Can reader data drive revenue for publishers?

A panel discussion from the Future of Media Technology 2025 conference.

The Panel

• Mark Edwards, Group Digital Director, Reach
• Andy Morley, Chief Revenue Officer, The Independent
• Stewart Robinson, Founder, Full Fat Things
• Fiona Spooner, Managing Director of Consumer Revenue, Financial Times
• Chair: Charlotte Tobitt, UK Editor, Press Gazette

How much does reader data matter?

Fiona: Is reader data important? Yes, but deep customer relationships and understanding of them is more important. We now have deep, integrated audience segmentation, based on five main groups, which we can offer personalised experiences to. Examples include Weekend Explorers and Perspective Seekers.

Mark: Breadth of data is very easy to get, but going for deeper data points is harder, takes time, and involves more value exchange to get that data.

Andy: We’re doing deep analysis using a range of tools, including Adobe “like most premium publishers”. It should allow us to decide how we land a story. The big story was the French government collapsing, yesterday. We know from the data that those stories don’t resonate with the audience — but doing it through the prism of Brexit does, which is what we did.

Stewart: Publishers are mapping their audience data into their taxonomic view of content, and they’re mapping that against audience interest, to make product decisions.

Is data shared between editorial and commercial?

Mark: From a business and team perspective, there is a divide, and a necessary one. But the data? That’s not two separate things. Editorial and commercial data is one big pile of information that’s used bilaterally among teams. For example, we can see that one bucket of content does really well — but we don’t do much on it. Should we do more?

Fiona: Less a divide, more a mutual respect. And we share data in a very transparent way. For example, we used data to prove that a registered – recognised – free user can be worth £250 to the organisation.

Andy: Our editorial team are very inquisitive about what readers want. For example, they went heavily into EV coverage because the data showed there was an appetite there.

Delivering personalised experiences through data

Stewart: Publishers are leaning into comparing and contrasting segments of consumers. They’re moving from looking just at topics, but topics matched against segments of audience. We can make these product decisions from the data collected by your demographics.

Andy: We’ve always leaned into the platforms. Some premium publishers had that frenemy relationships — but we always thought our job was to publish to as many people globally as we can. But we’re driving towards these more personalised experiences. We knew there was an appetite for shorter, more punchy journalism. We launched Bulletin, which is written by journalists, but curated and edited by AI. It’s created jobs.

Mark: There’s a balance to be struck between personalising, and trapping people into a category. It’s a fine line to walk.

Fiona: We have more products than people imagine, so we built our audience segmentation to make sure that the right people get the right product at the right price — and using Ai to create personalised offers, which has increased conversion and lifetime value — and now we’re looking at this for retention, too. One thing we know drives engagement and habit is the comments section. People read the FT for both the journalism and access to other people’s thoughts on why things are happening. We’re building custom competent to encourage people to join the conversation.

The right offer for the right reader

Stewart: In B2B, the good publishers are trying to build habits where they can. They’re also building good data slowly — so they can provide better services for their customers rather than audiences. In B2C, some more flexible system of converting people when they’re ready to convert is happening — there are some great examples out there. That all comes from the data we’re getting from customers.

Andy: We’re seeing increasing demand from our advertising partners. It used to be all top funnel, reputation stuff. But that’s not enough now. It’s data-led, full-service all down the funnel.

Mark: Attention is a very popular metric right now — but I quite like it because it translates editorial into commercial outcomes. If someone scores higher on the attention scale, it does translate into clicks, views, and ROI. Reader data, if you have enough of it at high enough quality, it allows you to create new revenue opportunities. For example, the back-to-school content allows you to identify a cohort of parents which can be useful for e-commerce offers.

Andy: Working with Buzzfeed and HuffPo has shoed us how important influencer and creators are, and how they can work with our journalists. We have influencers working on our football coverage now. That collaboration, that cross-pollination, is exciting.

Fiona: Some people love the serendipity of FT Edit, some people want a personalised version for them. Editorial are open to using AI for providing customer experiences — so that’s a work in progress.

Gathering data

Stewart: I’ve never met anyone who likes Google Analytics 4. People are doing more in their web system to track this activity. It’s not that complicated. For many years, the most complicated piece of technology on your website is its integration with the ad products. All publishers should be doing that. Lots of publishers gravitate towards WordPress, but it’s time to take a little financial step up from that.

Mark: Joining up data from other services is where most of the value is. You can pay people to do it, but we’re doing it in house. Search and social is slowly going away. For us, then, we’re thinking about other channels of distribution. And about converting users to direct and loyal. It’s all about constantly building that connection with users.

Analysis

Some interesting points here:

• It's really good seeing data being used to inform content strategy. Understanding what's resonating with readers, and what isn't is the first step to getting your balance of content right and, as suggested above, sometimes to finding the angle that will make individual stories work. Of course, make sure you understand why – don't just act on the data in isolation.
• Everyone hates GA4. It's true.
• One of the few explicit references to the journalism/influencer intersection at the conference, even if it was referred to implicitly in an earlier session. But this will be an important theme going forwards.
• Comments! That most-maligned of community features is making a comeback. The equation often didn't stack up when people were using comments merely to drive page views. Moderation costs would wipe out the benefit. But, with sensible community management strategy, that can be part of your retention approach.