Mediengruppe Pressedruck is rethinking digital products.

Our new 360-degree approach of pd digital pursues a clear objective: to maximise the monetisation of journalistic content while ensuring an optimal reading experience. This concept is currently being rolled out across seven online platforms, with promising results.

Historically, the monetisation of digital products in publishing has often followed the “watering can principle”: national display advertising, native ads, and local ads to boost revenue; subscription offers for higher paid-content income; and newsletters for customer retention.

While this setup was designed to generate more revenue each year, it required constant renegotiation between sales, marketing, and editorial teams.

A new approach

 We decided to rethink this process completely. We needed to consider customer journeys more carefully, manage ads and subscription offers more efficiently, and free decisions from day-to-day operational details.

The goal was to create an environment in which all departments were aligned yet able to work independently.

The first step was manual template management at the Augsburger Allgemeine. Freely accessible, often SEO-driven content (“flyby traffic”) was monetised mainly with national inventory.

By contrast, subscriber-only content was marketed less intensively and mainly locally, creating more space for editorial storytelling and the persuasive power of content, which is key to retention. Although technically more of an MVP, the results were convincing. This led to the decision to continue with this approach in an automated, user-centred way.

Revenue-driven design on the pd digital platform

The development of a new content platform at Mediengruppe Pressedruck presented the opportunity to take a significant step forward.

Over the past three years, we have developed and implemented the pd digital platform as a leading system landscape for the editorial core business of our media brands.

This includes functions for planning, creating and publishing content, plus a frontend framework for all digital products (Web sites, apps, newsletters, etc.), along with an integrated setup for third-party services, marketing, data, subscription, and audience management.

This front-end framework was developed using the revenue-driven design approach, which continues the path described above, focusing on maximising revenue per user.

This is achieved by ensuring that not every user sees the same layout of a page or article when visiting the Web site or app. Instead, the number, placement, and content of monetisation elements vary depending on whether the visitor is casual, loyal, or a subscriber.

We believe digital product design must not only look good but also provide the best possible conditions to generate sustainable digital revenues from advertising and subscriptions through our journalism. The overarching goal of revenue-driven design is therefore the best possible monetisation of our offerings, combined with an optimal reading experience and UX for our users.

The concept relies on fully data-driven and personalised decision-making and template delivery for index pages and articles. The process is based on first-party data, runs dynamically in real time, and is fully automated.

For the complex technological execution, a dedicated tech stack was developed in the pd digital hub, combining DMP, CMS, and ad server.

Now, revenue-driven design has been implemented on seven digital assets, including Web sites and news apps produced on the pd digital platform, which include the major media brands such as Augsburger Allgemeine, Allgäuer Zeitung, and Main-Post.

The concept distinguishes between five target groups to which visitors are assigned:

• NoScores: first-time visitors, shown many ad slots, exclusively marketed nationally/regionally.
• LowScores, MidScores, HighScores: users with low, medium, and high loyalty, shown fewer ad slots, marketed both nationally and locally/regionally, may include regional job offers or be used to promote in-house products such as subscriptions or newsletters.
• Subscribers: users with a subscription see a minimum of ad slots, marketed only locally/regionally, with regional job offers or in-house promotions. The focus here is on an undisturbed reading and product experience.

The results after rollout are clear: better ad visibility, higher average CPMs, and more revenue per page impression on the advertising side, as well as increased dwell time per subscriber/day and more page impressions per subscriber per day on the subscription side.

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