Case Study: Stuff, NZ
Watching That helps New Zealand publisher grow monetisable impressions and increase revenue 15%
The Background
Stuff connects with 3.5 million Kiwis every week. Its products and services include NZ’s number one news site Stuff.co.nz, a range of much-loved newspapers and magazines, as well as Neighbourly and Stuff Events. Proudly New Zealand-owned, Stuff leverages its trust and scale to deliver quality news, content and experiences that help make Aotearoa a better place. Stuff looks for opportunities to diversify into new categories and revenue streams to ensure it continues to deliver its award-winning, independent journalism.
The Challenge
Through a strategic review it was established that Stuff wished to prioritise monetisation levels across its video inventory. Whilst it was clear that there was an opportunity to make more money in this high-growth environment, Stuff had little real-time information on the performance of its video content. They knew they needed to improve on ad funded video performance but current tools were not providing the required actionable insights. For example, end of month roll-up reports provided limited opportunities to take action and influence performance.
The Solution
By implementing Watching That, Stuff was able to very quickly see which versions of video players and which page positions were driving the most video views. By taking action through the visualised data performance metrics provided by Watching That reports, Stuff implemented changes to rapidly grow the volume of monestisable impressions.
In addition, Stuff was able to quickly see which videos were driving the greatest views and ensure that this type of content was prioritised and repeated. Rather than waiting until the end of month to get a retrospective view, the live reporting provided by Watching That meant immediate action could be taken to remediate or adjust. Using the platform they were able to identify malformed ad creatives and troubleshoot with SSP’s, identify variables within the ad tag that were inhibiting successful ad responses and adjust the floor price to respond to market demand.
The Results
Taking actions as a result of the insights from Watching That Stuff has realised 100% growth in monetisable impressions across their inventory. Within a few weeks, the increase in monetisable video impressions had increased revenue by over 15% and this growth continued over several months.
Stuff was able to quickly identify specific issues in its ad tech set up (for example a default floor rate that was blocking significant demand) and take action to prevent revenue loss. Viewability was also significantly improved (by 20%) by making real time adjustments.
The Future
“By implementing Watching That, we have been able to identify and build a strategic growth plan for our video revenue. Watching That has been instrumental in helping us to understand how and where we can make revenue gains and as a support to our Ad Tech products has delivered an outstanding return on investment.”
“In the ad funded digital video environment, you often don’t know what you don’t know. Watching That has been able to open up those blind spots and provide us with real time, actionable insights and driven a genuine revenue upside for us.”
