Süddeutsche Zeitung engages subscribers with a personalised year-in-review

By Elisabeth Gamperl

Süddeutsche Zeitung

Munich, Bavaria, Germany

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It all began in 2022 when a group of individuals from various Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) teams came together at a one-day hackathon.

Pooling their talents and perspectives, they brainstormed how to enhance readers’ interaction with our content through gamification. Within a day, the concept and a prototype of a personalised year-in-review were born.

The the concept and a prototype of a personalised year-in-review came together within one day.
The the concept and a prototype of a personalised year-in-review came together within one day.

One year later, in December 2023, SZ published the “SZ Jahresrückblick” for subscribers.

This feature transforms each reader’s browsing history into a personalised narrative, spotlighting the articles and sections that resonated most with them. The development of the personalised year-in-review was a collaborative effort between the SZ Innovation Lab and the analytics team.

The aim of this project was to celebrate a year together as a partnership between the readers and SZ, highlighting a shared journey rather than just a business connection.

Defining the project

For the concept, it was important to develop a good set of categories and define the threshold values, determining when categories should be displayed to subscribers and when not.

Our aim was to motivate our readers, not to potentially demotivate them with results that didn’t meet their expectations. That’s why we decided only to generate year-in-reviews for subscribers who had been with us for at least three months and exceeded a certain number of articles read.

The personal annual review can be generated once logged in with an active SZ Plus subscription by clicking on “Start Review.” At the outset, it may not have been the most crucial feature, but something our project team found quite charming: Once the review was generated, animated confetti popped up all over the user’s screen.

Once the year-in-review is generated, animated confetti pops up on the user’s screen.
Once the year-in-review is generated, animated confetti pops up on the user’s screen.

Night owl or early bird?

Subscribers receive an evaluation of their year across seven categories. These give readers detailed analyses of their reading habits, from their top 10 preferred topics of 2023 to their total reading time in minutes and their favourite news articles and sections.

The review provides a detailed analysis of reading habits, from their top 10 preferred topics of 2023 to their total reading time in minutes and their favourite news articles and sections.
The review provides a detailed analysis of reading habits, from their top 10 preferred topics of 2023 to their total reading time in minutes and their favourite news articles and sections.

Personally, my preferred category was the favoured reading time. Readers learned whether they tended to read SZ in the evenings, leaning toward being a night owl, or were more of an early bird, enjoying SZ.de articles right after waking up. (Spoiler: According to the feature, I enjoyed reading the SZ primarily on Thursday afternoons in 2023.)

The gamification factor

By incorporating gamification elements such as badges for notable achievements, like being in the top 1% of readers, the year-in-review adds a fun and engaging dimension to the reading experience. Immediate evaluation of engagement metrics underscores the project’s focus on enhancing user interaction.

Moreover, subscribers can generate sharing cards for each section, enabling them to showcase their achievements and increase visibility on social media.

We built this feature using our in-house storytelling content management system, which allows us to easily create visually intricate stories.

Increasing click-through rates

This project demonstrated remarkable user engagement: 75% of subscribers who visited the year-in-review page successfully generated a personal year-end review. Overall, this resulted in 10% of all eligible subscribers — those who had been with us long enough and actively consented to data processing to generate a review — using the feature.

Furthermore, the click-through rates on recommended articles consistently outperformed those of our automatic recommendations, falling between 10% and 15%.

Social sharing of personalised insights further amplified user engagement and attracted new readers to explore SZ’s offerings.

Notably, the project’s impact was evident on its launch day and during subsequent newsletter distributions, indicating its resonance among subscribers. Due to its success, plans are underway to continue the project in 2024.

Build the right team

I’d like to highlight the importance and effectiveness of implementing the project within an interdisciplinary team of data scientists, journalists, designers, developers, and test engineers. I am confident that such a project is only possible when individuals from diverse fields collaborate.

Finally, I want to emphasise that management must also be on board for such a project and be willing to give the green light for the launch. Courage is crucial for fostering innovation.

About Elisabeth Gamperl

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