Native content from a ecosystem perspective — challenges and possibilities
Native content is and will be an increasingly important part of the business for Mittmedia and the rest of the media industry. This blog post aims at looking at native as any other content, taking some data and platform aspects into consideration, and look at some of the challenges and possibilities in forming a chain of data to prove real business impact from the creation and distribution of native content.
Mittmedias progressive advertising business management is currently in execution of a strategy where native is important, now and in the future, with operations underway.
Firstly, in the shape of an in-house operation where revenues are growing due to our native production expertise and the fact that native is part of the multichannel offering in our high class sales platform/tool Reacher.
Secondly, Mittmedia is operating in the native segment through co-ownership of native content company We are stories.
The work to shape the ecosystem and platforms for Mittmedia has, in the course of the past year, been one of the driving forces in the discussions on the nature of the native segment. Some things have recurred in these discussions and my aim is to share those thoughts.
My goal is to point to observations that seem important when shaping some of the data related logic for native advertisement, not to cover all aspects of native.
Also, I´m not claiming to point to anything revolutionary. These are probably findings that has been made in the advertising and native area by many others. My observations are from the perspective of a legacy local media company. And by the way, I don´t want to give any actual business advice to Mittmedia in how to develop its native operations. Mittmedia has highly competent business people shaping the actual development of native.
Some things worth mentioning
- Advertising. I´m going to try to avoid the ”A” word in connection to native. One of the main standpoints from a data and platform perspective is that native content has a lot more in common with editorial content than with advertising. The conclusion is to avoid describing native as advertising, at all.
- Transparency. Yes, the underlying assumption is that native content and other formats, like editorial dito, will be transparently visualised for end users in products to ensure an understanding of ”what content is what”.
Different KPIs — basically the same job to be done
In different Mittmedia workshops and discussions throughout the spring, a clear conclusion has consistently been formulated as a result of exercises.
Editorial and native content align and have more similarities with each other than when comparing native with other advertising formats. That’s the foundation for working with and extracting value from native content and, after all, the reason that the format is called native. Still, most of us tend to treat native content very much like other advertising formats. Especially when it comes to principles of creating and proving a chain of business value. And here’s where we, from a platform and data perspective, could start thinking differently about native.
For Mittmedia, creating a chain of value for editorial content has actually been the center of our data driven efforts when developing our editorial paid content business in the past years.
With the knowledge derived from the work with editorial paid content and the notion that native is content just like editorial, we´re starting to realise that the business motivations for these two seemingly very different areas, one traditionally journalistic and one the result of a new media landscape, are in fact very similar.
When Mittmedia creates and distributes editorial content to drive value in our paid content business, the job we want the content do do is:
”Acquire customers and build high retention in acquired customer base to a cost in relation to revenue that increases the relative value of each customer.”
When clients are working with, buying, Mittmedias native content to drive value for their products/businesses, the job the clients wants the content to do could be said to:
”Acquire customers and build high retention in acquired customer base to a cost in relation to revenue that increases the relative value of each customer.”
Products and business models are different and KPI:s, value chains and granular metrics will differ, but this could be all about content doing the same kind of job.
Chain of production — the digital ecosystem
The practical consequence of looking at native or editorial content in the same way will most probably be to produce and distribute native content within the same digital ecosystem as editorial.
Luckily, Mittmedia has that very ecosystem at its disposal after having developed and launched it in the past few years.
The Mittmedia production chain of planning, targeting, creating. distributing and evaluating digital editorial content is ready to do the same for native.
The possibilities to work data driven with quality of content would also be the same. The setting of metadata to optimize planning, distribution and analysis could be done the same way.
Also, the same methods of gathering, handling and interpreting data (content, event and user)as we do when it comes to editorial is applicable, if not necessary, in native.
Going beyond metrics to understand actual business impact?
Today, there are a number of common metrics to measure the effects and performance of native content and visualize those metrics for clients.
We use things like “impressions”, “read through”, “stay time” and “unique users” to measure how well a native article has performed.
The estimation and interpreting of advertising metrics are also evolving (for example by way of measuring eye movements in the consumption moment, as briefly shown here).
From a business standard and data perspective, these metrics will probably stay core to Mittmedia in showing clients effects in the consumption of any kind of native content in the future.
But the metrics don’t really tell us much on the actual and direct business impact and effectiveness that native is meant to drive for Mittmedias clients.
Most of the time, they just measure the effectiveness of first exposure.
Occasionally, we dig deeper and try to understand the actual business impact by actively surveying things like increased brand awareness. But these methods are costly, hard to systemize and often difficult to mine to get an answer that will result in clear and conclusive answers.
That means that one of our core missions to enhance the effect of native and catch as well as visualize the actual business impact in a cost effective way, is to find standardized and systemized ways to go beyond metrics and understand if real business value is created.
In short: Together with clients, we need to build a model of understanding and proving actual business impact when producing and distributing native content.
But how?
Could intersectioning conclusions give us some clues?
As said before, paid native content could be seen as designed to do the following job for Mittmedia advertising clients:
”Acquire customers and build retention in acquired customer base to a cost in relation to revenue that increases the relative value of each customer.”
As stated, the same is true for what paid editorial content should do for clients in the Mittmedias paid content business.
Actually, the same principle could in future be a definition of the desired advertising business effect for Mittmedia. One overall business KPI in a data-driven B2B environment could be expressed as:
”Acquiring new advertising clients and build high retention in the acquired advertising client base to a cost in relation to revenue that increases the relative value of each advertising client.”
Things now intersect to maybe give us some possible strategic guidelines on how to develop native solutions and build a data driven business value chain.
- Mittmedia has a good understanding on how to create and distribute editorial content to drive business value in our editorial paid content business.
- The business effect we want native and editorial content to drive could be seen as following the same principles (customer acquisition and retention).
- The advertising business effect Mittmedia wants to drive could from a data standpoint be related to the above (client acquisition and retention).
- We want to work together with clients to construct a chain of data driven evidence where we prove actual business impact for the client (customer acquisition and retention).
- Achieving proven business impact for clients will probably drive the business effect for Mittmedia as defined (client acquisition and retention).
Broken chain of data — huge challenge for a local media company
In trying to do the above, we´ll unavoidably stumble into difficulties. Difficulties well and long known for anyone trying to prove actual business impact in regards to advertising.
How do we know that native content drives the desired acquisition and retention of customers for clients?
Proving this by way of data evidence is a huge challenge, especially hard in a local environment, where business volumes are smaller and the fluctuations in business effect are seldom data mapped. What really caused the sudden influx of people buying shoes on a certain saturday afternoon?
In most cases, the truth is we’re guessing. We simply have no reliable data.
To prove the business impact of native, we would need to establish a databased chain of evidence from distribution of content down to the effect the client wants to see (in our proposed definition, acquisition and retention of customers).
Using our experiences and knowledge gained in the business of paid editorial content, we should probably try to build a funnel that stretches from first exposure of the native content straight down to the clients definition of a customer. Such a construction, though, needs reliable data points all the way down the funnel.
Mittmedia can deliver data points for only until the exposure of content in our ecosystem. Outside it, the ability to create a chain of proven business value in a good funnel is dependent on the digital and datawise abilities of our clients.
That’s not a very comfortable dependency, since it clearly limits our possibility to prove actual impact for clients and thus drive value for Mittmedia.
For some clients, the above isn´t a problem.
They have a digital infrastructure of their own with data points outside the Mittmedia ecosystem and down the funnel that allows them to draw conclusions and act to drive customers down the funnel to ideal state.
In these cases, we may collaborate with clients to evaluate the chain of data and establish an rough estimate of the business effect driven by the campaign.
But that kind of clients are not in abundance in a local environment. The bulk of Mittmedia clients are not digital. They run their business (local stores or other operations) without any data collection.
If we want to create a reliable and analyzable funnel construction together with clients, we will probably need to educate them and maybe even help them with tools to do so.
Offering structures, services and data points
To achieve the latter, we could give clients know-how and advice on how to build or acquire tools for necessary data points.
Or, we could try to offer some of the technical solutions down the funnel. Since we use tools and data to follow and drive customers down the paid content funnel, we could use these to help ad clients?
If we find standardized and systemized ways of doing so, proving actual impact could actually start become feasible.
Especially when more and more retailers (a lot of our local clients are just that) will step or be driven into an e-commerce environment. That environment will in itself be driving data solutions to prove business impact, and it could prove good if we´re proactive in this regard.
Some things that could be part of a systemized chain/funnel to help client understand actual business impact, below.
Mandatory call to action
One way to help building a data chain is to offer call to action drivers in native content that in turn leads to further steps and data points down the funnel.
We might even make it a mandatory standard to create drivers to data points outside the ecosystem and down the funnel.
Offering clients products as arenas and stages in the funnel
From our development in editorial paid content, Mittmedia is skilled in developing public products (sites and apps) to interact with customers, collect and understand data, and drive engagement and business.
Could we use that in offerings to ad clients, Developing sites and apps with relevant information, special offers, engaging content, identification, registering, surveying, and of course collection of data?
If we would help ad clients to drive customers from native content in the Mittmedia products into arenas where they create interaction and create data, they can start to work on business enhancement. Thus we’ve created possibilities of collecting data points in further steps down the funnel.
Collection and understanding of data
Mittmedia has at its disposal a digital ecosystem streamlined to collect, handle, analyze and derive value from content, interaction and user data. Thus, we could offer native content clients to collect, handle and visualize data for a number of reasons:
- Measure and prove business impact.
- Understand relative customer value.
- Target and retarget customers.
- Personalize native content.
- Handle GDPR issues for clients.
Personalization of native content
In the last year, Mittmedia has been hard at work to autonomously personalize distribution of editorial content with the main goal of creating a more relevant mix of local journalism in our digital products. By data, we know that if we succeed in doing so, we will convert and retain more paid content customers to create a sustainable paid content business.
Again, we could see possibilities for native content:
- The job we want editorial paid content and native paid content to do is in principle the same (acquire customers and build high retention in acquired customer base).
- The personalization of editorial content as tested by Mittmedia is proven to drive effectiveness in content consumption and thus acquisition and retention of customers in the Mittmedia paid content business.
The conclusion is that we have good chances at increasing the effectivity of native content if we aim at personalizing the distribution of native content.
Also, since the chain of formatting, producing and distributing native content in the Mittmedia digital ecosystem will be the same as for editorial content, the technical possibilities of personalizing native content are already in place.
One precaution:
When mixing personalization of native content into personalization of editorial content, we are in effect mixing two business models that preferably shouldn´t cannibalize. Something we need to address when we start to test.
Targeting/retargeting
Realising that we must deliver much more possible accuracy for clients to reach the right recipients with their native content. Also realising that we have the means of doing so.
Two possible ways:
- Use the existing audience targeting enabled in our excellent ad platform and sales tool Reacher.
- Use the same kind of anonymized customer data that we use in our paid content business model and offer it for targeting and retargeting to native clients.
If we acknowledge that native content is much closer to editorial content from a data perspective, we could do targeting and retargeting according to alternative no 2.
For example in offering retargeting in follow-up campaigns toward customers/users who has interacted with the content in an initial campaign.
Raising native quality based on data
If we conclude that native content has the same type of mission as editorial content and also might be integrated in the different functions of the ecosystem (for example personalizing) we also need to look at it from a qualitative perspective.
The quality of the editorial content that Mittmedia distributes to drive our paid content product ”Plus” is constantly iterated form a number of qualitative standpoints with the aim to do the job better and better and better.
The value chain of editorial content iterations goes something like this:
- Collection and management of three types of data through our platform Soldr.
- Drawing conclusions with the help of data science and analysis on how content should be designed to drive defined and desired business effect.
- Visualizing conclusions into actionable guidance for editorial staff/production unit and then iteratively communicating with the editorial staff/production unit to raise quality.
The above iterations of raising the quality content should be the same for native as for editorial.
Both because quality content is Mittmedias main business and because the native content will be harboured in our existing ecosystem. Also, if we treat native content the same way that we treat editorial dito, we could be able to use the conclusions from the editorial data to see what kind of content is more engaging among our recipients and proactively start looking for clients in those segments.
Finishing off
So, to conclude for now, these are some of the possibilities regarding native content and it’s potential from a data and platform perspective. There will most certainly be lots more to discuss on this soon.
Thomas Sundgren, Mittmedia head of platforms
Reach me at: thomas.sundgren@mittmedia.se
