190 years of family-owned business, with 6,400 employees working at over 140 subsidiaries across 19 countries and nearly 80% of EBITDA coming from digital… What can Ringier’s success in adapting to, and thriving in, the digital world tell others hoping to do the same?

To maximize their chances of success, the Ringier group established the Global Media Unit (GMU) 2.5 years ago for their general media – which is one out of three business pillars, besides Digital Marketplaces and Sports Media. The unit was built by Ladina Heimgartner as Head Global Media together with Patrick. Made up of 10 executives, most members wear 2 hats, that of their position in the GMU and another playing a more operational role within one of the publications. This allows them to have contributions from experts on a range of topics, covering every link in the media group’s value chain. 

The Global Media Unit goals

• Knowledge exchange: we’re facing the same strategic challenges in every country. We’re better off discussing them together and sharing best practices as well as potential solutions rather than sitting in silos. One of Patrick’s examples was the end to third-party cookies, hence the 1st party data initiative (discussed later in the article) 

• Support through expertise: provide support through experts to all markets, but also the other way around, creating a place to exchange with those working within individual titles, and also benefiting from the corporate power in terms of business, market and trends research

• Access to technology: scaling technology as a group, with cost sharing, such as through Ringier Connect, a Single Sign On solution which is also related to OneLog

• Strategic guidelines: define strategic guidelines to roll out to the whole group, for instance guidelines for maximizing the potential of AI 

But the most important goal is growth. 

For Patrick, COO of the GMU, and the rest of the board, growth is all about building a ridgid user funnel. 

“Growth is all about the funnel”

This concept is fairly new to the group, only introduced when they started talking about registered users and paywalls some years ago, but it has been an increasingly more important way of thinking for growth. 

Why? Because this funnel brings together the two most important digital revenue streams – advertising and subscription. 

As the reader moves through the funnel, they become more engaged which means higher advertising revenue thanks to better targeting, and higher propensity to subscribe. This is particularly the case with registration, a key step in the funnel for Ringier publishers. 

In fact, many titles in the group launch a registration model as a strategy in and of itself before moving to subscription. As Patrick highlighted, media is one of the few industries that doesn’t require readers to register. We need to make it understood that registration doesn’t hurt, it’s actually for the benefit of everyone, both readers and media. But it’s not easy to convince internal teams who often need to be educated on the market context – such as the end to 3rd party cookies – what this means and how strategies such as registration can provide a solution. 

Blick.ch, for instance, can be a role model for titles who are yet to move into digital subscription. As a traditionally reach-strong title, they’ve always been prudent to move into the subscription space because of concerns of the effects of this model on traffic. 

Will registration and subscription damage reach, leading to losses in advertising revenue?

No. If you do it in an intelligent manner you can succeed in both, which has been one of the biggest learnings for Blick, starting with registration before recently moving to subscription with Blick+. 

And this is one of the other benefits for Ringier. Every title is at a different stage of building steps and moving users deeper in the funnel towards high ARPU, but the group provides a space for publishers to learn from one another, always taking into account the local context (although, ultimately, in the bigger picture, we’re all facing similar challenges and the solutions aren’t too dissimilar). 

For example, whilst Blick has only just launched Blick+,  Onet Premium from Poland, has recently launched a bundle, bringing together all their portfolio. 

The 5 R’s of digital transformation

To support these funnel-building efforts and help Ringier titles succeed in digital transformation, the GMU has developed a 5-point strategy framework and built a KPI dashboard with the goal of ensuring that each title is focusing on the developments that will ensure sustainability.  

1. Relevance of the brands, also in comparison with how the rest of the market is performing, measured by weekly online reach and social engagement

2. Reputation of the brands, measured through brand trust and core web vitals

3. Reach – high traffic rates, specifically monthly active users (MAU), monthly share of users > 4 sessions and ranked print reach

4. Revenue – advertising and subscription, of course, but also print, commercial, etc. measured by EBITDA margin, ARPU, sales growth & print sales growth

5. Resilience, both in terms of diversifying revenue and sources of traffic to not be dependent on a single stream, making the titles more resilient to market changes or situations like Covid. This is measured by # significant revenue streams, logged in sessions / total sessions, average time spent / session and healthy traffic

“I am convinced that if you want to succeed as a media brand in the long run, you have to be strong on these five dimensions. And that has become even more true in the context of generative AI.”

Patrick Rademacher

These KPIs are used to build a dashboard clearly indicating the strategic positioning of a title, ultimately helping teams to make more informed decisions, clearly identify where their strong and weak points are and put the work into developing in the right direction. 

So far, the KPIs are only being measured for larger titles as it takes some time to establish and measure the metrics effectively, but a spider web graph gives a good picture of where work is needed for those using this framework so far. 

How do GMU do this effectively with so much diversity between titles?

Traditionally, all markets have a strong local management, but the GMU also aims to foster collaboration and use the learnings from each title to support others facing similar challenges. 

So, they established the GMU senates, bringing together the key decision makers in each field from across the group – advertising, editorial, business development, audience development, product, tech and digital user market. The attendees not only discuss topics of prioritization, learnings and best practices, but also work together in their specific field to align and make common decisions together, with one person from the GMU taking the lead. 

The GMU also organizes an online conference twice a year, bringing together the 120 top media executives at Ringier for a half day knowledge-exchange event with an agenda filled with – internal and external – experts discussing the most important initiatives and projects.

Finally, there’s the GMU initiatives, with roughly 30 projects running at a time, such as the AI, gamification and 3rd party cookies/1st party data initiatives. 

For example: 

The 3rd party cookies/1st party data initiatives

In Patrick’s opinion, there’s a huge gap in knowledge within the whole media industry on the importance of first-party data as well as where a title can collect it and put it to use. 

Some markets are already in the game and collecting data, they just need to put it to use in talking to readers in a more personalized way to move readers deeper down the funnel. But others haven’t started de-anonymizing yet. 

The goal therefore is to close this gap within the Ringier group, making sure that everyone is at the same stage of understanding the context of the end of 3rd party cookies and how they can work towards a solution.  

There are 3 streams to achieve this: 

• Tech – What kind of technology do we need to gather this first-party data? Hence the launch of their technology OneLog / Ringier Connect, for example, to create a single sign-on for readers for the whole media portfolio within a market 
• Product – How do we make sure that we can make use of this data to improve our products? Making use of feedback and analyzing reader behavior etc to make sure products satisfy their needs. 
• Advertising  – How can we make use of 1st party data in terms of advertising, in a responsible, transparent and compliant way? This depends on the tech solution and local context – where the publisher is in their development of the funnel, coming back to diversifying revenue streams. But the topic of bringing together different kinds of data from different sources (e.g. registration vs cookie consent vs subscription) is complex 

What about the AI initiative? 

Patrick is also co-leading the Ringier Group AI Board, together with Petra Ehmann, Chief Innovation Officer. This board was installed by the Ringier Group Executive Board in May. The main objective of this board is to coordinate AI-related activities within the Ringier Group, ensure knowledge exchange around AI, drive promising AI initiatives and define guidelines.

The mission of the AI Board: “We empower the implementation of AI in our products in a responsible way”.

As one of the first media companies, Ringier introduced Group-wide AI guidelines shortly afterwards.

So far, the AI Board is conducting and collecting learnings from general use cases group-wide, defining KPis to evaluate success, and looking at the wider context to see where AI could be most valuable. 

For Patrick, there are 2 main fields for putting AI to use: 

• To support internal processes, gaining speed, improving quality and being more efficient. For instance in translating text
• To build better products that are more suitable to the needs of readers and help achieve the publisher’s goals

Patrick believes that (generative) AI will have a significant impact on the media industry, and he sees a big positive potential of AI for journalism and for the media business in general. At the same time, Ringier is also very conscious of the responsibility that comes along with this new technology, especially when it comes to transparency, journalistic quality, and the trust that our readers and users put into us.

> Patrick recently shared more on the topic of AI and guidelines at Ringier in an article published on INMA’s blog

OneLog is the joint login service for the Swiss Digital Alliance – the federation of the largest Swiss media companies and publishing houses. The single login enables publishers to offer readers a personalized, cross-platform media experience whilst guaranteeing the highest security standards. I spoke to Patrick Rademacher, COO of the Global Media Unit at Ringier AG & Chairman of the Board of OneLog, and Silvano Oeschger, CEO at OneLog, to hear more about this single sign-on solution and how it’s benefiting both Swiss media and their readers.

Back in 2019, whilst at the annual Swiss Media Forum, CEOs of the 5 big media companies decided to come together to solve a challenge faced by publishers across the country (and indeed the world). Namely that the end to 3rd party cookies means that non-logged users are becoming more difficult to address. But knowing who their readers are is vital for product development, personalization and both advertising and reader revenue….

And there’s a pressure to solve this problem before the end of 2024, the already-pushed-back date for Google to discontinue 3rd party cookies.  

So, these media companies decided to launch a project group with the goal of developing a login service to regain a direct relationship between media companies and their users, enabling publishers to improve their 1st party data basis and understanding of their audience.

Testing was run across various publications from October 2019 with title-specific, voluntary logins to discover readers’ propensity to create an account. After seeing the success of these tests and reader’s increased acceptance to log in, the decision was finalized to align on a technological solution. The chosen tech was one developed by Ringier, its in-house technology Ringier Connect which was tailor-made for the specific needs of media brands, and live from August 2021 when other publishers, such as 20 Minuten and Tamedia were onboarded into the solution. 

And, just like that, OneLog was born! 

Today, OneLog has onboarded 47 media brands, including titles from the Ringier and TX Group, and more recently, a joint job marketplace from the Ringier and TX universe, allowing their user base to grow to more than 2.3 million verified accounts.

After an initial phase, when Ringier and TX held 50% of the shares, OneLog is now owned by the four biggest private media companies in Switzerland, Ringier, TX Group, NZZ, and CHMedia. As a result, selected titles of NZZ and CHMedia will migrate to the single sign on solution by the end of the year. In the midterm, all of the shareholders’ titles will switch to OneLog. The fifth founding partner of the Swiss Digital Alliance, the public broadcaster SRG SSR, already uses OneLog as a 3rd party login for its streaming platform PlaySuisse. But this isn’t intended to be the end of the growth. OneLog is open to include all small and medium-sized media companies in Switzerland. 

What are the main benefits of OneLog for media brands? 

The end to third-party cookies is a pain point for all publishing companies, but the perceived urgency varies across brands. So, when the OneLog team works to bring a publisher onto the solution, focus is placed on this lack of data which means products can’t be built with the reader’s needs in mind. 

• A state-of-the-art login solution with the latest features (e.g. FaceID, TouchID), from Switzerland for Switzerland, and one that is easy to integrate as it complies with the standard, with open APIs to connect to other technologies
• Cost sharing – OneLog is not a profit center expansion of the respective 1st party database. However, there is no cross-company data exchange (we’ll come onto that later)
• On this same topic, smaller publishers can benefit from the larger companies in the technological game to keep up with the speed of change
• 100% GDPR compliance 
• All the benefits that come with logging a user. The participating media companies can increase advertising revenue, personalize user experiences, collect first-party data and learn about their audience to improve every aspect of their business. And, of course, registration increases reader propensity to subscribe by up to 40%.

OneLog’s thinking is also that the more media companies who use this solution, the better it is for everyone. Users will only have a single registration before they can log in everywhere. 

“OneLog is a vital component of our registration strategy at Blick Group. For those users who have existing login credentials from any other big media brand in Switzerland, the ability to utilize the same credentials to access our platform removes a significant barrier to entry. This streamlined registration process aids us in broadening our user base. OneLog’s stringent commitment to upholding data privacy and safeguarding user information amplifies the trust our users place in our login infrastructure, a factor critical for fostering strong audience relationships in the digital age.”

Adrian Gottwald, Head of Reader Revenue at Blick Group

What about the benefits for readers? Why should they create an account? 

• Simplicity. With a single registration, users gain access to numerous online offerings from different media companies
• OneLog relies on the highest security standards and, with the option of two-step verification, their account is even more secure (OneLog recently got awarded with the digital trust label for instance). We all know and use Google SSO, but we actually don’t really know what they do with our data. So, the goal is to be a more trusted, secure login system. 
• Personal details can be managed by the user centrally and conveniently in one place (“user cockpit”)
• A state-of-the-art login solution with the latest features (e.g. FaceID, TouchID), from Switzerland for Switzerland

What is the user experience on OneLog? 

I tested this out for myself on a variety of media brands using the OneLog service, and the experience is extremely smooth and simple. 

As the team highlighted, the user’s main touch point is with the publisher rather than OneLog. The goal here is to build trust with individual brands and help readers understand how their data is being dealt with. After all, the publisher’s content is the reason why users come in the first place, and the reason why this should always be the main focus. OneLog is simply the facilitator to get these users registered. 

Whilst the registration page is fairly similar across partners, to keep some kind of consistency, the branding differs based on the publisher’s house style. For example, below is the landing page for registration on L’Illustré and Blick.

After creating an account, I’m emailed to confirm. 

I was then curious as to whether I would be automatically logged into another OneLog publication if I visited their website after having already created an account. 

On Bilanz’s website, for example, I arrived on the homepage and wasn’t automatically logged in. However, upon clicking on the ‘Account’ icon in the header, I was presented with a OneLog page that asked me if I’d like to link my existing account. At this stage, I have the chance to provide further information (for personalization reasons, as the first step only required my email and password) as well as accept the terms and conditions of this specific brand.  

How is OneLog already benefiting publishers? 

Marc Isler, CRO at Tamedia, shared how they’ve been using OneLog since 2020 rather than self-building a login solution. They also strongly believe that an independent Swiss solution for login will bring value to users across Swiss media platforms. 

This decision has also proved valuable for their reader revenue model: 

Logging in users and getting them to try the [premium] product for free for two weeks has helped us a lot to grow our known user base, who we can then target, primarily through email, both with a specific registration onboarding journey and then with subscription offers. 

We have really focussed on a full registration strategy for anonymous users first, then converting them into subscribers after the 14 day trial phase. In summer last year, we realized that, in the post-covid period, we needed to test more flexible approaches – so we mixed in special longer term subscription offers also for anonymous users and have gained really strong results in directly converting them. 

Those results gave us confidence to move away from the two-step strategy and we have implemented the direct subscription offers based on Piano’s propensity model (LTS) in March, offering a 1-month free trial to lower and no score groups. So far the results look great. What we have changed now is to use the login mechanism for all new newsletter subscribers and we have further testing planned for low LTS cohorts to first push them specifically to the editorial newsletter sign ups, as we see very strong results in general of subscription conversions coming from our editorial newsletters.

We generally manage to convert 3-8% of our registered users to subscribers – and we’re getting better and better at it. OneLog as an industry standard has certainly helped us, as user acceptance for logging in has increased with it, but also the habit of logging in with OneLog (easy and secure).

What about data sharing between publishers and OneLog? 

There is no data lake. Every company is in charge of its own first party data. 

Of course, this is a limitation of OneLog as it’s every advertiser’s dream to have access to this kind of data lake. But it’s also the beauty of the solution’s game. Privacy for readers is a priority, and OneLog only collects the data necessary for a secure and user-friendly login service. 

There are two kinds of data collected: 

• The basic data collected by OneLog that is required for registration are e-mail address, password, if applicable surname, first name, title
• OneLog also stores additional data on behalf of individual partners. But this data is only accessible to the respective partner, allowing each publisher to build up their own first-party strategy.

One of the next steps for OneLog is also to evaluate password-less options which could potentially provide more security for the platform, but they’re seeing how the adoption goes in the market. 

Ultimately, this is the proof of concept that industry alliances can work and prove beneficial for both publishers and readers. 

“This is a very important message. There are so many fields where we do not compete with each other, where the real competition is somewhere else, where we can share costs, for example, or work together for the sake of the whole industry… it’s this that we’re trying to achieve here.”

Patrick Rademacher, COO of the Global Media Unit at Ringier AG & Chairman of the Board of OneLog 

Thank you very much to Patrick and Silvano for taking the time to talk to me! I think the OneLog model is a brilliant example to set for the rest of the world to follow.

Blick is a Swiss German- and French-language daily newspaper with 1.3M users/day and an impressive registration strategy that has led to over 600K logged users. 

I recently spoke to Adrian Gottwald, Head of reader revenue, and Bettina Widmer, Head of Vertical Hub, about their diverse (and very impressive) registration acquisition strategy, the tests and learnings so far and their plans for the future, including the planned launch of their first digital premium product.

Registration acquisition channels: 

Thanks to this diverse range of potential entry points, Blick has acquired 660,000 logged members, and counting.

> You’ll also enjoy: Keep calm, carry on, and launch a registration wall

The 6 registration acquisition channels in more detail:

1. Raffles: 33.1%

Blick has gained a unique reputation in Switzerland for organizing raffles, doing so in partnership with widely recognized sponsors to offer enticing prizes. To support the publisher’s business model, participation requires registration and these users will also receive a dedicated raffle newsletter with the goal of increasing frequency of visits, encouraging future participation and sharing success stories from winners. 

Although the team were originally concerned that registered users acquired through this channel would simply enter a draw and never return, the result is in fact the inverse and raffle users have been found to be one of the most engaged audience segment, continuing to come back to Blick content. Given the importance of this user group to the publisher’s sustainable growth, the team is now prioritizing this acquisition strategy.

Adrian’s team’s deep analysis of their registered audience has also proven that, despite a 50:50 gender split amongst overall Blick users, many engagement elements are clearly male-dominated, including commenting (75.9% male) and the registration wall (67.9% male). However, raffles are a lot more balanced between the genders, making them an essential strategy to engage and activate Blick’s female users. As Adrian highlighted, there’s therefore still a lot of potential in their raffle strategy and data shows that it’s difficult to activate female readers through other formats. 

Experimenting with raffles: 

To increase registrations through this source, the team tested an on-site pop-up.

The hypothesis was that readers would be encouraged to enter thanks to a highly visible, closable wall on the article level:

The result, however, was that conversion rates proved to be very low. Arguably, the transactional strategy with no immediate value exchange didn’t prove convincing enough for readers to give away their data. What’s more, the overlay could well have been perceived as advertising by readers, reducing the perceived quality of the content. Or, quite simply, digital readers aren’t the right target audience for this lottery strategy. It’s perhaps more suites to print readers, who tend to be older.

2. Direct source: 15.9%

This refers to users creating an account directly via the login button in the header of the page. It may be surprising that this figure is so high, but Blick has an impressive 619k loyal readers who visit everyday meaning a large percentage of their audience have a high propensity to convert.

3. Comments & community: 14.5%

Comments play a key role in community building, helping to establish and incite conversations between users and editorial. On Blick’s website, commenting is reserved for registered members, and anyone wishing to add their opinion will need to create an account.

Worth noting: Laws regarding commenting in Switzerland are very tight – even if Blick isn’t the author of a comment on their site, the publisher will take responsibility for it. For this reason, the company has 20+ team members dedicated to moderating comments!

4. Registration wall overlay: 9.9%

Blocking articles with a registration wall establishes a value exchange whereby users are asked to create a free account in order to read content, as well as benefit from the other features of registration. 

For Adrian, testing is key here. 

Testing the user journey: 

The team ran tests on small user groups to find the optimal journey for converting visitors into registered users without negatively affecting engagement:

• No registration wall

• Soft, closable registration wall
• Hard registration wall (content can only be accessed by registering)

Results:

Like many publishers, there were originally concerns that the hard wall would turn users away. But results proved that, despite the slight increase in bounce rates and returns to the homepage, conversion rates increased to 3% compared to 0.2% with the soft wall. This test therefore provided a proof-of-concept, helping to convince the internal team of balancing the value of a harder strategy (high conversion rates) vs slight decreases in engagement metrics.

Testing wall copy:

The wording on the registration overlay also plays a valuable role in converting users, so the team tested 3 different copies to compare against the control group. 

Control group = “sign up and benefit” – very transactional and simple with a list of benefits of registering. 

Hypothesis = a user asks themselves here if it’s really worth signing up, what value do they gain?

The 3 variations: 

• Social proof: “Over 500,000 Blick readers already have an account with us and use the full potential of Blick.ch”

• Appreciation: “Thank you for visiting us”

• Congratulations (only shown to the loyal reader segment): “Congrats! You belong to the 10 percent of our most loyal users on Blick.ch” – personally, I loved this variation. I think it’s a brilliant strategy to target your most engaged readers and make them feel valued, increasing their likelihood to support you in the future (i.e. partake in value exchanges such as subscription)

All 3 versions were successful in increasing conversion rates in comparison to the control group. 

5. Search function: 7.9%

Interestingly, the search function is placed behind a registration wall, encouraging conversions and adding an additional feature to the list of benefits of creating an account.

6. Event verticals: 26Summits (5.2%) and Winter Awards (4%)

According to Bettina, there are 2 main hobbies shared by the wide majority of Swiss inhabitants – hiking and skiing. 

With this in mind, her team worked to develop 2 verticals around these highly emotional topics, aiming to acquire new visitors and registered members, increase monetization through sponsorships and be present where Swiss people are, connecting the offline and online worlds. 

26 summits Blick’s hiking vertical

Launched in 2020 during the Covid pandemic, Blick’s hiking campaign challenges individuals to hike 26 peaks in each of the 26 regions of Switzerland, scanning the QR code at the peak, gaining points and prizes (for every hike you win a prize, such as a voucher for partner stores or a hiking product). 

26 summits has its own site with descriptions of each hike, the route, level of difficulty, etc.

Of course, in order to participate, you need to create a free account with Blick.

26 Summits is promoted through a variety of channels to encourage participation: 

• Through Blick itself – articles about mountains and hiking that link out to the platform and registration 
• Social media (Instagram, Tiktok, ect.) – both on Blick’s and a 26 summits account
• In a paper magazine as a supplement to the Blick Sunday newspaper (Sonntags Blick), to a partner newspaper in the French-speaking part of Switzerland (L’Illustrée) and available in stores owned by the publisher’s main partner, a sports retailer
• Flyers in hiking spots, and the QR codes themselves that hikers will see at each peak
• Display and print ads

The results: 

• 3.3 million page views on 26summits.ch
• 1.8 million unique users
• 25k registrations (just over 1% conversion rate. There’s a bit more friction in this conversion process as you have to climb to register!)
• 4.3 survey reviews showing great user feedback 

The next steps for Blick’s hiking vertical: 

User feedback has been very positive, so much so that participants would like to connect with each other to hike together and discuss routes. This has led the publisher to recently launch the 4th edition of 26summits with its own Facebook group! 

Winter Awards – Blick’s snowsports vertical

The Winter Awards celebrate the best ski resorts in Switzerland across 6 different categories and with an exclusive, B2B event held for the first time in 2023 to announce the winners and run expert talks. Out of the 171 ski resorts in the country, 76 participated last season, each running campaigns to encourage people to vote. 

As with the hiking campaign, users need to register to vote but will also be entered into a raffle to potentially win prizes from Blick sponsors. 

The promotional strategy for Blick’s Winter Awards is very clever – each ski resort is encouraged to activate their community, bringing them to Blick to vote with the incentive of potentially winning an award, gaining notoriety and 85,000 francs worth of advertising placement on Blick. On top of this, like for 26 Summits, the publisher has a variety of promotional channels:

• Blick publish articles on snow sports to link back to the Winter Awards site
• Media coverage 
• Social media
• Display ads 
• Promotional material (stickers, posters and digital ads) is sent to participating ski resorts

Results: 

• 912k page views
• 19k registrations (easier to get registered users than 26 Summits)

Going further with their reader revenue strategy

Registration has proved incredibly valuable to Blick as a strategy in and of itself, allowing for data collection and testing of engagement and conversion strategies to better understand their audience. And this is going to prove even more useful in the coming months and years as the publisher is working to launch their premium product. 
However, thanks to already having over 600k logged users, a significant percentage of their audience already have a high propensity to subscribe in the future. Data from other publishers has proved this – at L’Équipe in France, free registered members are 13 times more likely to subscribe, whilst The Independent has told us how their de-anonymized users are 45 times more likely to subscribe.