News Corp Australia’s managing director of national sales Lou Barrett has announced a number of significant innovations.
At the company’s second virtual marketing event for advertising, marketing and media executives, Decoded, Barrett unveiled:
• Targeted Time in View: An Australian market-first offering allowing advertisers to buy blocks of time with their target consumer through News Corp Australia’s inventory on a cost-per-hour basis, guaranteeing quality attention in front of the people they want to buy or use their product or service.
• Lead Generation: A new ad product enabling quick and easy lead capture without consumers having to leave the page or content they’re engaged in on News Corp Australia’s digital network.
• Shop Centre: A new end-to-end e-commerce management solution run by News Xtend that takes the hassle out of managing multiple marketplaces for retailers and their e-commerce offering, from storefront setup, product inventory and advertising to drive sales in critical digital marketplaces including Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Google Shop and Shopify.
Enhancements to News Connect, which launched in 2015, were also announced including enhanced campaign analytics and product booking that improves the user experience and delivers greater reporting effectiveness.
Barrett said: “There’s a huge amount of innovation being driven in our business, increasing the value and expertise in our data and digital offering to provide strong, measurable results for our clients and partners.
“Driving real cut through is a major concern for every client we talk to, there’s plenty of noise out there, and they need to make sure their message is heard loud and clear.
“The strategic digital and data solutions launched today are all designed to grow our clients’ businesses. They are built on insights and advice, strategy, audience segmentation and creative advertising solutions and messages that are audience-led and they’re delivered in premium environments that consumers trust.
“We are committed to helping our clients gain and retain the attention of their target customers, ensuring their awareness, building their consideration and driving them to action.”
Following presentations from Paul Blackburn, general manager digital revenue & marketing solutions, and Suzie Cardwell, general manager data & ad product solutions, the Decoded event also included a panel discussion about the attention economy, why it matters to our lives and how we got here. The panel featured top digital marketing experts Antonia Farquhar, head of content, media and data at Nestlé; Professor Karen Nelson-Field, CEO and founder at Amplified Intelligence; and Kate de Brito, editor-in-chief of news.com.au.
Four breakout sessions were also available for clients to visit at the conclusion of the presentation showcasing:
Content Marketing – Make your content marketing work even harder
Data – The death of the cookie
NewsCast – Australia’s leading premium, original content podcast network
News Xtend – News Corp Australia’s digital marketing services agency solution
New innovations and enhancements launched at Decoded
Targeted Time in View
An Australian publisher-first offering allowing advertisers to buy News Corp Australia inventory on a cost-per-hour basis. This new product guarantees advertisers quality attention in front of their target consumer, with 100% of their message in view in contextually relevant environments. Or they don’t pay.
General manager data & ad product solutions Suzie Cardwell said: “News Corp Australia’s digital audience network already delivers more time with audiences than any other commercial network. In fact, according to Nielsen, sites like news.com.au provide 32% more time than our closest commercial competitor.
“It’s that length of engagement that allows us to now guarantee our customers time with their target audiences. In a market-first, this game-changing product allows us to offer clients the ability to buy blocks of time with their target consumers.
“Want 20,000 hours of exposure to tech enthusiasts, main grocery buyers or perhaps home improvers? We won’t just deliver it, we’ll guarantee it, and only ask customers to pay if their ads have been seen by that audience for that full 20,000 hours. We’re calling it Targeted Time in View, or TTIV and it’s the new way to buy your customers’ attention.”
Lead Generation
A new ad product that enables quick and easy lead capture without interrupting the user journey on the News Corp Australia digital network, which has an audience of 12.2 million every month. Through deep audience understanding and targeting via News Connect, this product provides clients with a direct stream of qualified leads.
Cardwell said: “Finding customers at the right time, when they’re likely to be receptive and keeping them as you ask them to click away from the environment they’re already in is challenging. Drop off rates can be up to 90% between clicking on a call to action and moving to another site.
“Our new Lead Generation product allows clients to put their call to action in front of engaged audiences in our relevant digital environments without asking them to leave the page or content they’re engaged in.
“Using simple formats in-article and on-page, a future customer can simply enter their details into a short form, right where they are, then continue reading or watching undisturbed. We collect these details, making sure we get the consumer to consent to their information being shared, and then we make them available to the client, ready to contact.
“Clients only pay for the leads we send them. Lead Generation is a great new way to help fill the sales pipeline.”
Shop Centre
A new end-to-end e-commerce management solution helping retailers manage their e-commerce offering. Run by News Corp Australia’s digital marketing agency News Xtend, which manages storefront setup, product inventory and advertising to drive sales in various marketplaces, optimising each shopfront or marketplace listing, their inventory and the promotional drivers to get customers to it.
Cardwell said: “2020 has redefined the way we shop. The last six months have seen an exponential increase in online sales, and now is the time to take advantage of this shift in consumer behaviour and ensure your products can be found online in as many marketplaces as possible.
“Shop Centre is a unique new end-to-end ecommerce inventory and marketplace solution suite that puts our clients’ products in front of the right people, in the right place, right now.
“Products need to be in the shopfront of multiple virtual stores and Shop Front has been designed to make sure our customers’ products not just appear, but appear the right way, across Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Google Shop, Shopify and more. All of this is run by our News Xtend team, taking the hassle out of managing the multiple marketplaces they now need to be on to maximise results.”
Campaign Analytics
News Connect’s enhanced Campaign Analytics now allows clients to visualise their results in real time with a live feed through the News Connect dashboard from the start of any digital campaign that they run with News Corp Australia.
Product Booking
All new innovations are available on the enhanced News Connect platform from today, with increased buying functionality enabling ease of transaction to save time and effort. News Connect’s user-friendly environment now features improved self-serve capabilities to plan, book and measure: sponsorships, the new Time in View product, Cost Per Completed View (across News Corp and Unruly), and social video and social stories.