NewsCorp

NewsCorp

Media optimisations delivered over $1.7M in cost efficiency savings

Objective

To improve marketing efficiency, get a better understanding of their customer journey and improve business forecasting and planning capabilities.

Solution

We gathered NewsCorp’s data using DataCollector tags which was combined with historical media spend and sales data for offline channels. The results of this data were then displayed and analysed in OptimaHub.

Result

We delivered over $1.7M cost efficiencies due to media optimisations, reduced cost per acquisition by 8%-26% on key mastheads and delivered an ROI of 385%.

the background

Date: 2017

The News Corp Australia marketing team recognised they had a disjointed marketing measurement model as well as a limited understanding of the most effective online subscription customer journey. 

They knew they were at risk of wasting media spend as well as reporting incorrect return on investment figures per channel. News Corp engaged Datalicious to help them optimise online subscriptions and find cost efficiencies in their current marketing program. 

They identified Full-Path Media Attribution combined with Media Mix Modelling to drive future marketing efficiencies; however, their analytics department was engaged with other projects at the time so could not complete the work in-house.  

the objectives

Marketing efficiency

Marketing efficiency
Marketing efficiency

Improve paid marketing efficiency across acquisition channels

Customer journey

Customer journey
Customer journey

Increase actionable understanding of the customer journey before subscription

Forecasting

Forecasting
Forecasting

Improve business forecasting and planning capabilities

the solution

Datalicious gathered News Corp’s digital touchpoint data using independent DataCollector tags deployed via their existing tag management platform. This data was combined with historical media spend and sales data for offline channels. News Corp’s data was then processed and analysed with the results displayed within the OptimaHub marketing attribution and analytics platform. 

The OptimaHub platform helps marketers understand how each channel, campaign or placement impacts sales both online and offline. Developed by Datalicious, OptimaHub is designed to assist marketers in optimising their media budgets and to deliver experiences based on a deeper understanding of how customers behave.  

the results

  • $1M cost efficiencies on search optimisation

The Datalicious attribution model tracked all paid and unpaid channels, and the results suggested News Corp could improve ROI by reducing spend on branded search (SEM). A hypothesis was put forward for measurement – that if SEM spend was reduced, organic search (SEO) traffic would increase and the reduced spend would not impact online subscriptions.

This strategy was put to the test on key mastheads over three months. Proving the hypothesis with correctly attributed data allowed News Corp to implement changes that resulted in cost savings of over $1M without a loss of subscriptions.

  • $700K cost efficiencies testing landing page v subscription page

Datalicious and News Corp also identified an opportunity to increase subscriptions and decrease cost per action (CPA) by changing the strategy for landing pages from search traffic. Datalicious ran a 50/50 test which directed 50% of the traffic to the homepage of mastheads and the remaining to the subscription page. The results were a 30% lift in subscriptions and a 20% reduction in CPA across mastheads. This change resulted in annual savings of over $700K.

  • Budgeted CPA reduced by 26% on key mastheads

Datalicious generated quarterly forecasts for media performance, with an accompanying report on the results, including recommended media optimisations. The recommendations produced were at a channel level as well as at a more granular strategy level. The results of these media optimisations were the reduction of budgeted cost per acquisition across all mastheads by a range of 8% to 26%.

  • Increase in media accountability using full-path attribution

Working with the Digital Acquisition team, Datalicious uncovered the real value of mailers as a channel. Two mastheads, The Herald Sun and The Australian, only credited email with 0.2% of sales using a last-click attribution model. In moving to the full path to purchase model, Datalicious was able to correct this figure to 14% of sales, significantly increasing the value of the email program, which enabled the News Corp team to increase investment in this activity.

  • In summary, Datalicious:
    • Delivered over $1.7M tangible cost efficiencies due to media optimisations
    • Reduced budgeted cost per acquisition by 8%-26% on key mastheads
    • Increased media accountability by changing the success metric from Media Attribution (post impression/post-click) to attributed CPA
    • Provided insights for new acquisition initiatives based on cross-device insights
    • Delivered an annual project ROI of 385%.

Note: monthly pro-rata figures extrapolated to build an annual result.

Find the solution to your challenge

The NZ Herald is focused on keeping Kiwis in the know and now delivering the “next best” article recommendations with our purpose-built engine, has resulted in a more relevant and engaging experience for our audiences than the previous off-the-shelf product. It was a huge collective effort between the Google News Initiative team, Datalicious and NZME to create the engine which sits at the frontier of technology, by utilising AI, machine learning and natural language processing tools. The results have been exceptional for us, unlocking deep insights on article affinity and increasing recirculation rates for audiences. We are looking forward to working with our partners to build on our success, with future iterations of the recommendation engine.

Andy Wylie - Head of Data & Analytics, NZME - 2020

Datalicious have done a fantastic job at stitching our online and offline data together using Google BigQuery. This has seen HUGE change for our business due to being able to track online leads as well as offline revenue data on tour bookings, which we couldn’t do previously. 

As a result, we're changing our business focus and hiring new candidates that specialise in content and SEO to help attribute the right channels to drive more traffic and revenue for us. 

Lina Jimeno, Business Solutions Consultant and Parth Vasoya, Web Analyst from the Datalicious team have done a great job linking multiple data sources together and helping us solve our challenge by closing the loop on data silos for our business. We couldn't be happier!

Marius Wenning - Digital Marketing Strategist, Chimu Adventures – 2019

Datalicious have been instrumental in the development of our overall website ecosystem and strategy at Cancer Council NSW. Brian Do, Technical Consultant and Parth Vasoya, Web Analyst from Datalicious have displayed true resilience in the deployment of our solutions across very complex journeys and have become an extended part of the team. Their Google expertise have enabled us to take our data capabilities to a new level and we look forward to continuing the great work.

Sarah Calderwood - Digital Marketing Manager, Cancer Council NSW - 2019

Google Analytics provides some pre-configured reports to work with, but the ability to customise and build our own reports from scratch is what allows us to gain truly valuable insights from the tool. Thankfully, Datalicious experts have taken the time to create a customised dashboard and make them available for WittyFeed. This is a huge time saver as we have got access to the reports used on a day to day basis just a click away.

Aditi Kothari - Business Development Executive, WittyFeed - 2017

The Datalicious guys are great to work alongside and to have on your team. Their ‘no stone unturned’ approach to finding solutions to challenges, their knowledge and passion for web analytics and best of breed web optimisation was second to none. Big thanks for all your help on our account and for pushing us and our agency partners to keep projects moving. 

Craig Amanti - Digital Performance Manager, Vodafone New Zealand - 2015

Awesome result! Attributed figures before and after media optimisation show a double-digit percentage increase in sales with a reduction in cost per sale at the same time.

Michael Waymouth - Media Strategy & Planning Manager, IAG - 2015

I would love to say that we increased the HI test volume from 30% to 80% because we followed your same rationale; the truth is we increased because we could see next to no volume after we ceased the SEM/PPC test. Good to know that our decision can be backed up with numbers - thanks!” 

Luke Durante - Digital Marketing Manager, Bupa Australia – 2014

Thanks to the Datalicious team for the endurance you’ve all shown to date which has delivered a fantastic outcome. Getting the code implemented with quality and delivered on time provided us with advice around the new implementation and testing. Great teamwork all around. Well done!

Seth Wibisono - Channel Manager, Bupa - 2013

Datalicious’ tag management and Digital Attribution among other vendors’ capabilities helped to enable real-time media buys in digital media channels based on Telstra’s next best offer models and real-time site data, a world first in terms of the depth of complexity and extent of real-time data integration. Datalicious went out of their way to ensure this trial could go live successfully and delivered an outstanding result.

Scott Thomson - Senior Marketing Manager, Telstra - 2013

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