[Read more: National editors pay tribute to SWNS at 50 — UK’s biggest independent news agency]

But he also credited the agency’s endurance to the diversification of its business, saying: “We have found new ways of monetising what we do. We’ve always tried to be innovative in what we do.”

Today the sourcing of stories for the national press is just one part of the wider SWNS business, contributing around a fifth of turnover. Other revenue streams include PR firm 72Point, market research panel OnePoll, creative design studio Oath and, since last year, commercial imagery business PinPep.

Winter said 72Point in particular “has proved quite pivotal in allowing SWNS to endure at the size and scale that it does”. The firm was created in 2000, he said, when SWNS was frequently receiving press releases for stories which were interesting, but required a lot of work from the journalists to polish up.

“And we thought, well, there’s probably a commercial opportunity in this.”

Kept at “a bit of an arm’s length”, Winter said 72Point is now “our biggest profit driver… they help to fund our journalism, effectively”.

The addition of other revenue streams was to some extent necessitated by challenges to the traditional news agency business model.

“We don’t get paid any more by newspapers for what we do than we did when I started in this business probably 25 years ago,” Winter said. “The rates have literally not changed.”

The National Association of Press Agencies made this same point in February, complaining over rates it said had not increased in as much as 40 years.

“We’ve always just had the attitude that we don’t moan about it,” he continued. “I don’t think there’s any point in us doing that and alienating those clients who are still very important to us. We just got on with finding a different way of doing things and it enables us to still carry on giving them a good service.”

Decline of regional media means local story tips are more likely to come from social media

As it has branched out into other business areas, the news agency side of SWNS has also changed with the times.

“The UK national newspapers and websites are still our biggest chunk of revenue,” Winter said, “but we now sell to probably pretty much every country in the world, either directly or through distribution partners.”

The business now sells features content, as well as news, and it works with broadcast companies to “move on” its biggest stories.

Winter said “we probably do less of the nuts and bolts, boots on the ground journalism that we did in years gone by”, which he attributed to “the shrinking of that news ecosystem in the regions”.

“If something remarkable happened to you, back in the day, you would have gone down to your local newspaper office and told them. These days, you put it on social media, and that’s where we try and find those stories.”

But he said “we still do that real journalism — contacting people, interviewing them, verifying things, getting them to sign things that [agree] they’re happy to have their story told, and then speaking to other people who might be involved and piecing it together, like with any other story”.

The agency has also made a significant expansion into video. Winter said SWNS distributes about 30 videos a day and sells about £1m’s worth a year. Much of the original video is shot by SWNS photographers, but part of the mix is licensed user generated content sourced from the web.

The biggest buyers for that video content are major SWNS customers like Mail Online, The Sun and Reach, but Winter added the agency distributes content through deals with MSN and Yahoo and that it has partners who sell SWNS video on to the likes of Newsflare, Reuters and AP.

“Obviously, a good video will travel anywhere in the world, so it’s enabled us to grow beyond the traditional publishing market, which is increasingly constrained here in the UK.”

A good video will also appear in a lot of places: “The publishers use our material now in so many different ways. [Content] used to go in the newspaper and on their website, and now they use it across Youtube, Snap, Tiktok — they’ll use it multiple times, in multiple different ways.”

‘A more shareable version of news’

SWNS scoops have included news of Queen Camilla’s divorce from Andrew Parker-Bowles and the video of Princess Kate at a Windsor farm shop in March that followed her absence from public life after a surgery.

Winter said there are a few things SWNS looks for in a story.

“Increasingly it is about the visuals. It’s one of the first things we’ll always ask in any story we do: ‘what are the pictures like?’

“But beyond that it also just has to have that ‘’cor blimey’ element — I call it the pub test. If it’s something you go down the pub and tell your mates about then it’s clearly something which is worth spreading…

“We do everything from court cases to human interest stories to medical breakthroughs. But it’s, just gotta have that little bit of quirky difference that makes you sit up and go: ‘I’ve never heard that before’.”

The modern spin is that today SWNS looks for “a more shareable version of news”, Winter said.

“A lot of that very local newsy content is only of interest to one of our audiences, which is the UK national media. But we now sell internationally… so we tend to look for stuff that is more globally appealing than UK-centric, because that is time consuming and hard to come by.”

The post SWNS at 50: ‘Culture of excellence’ behind success of biggest independent UK news agency appeared first on Press Gazette.

Automating advertising workflows can help news/magazine publishers save both time and money – maximising profitability and efficiency in a challenging media landscape – but many are still stuck in a culture of doing things manually.

In the face of declining readerships and a squeeze on ad revenues, publishers big and small often face a stark choice: cut costs or stop publishing altogether. Automating tasks is one way for publishers to make savings, while continuing to publish.

Mike Hoy, managing director and co-owner of Papermule, which offers automated workflow solutions for publishers, describes it as “intelligent plumbing”. But Hoy says office cultures relying on emails, phone calls, and even post-it notes, still persist in news publishing.

Papermule, founded in 2003, works with the likes of Telegraph Media Group, Bauer Media, and journal publishers Springer Nature. Its AdDesk solution streamlines ad workflows by automatically matching upstream actions (sales) with downstream results (content). The software sits behind any sales platform and aims to cut out manual human tasks.

“We can’t do without people, but we can take 1,000 little jobs away from somebody,” says Hoy, who likens it to the change in supermarkets from manned tills to self-checkouts.

He answered Press Gazette’s questions about the benefit of workflow automation to news/magazine publishers, how to make a profit with self-serve ads, the major challenges facing the news industry and the future of print.

What is the biggest challenge facing publishers today?

“Declining readership and the squeeze on ad revenues. And the inability to monetise the digital equivalents – what people have sold in print for lots of money, they’re not selling online for the same sort of revenues. That’s a challenge.”

“We believe print has a long-term place in the world, but it’s not going to survive as it is today – and I think a lot of publishers are coming to the same conclusion. Print products will be a premium product, and so will have a very interesting demographic to advertise to. The question is: how do we ensure that it remains profitable? For us that means streamlining processes, automation, cutting costs, reducing errors, and making it a very repeatable, cost-efficient process to still do.”

“That’s where our AdDesk solution comes in. We want to make sure that as few fingerprints are left on things as possible. Our view is, if you’ve had to take a PDF out of an email and put it on a file server and name it then you’re doing it wrong. Because although that exercise seems fairly innocuous it’s, one, been done by a human, who is fallible, and, two, taken 30 seconds to a minute to do, which it didn’t need to – it should have just happened.”

What is Papermule’s offer to publishers?

“Intelligent plumbing. Trying to get people out of the way, trying to get email boxes out of the way. Anywhere where there is a human involved in trying to move content around, or put it in a folder, or name it correctly, is fraught with errors. And it’s time consuming and not a particularly fulfilling job. People are better used with more skilled and creative things. We can’t do without people, but we can take 1,000 little jobs away from somebody.”

“As opposed to boosting ad revenue, if you like, we’re trying to reduce the production costs. If you sell a piece of advertising for £500 and spend £600 producing it, you really shouldn’t have done it. So if you can ensure that your production costs are well below your sale cost, then at least you’re running in a profitable way.”

What does advertising workflow automation look like?

“It’s the ability for somebody to change something in one platform and have that information reflected downstream. The simplest example is if sales kill an ad for some reason, whether it’s digital or print. How do you stop that content being published? How do you tell all the downstream platforms, as soon as you possibly can, that that content is now not to go? You can’t be relying on people to spot it, find the right reference number, go to Google, look at the previews to find the one it’s related to, and so on.”

“Automation means that when files arrive at the downstream platform, they are named correctly and consistently every time. Nobody types it wrong. Everybody knows whether the content is in or not. Everybody can see a preview of it. It’s all in one place. So it’s not a single magic bullet to solve a problem, but it’s going to polish everything.”

What makes Papermule different from other solution?

“I think there’s quite a lot of products out there that are sold as a workflow solution – think about pre-flight engine PDF – but our view is that it’s a workflow enabled unit. It’s one of many little blocks that makes up your overall workflow. It does one chunk of it. It has an input and an output. What we need to do is plumb maybe half a dozen or a dozen of these together so that overall you have one solution that is entirely automated.”

“We often end up drawing diagrams on whiteboards in the workshops we do with customers – system X goes to system Y, and then we draw stick men, because from system Y to system Z somebody has to get involved and there’s a human process. Why is it there? What is a human doing that we can’t do automatically? Why has somebody had to send an email, why didn’t that email get sent automatically?”

“One of the phrases we quite often talk about is event-driven workflows. By simply doing something, something else should happen. It’s those events that trigger all the other actions downstream that need to be appropriately applied at that point in time. Within moments, it should all be on the same page.”

What is the biggest workflow problem publishers face?

“It’s manual tasks – and it’s often the most insignificant manual tasks.”

“We have a module of AdDesk that integrates with Google Ad Manager. Probably the biggest user of that we’ve got is Springer Nature… one of the biggest journal publishers in the world.”

“We look after all of their digital integration to Google. So once something’s booked on their sales platform, it’s how that order and line item is created in Google and how the content is collected and submitted to Google. Bluntly it’s about removing clicks.”

“We did a flow diagram and worked out it was something like 56 clicks through Google to supply the content, which is bonkers. We got it down to eight or nine clicks.”

What’s the biggest barrier to change you see within publishing?

“We did a project once where the sales team used to write on post-it notes and put them on somebody’s desk. It was a cultural thing. A people thing. That’s quite often the hardest thing when you do these projects – it’s not the technology, it’s changing people’s perception and trying to persuade them that they’re not doing it the right way anymore. It might have been good 20 years ago, but maybe you shouldn’t still be doing it that way.”

“Some ten years ago now we put a platform into the Irish News. The IT director just really wasn’t for the project and didn’t really get it, but about six months after we went live, we sat down and he said ‘I get it’. He said: ‘You’re not doing one big thing to improve things, you’re doing 1,000 little things. You’re saving five seconds here and there, all over the place for a dozen people.”

How can publishers profit from self-serve advertising?

“Our media sits behind the sales platform, so doesn’t actually sell the advertising space, but it allows people to submit either finished advertising content or components for makeup. So you can build up a Facebook carousel ad, for example, by uploading the content. It allows you to crop and scale your images on submission, provide your headlines, your banners, your links.”

“What it means from a publisher’s perspective is that they get a package that clearly defines what it is that the advertiser wants to put in, as opposed to an email that’s a bit loose and woolly with some attachments that might or might not be what the customer wants to use. So it’s the ability to drive a templated request form, for want of a better description.

“It’s not about bringing classified revenue back, it’s about clinging on to what’s there and making sure it’s as streamlined and as profitable as it can be.”

What publishers are using self-serve advertising?

“The Telegraph make a seven-digit number out of [reader] announcements every year. They’re not cheap, and there’s a certain clientele that advertise or like to put their announcements in the Telegraph. It’s revenue they don’t want to lose, but we needed to streamline for them.

“They had a platform in place, but the problem with lots of these platforms is they don’t get maintained, and then suddenly you’re falling foul of GDPR or security issues. We replaced it with our own platform nearly three years ago. Instead of having two or three people taking telephone orders and typing it in, [the client] books and pays for it online themselves.

“The Telegraph has a very high editorial standard for their announcements. They’ve got a team of three behind this that check and sub them, but as soon as they’re subbed they’re on the page and printed – there’s very little manual input other than that.

“At Bauer Media we run our AdPortal, which takes a mixture of finished ad content and digital media content to build a variety of print, web and social ads. (AdPortal is an aspect of AdDesk specifically for ad submission).”

“Where before they were taking content via email, often in dribs and drabs with back-and-forth messages to sort it all out now they receive it through a streamlined submission process, quietly pushing responsibilities back on the advertiser – simple things like having them crop images on submission removes later arguments about choices and a task the publisher would have had to previously make. All Bauer’s got to do is proofread it and check it’s legal, decent and honest, then publish it.”

Visit Papermule to inquire about their workflow automation solutions.

The post How publishers can escape email boxes and embrace automation appeared first on Press Gazette.

The decline among local newspapers in the U.S. accelerated so rapidly in 2023 that analysts now believe the country will have lost a third of the newspapers that existed in 2005 by the end of 2024.

The economic situation is taking its toll.

In January, the Los Angeles Times announced a 20% reduction in its editorial staff. It’s one of the most extensive layoffs in the newspaper’s history. And they are not alone. Established news providers such as CNN, NBC News and ABC News have faced similar fates. In total, more than 2,700 journalist jobs vanished in the US last year, according to the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. That’s the highest number since 2020. It’s a sad reality for those of us who value quality journalism.

At the same time, this is not new to us in the news industry. The rise of digitisation has pushed the printed newspaper from its given place.

Several also point to the role of social media in this, and how more and more people are turning to the platforms for both entertainment and news. But, and this should be alarming, there are no clear indications that a profitable and sustainable all-digital business can be created for traditional daily newspapers. Print advertising revenues cannot be transferred directly to the digital industry, and even reader revenues stagnate.

Unless the current perception that the digital transformation necessarily means the death of the paper is nuanced, it also risks becoming something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. This would not only mean removing an important component of the product mix that ultimately creates value but also risk lowering the value of each individual product.

What is missing today, however, is a discussion not only about how a mix of different formats offering quality journalism is essential, but how it should be packaged, delivered, and presented to best meet the needs and expectations of different readers, creating opportunity for long-term profitability.

There are still several examples of publishers continuing to invest also in their printed newspapers. Not just because they are staunch supporters of the paper as a product, but because they simply know that print creates unique conditions for profitability.

Philadelphia Inquirer invests in print

One example is The Philadelphia Inquirer, with whom we at Roxen have had the privilege to work. Last year, the newspaper launched a major redesign project, with comprehensive development of their printed newspaper. Partly to better meet readers’ needs and expectations and partly to be a platform for unique local quality journalism. The project is a significant investment in the newspaper as a carrier of everything that the brand stands for: proximity, quality, and good journalism on the residents’ side.

In other words, the management of media companies has identified that having a strong paper also strengthens and brings credibility to the digital product.

In the debate, it may sound as if media companies have completely given up on the printed newspaper. But what if the value of the paper has been underestimated?

The printed newspaper – most likely with a different frequency and in a different format – is what truly distinguishes traditional media companies from online-only outlets. So, the big question here is not only what will happen to quality journalism if media companies stop publishing their printed newspapers, but also how the same media companies then will manage to differentiate themselves? How will the credibility built up through decades of journalistic coverage live on when there are no longer any physical products to relate to and engage with?

Moreover, the credibility markers that have taken shape over the years and are now associated with newspapers are many more. It is about the interplay between articles and headlines, imagery, and layout. The craftsmanship required to create well-crafted stories has been crucial in building the considerable trust capital of newspapers. Can this be preserved in a fully digital context? Are the generic flows of news sites sufficient to understand the more significant concepts?

Paper needs new direction to complement digital

We may need to set a new direction for the paper, to better complement the digital flow. Perhaps we need to revitalise the e-paper and change our view of it as a necessary evil to something that improves reader experience and trust? Or maybe we need to find a completely different format for the paper, where instead of delivering yesterday’s news, it can be produced on fewer days of the week and then offer even more in-depth coverage for the reader to indulge in.

But by not even attempting to develop your physical products in line with the audience’s expectations and needs, you risk putting the products and their revenue in an early grave. So rather than completely exclude printed products from the equation, we should be more open to exploring new formats that meet both the changing conditions of media companies and the needs of the readership that still values print. 

Otherwise, I strongly believe that we will not only lower these readers’ willingness to pay for this type of premium product but potentially also erode the value of other products in the segment, which have benefited from the credibility markers of the printed newspaper. That downward spiral would likely have devastating consequences for the journalistic craft. And that would be a real shame – for the industry, the readers and for society at large.

The post Why news publishers should not give up on print appeared first on Press Gazette.

As the advertising technology landscape continues to evolve, 2025 promises to be a pivotal year for programmatic advertising. With Google’s recent announcement about third-party cookies, the ongoing push for enhanced user experience, and AI being stronger than ever, new opportunities continue to emerge. Here industry experts Magali Quentel-Reme (CEO of Opti Digital), Mohsin Pervez (senior director, platform solutions and operations EMEA at PubMatic) and Langdon Miller (director of programmatic at Brainly) share their insights.

Navigating the shift to an effective addressability solution

In 2025, addressability solutions are at the forefront of the digital advertising landscape as the industry accelerates its transition to a cookieless future. With over 50% of third-party cookies already phased out and Google’s pivotal July 2024 announcement granting users control over cookie settings, the race to identify effective alternatives is more critical than ever. While Topics API and protected audiences have been proposed as potential solutions, many experts believe these options remain incomplete, underscoring the ongoing challenge of fully replacing third-party cookies.

Langdon Miller, Director of Programmatic at Brainly, said that “the integration of probabilistic and deterministic IDs, first-party data, contextual segmentation, and bid decoration has led to sustained performance and increased yield.” This observation is echoed on the buy side, where there is an increasing reliance on first-party data and contextual targeting, which have gained traction since Google’s announcement and are now delivering superior results compared to third-party cookies.

As the focus shifts toward these new strategies, publishers are prioritising quality in their offerings to enhance value for advertisers. This emphasises the importance of sell-side curation, encouraging publishers and sell-side partners such as Opti Digital to meticulously curate and filter ad inventory based on metrics such as user attention, click-through rate (CTR), viewability, and contextual relevance.

Reducing ad latency to improve web performance

In 2025, ad latency will continue being a critical focus for publishers as they strive to balance the best monetisation with an optimised user experience (UX). March and August 2024 Google Core Updates already demonstrated the negative impact of slow-loading pages on SERPs, leading to traffic declines for many publishers. According to a study run by Opti Digital, the average ad script on publishers’ websites can weigh up to 1.6 MB and trigger 300 requests on page load.

Magali Quentel-Reme, CEO of Opti Digital, emphasised that “a heavier ad stack leads to lower ad revenue as it slows down ad delivery, decreases ad viewability and CTR, drives users away, and negatively impacts both audience and monetization.” Her company reports observing better results with the ad stack provided by Opti Digital, which is five times lighter and makes ten times fewer requests.

As 63.6% of global internet users primarily browse on mobile, addressing ad latency has become increasingly crucial for publishers. They also wish to maintain good Core Web Vitals and protect their organic traffic from search engines. That’s why many publishers are reducing their reliance on client-side header bidding, and running auctions server-side instead to speed up ad auctions and reduce creatives load times. Additionally, in light of the ongoing shift toward a cookieless future, the value of client-side solutions is diminishing. While server-side connections are known to be more complex to set up, they offer an efficient way to deliver ads faster and improve ad quality KPIs such as viewability and CTR. However, adopting a hybrid approach that combines both client-side and server-side auctions appears to be the best strategy for 2025, as some SSPs still lack compatibility with server-to-server auctions.

Leveraging AI for bid optimisation

Supply Path Optimisation (SPO) emerged as a key trend in 2023 and 2024, focusing on simplifying the supply path in programmatic advertising, reducing the number of intermediates in the chain to make it more efficient. However, the real objective goes beyond merely keeping the direct paths; it is about identifying the most efficient routes that bring added value to both advertisers and publishers. This is where traffic shaping and machine learning algorithms become essential.

If an SSP were to receive 50 billion impressions daily across publishers and send the corresponding bid requests to 100 DSPs without any traffic shaping, this would lead to an untenable five trillion bid requests. This level of volume can lead to significant infrastructure waste, as ultimately, only one DSP can win each auction. As Mohsin Pervez, Senior Director of Platform Solutions and Operations, EMEA at PubMatic, notes: “By analysing past bid patterns, traffic shaping helps SSPs identify underperforming bids and prevent unnecessary requests, simplifying the entire supply chain.”

Additionally, publishers can also leverage traffic shaping on their side by filtering out non-responsive SSPs, further ensuring a more optimised bidding process. This bilateral approach allows both SSPs and publishers to enhance their overall efficiency and drive better outcomes

As the digital advertising landscape continues to evolve in 2025, addressing the challenges of a cookieless future, improving ad latency and user experience and optimising the supply path will be essential for publishers and advertisers alike. By embracing innovative approaches, leveraging data-driven automation, and focusing on quality and efficiency, industry players can navigate this dynamic environment and unlock new opportunities for growth.

The post Adtech trends for 2025: What publishers need to know appeared first on Press Gazette.

Flip-Pay, a leader in content monetisation solutions for print and digital media, today announced partnerships across a range of industries and markets.

Fantasy sports platform dfsPro.ai, political news site Euractiv.com, classic car community Escuderia.com, and US business publication NH Business Review (NHBR.com) have all chosen to work with Flip-Pay to drive online registration and reader revenue.

This expansion showcases Flip-Pay’s flexibility to work across varied user cases, from sports betting and AI-driven tools to B2B political analysis and niche specialist communities.

From major publishing companies like Mediahuis to independent titles such as Escuderia, Flip-Pay’s suite of content monetisation platforms can scale to meet the specific needs of any publisher, regardless of size or focus.

Flip-pay’s latest deployments

Flip-Pay’s latest deployments exemplify the company’s strength in providing flexible, scalable solutions across industries:

Managing complex subscription strategies in fantasy sports market

Flip-Pay partnered with Heavy.com to launch a game-changing monthly subscription offering that brings the power of AI to DFS/Daily Fantasy Sports players. With a subscription model optimised by Flip-Pay’s advanced management tools, dfsPro brings cutting-edge technology such as a first-of-its-kind generative-AI research assistant to the fantasy sports market. This collaboration highlights Flip-Pay’s ability to manage complex subscription strategies in fast-moving, high-engagement verticals like sports and gaming.

Premium subscription plan for political news site

In partnership with Mediahuis, Flip-Pay facilitated the relaunch of Euractiv, a leading European political news platform.

With new premium subscription offerings, including Euractiv Pro for policy professionals and Euractiv+ for general readers, Flip-Pay’s flexible solutions helped Euractiv adopt a subscription business model that meets the needs of both B2B and B2C audiences. This demonstrates how Flip-Pay enables global publishers to monetise specialised content across various readership.

Registration and paywall for classic car publisher

Spanish-language classic car site Escuderia.com tapped into Flip-Pay’s expertise to implement a seamless registration and paywall, capturing reader information for targeted marketing.

The efficient setup allowed Escuderia to retain its unique voice while expanding its email list and maximising revenue potential. This project underscores Flip-Pay’s ability to support niche markets with customised, data-driven solutions that respect the specific requirements of each audience.

Integrated print/digital subscriptions platform for US business title

Flip-Pay partnered with Yankee Publishing, Inc. to enhance and provide additional subscription and content access offerings to respected American business magazine NH Business Review, providing a fully integrated platform that addresses both digital subscriptions and print delivery. This collaboration highlights Flip-Pay’s strength in working with established media brands, helping them modernise their operations while preserving their legacy.

Customisation is core to Flip-Pay

A key factor behind Flip-Pay’s success is its deep commitment to understanding each publisher’s unique needs and delivering tailored solutions that are both robust and easy to manage.

From advanced tools that handle subscription models to print delivery and single-copy sales, Flip-Pay offers flexibility that can adapt to future demands while ensuring ease of use for clients.

Flip-Pay’s recently announced market-leading product, NOVUM, plays a critical role in this approach, offering a scalable and customisable platform that has been well-received so far by media companies of all sizes.

Whether partnering with large corporations like Mediahuis or smaller independent publishers, Flip-Pay ensures that its technology meets the specific growth targets of each client, helping them stay competitive in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Maximum revenue, minimum risk

At the heart of Flip-Pay’s strategy is a collaborative approach with its partners.

The company’s forward-thinking technology, combined with a commitment to delivering high-impact results, enables publishers to thrive in highly competitive markets.

Flip-Pay’s global success is driven by its ability to work with partners in a wide range of sectors, from e-commerce and education to gaming and government.

As digital content consumption continues to evolve, Flip-Pay remains dedicated to providing innovative, future-ready solutions that help media companies maximise revenue while minimising deployment risk.

About Flip-Pay

Based in Dublin (Ireland) with North American headquarters in New York City, Flip-Pay has been a leader in developing innovative, award-winning content monetisation solutions for publishers.

Find out more.

The post Business and specialist titles opt for Flip-Pay to power paid content appeared first on Press Gazette.