C A S E S T U D Y

LAGARDÈRE ACTIVE OPTIMISES CONTENT AND BOOSTS ORGANIC TRAFFIC 5X.

2AT INTERNET / CASE STUDY / LAGARDÈRE ACTIVE

INTRODUCTIONLagardère is a French media group with wide international reach. The number one press and magazine publisher in France, its assets include 27 press titles, 22 radio stations (Europe 1, RFM, Virgin Radio, Radio Zet…) and 12 television stations worldwide (Canal J, Gulli, June, MCM…). Lagardère is also France’s leading producer of audio-visual content via its subsidiary Lagardère Entertainment.

In the digital sphere, Lagardère is France’s 4th-largest media group online, in terms of audience, and the 2nd-largest on mobile, with properties like LeGuide.com, BilleReduc.com, Boursier.com, Doctissimo.fr, Elle.fr, Europe1.fr, Public.fr, and Sports.fr.

Here’s a quick look at the scope of Lagardère’s digital presence:

Client Lagardère Active

Industry Media

Vendor AT Internet

Key numbers • 35 websites, 50 tablet apps, 100 mobile apps • 19 million unique visitors online (2014) • 5.3 million unique visitors on mobile

Solution • Analyzer III

Benefits

• Organic traffic from search engines to ELLE.fr grew 5X. • Journalists get real-time results for their articles and adopt analytic approach.• Immediate and long-term traffic

growth – traffic constantly increased over a year-long period.

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C A S E S T U D Y

LAGARDÈRELagardère Active successfully navigates its shift to digital analytics, boosting traffic and implementing a data governance strategy among its editorial teams.

3AT INTERNET / CASE STUDY / LAGARDÈRE ACTIVE

CHALLENGELagardère’s main challenge is making the most of its digital data to achieve concrete business objectives:

• Grow and develop audience by boosting visibility on search engines, notably by achieving higher organic ranking on Google News.

• Improve reader satisfaction and loyalty by better understanding the audience’s content needs and behaviour on sites.

• Optimise sales revenue by pulling all monetisation levers. The challenge here lies in enriching and accentuating the value of editorial content based on very precise user information (profiles, socio-demographic data, interests…). By developing this innovative approach, Lagardère could draw more value from its ad space – even if traffic volumes remained unchanged – thanks to a better qualified audience.

These objectives keep with Lagardère’s overall approach of an editorial strategy governed by data.

“Even if traffic volumes remain unchanged, a better-qualified audience means higher-value ad space.”

4AT INTERNET / CASE STUDY / LAGARDÈRE ACTIVE

SOLUTION In 2012, Lagardère implemented AT Internet’s analytics solution in order to unify and standardise measurement across all its digital properties (websites and applications) using a single platform. AT Internet has therefore become Largardère Active’s official tool for measuring all aspects of its digital perfor-mance. After implementing AT Internet’s solution, Lagar-dère relied on its own internal service entirely dedicated to digital analytics activities: the Analytics Centre, whose ob-jective is to promote and guide the establishment of a true data-driven culture within the company. To meet this chal-lenge, several concrete optimisation actions were taken. ENRICH THE CMS FOR JOURNALISTS

Step 1: Facilitate access to data

It was necessary to break down technical barriers, fa-cilitate understanding, and promote widespread use of analytics data. Lagardère’s content management system (CMS) was directly linked to AT Internet’s sys-tem via the API so that Lagardère’s journalists could consult the data directly from their editorial platform:

Analytics data is pushed directly, in real time: For each article, journalists get highly precise scoring and can track performance and readership over time.

“Analytics data is pushed in real time to journalists. For each article, they get highly precise scoring and can track performance and readership over time.”

5AT INTERNET / CASE STUDY / LAGARDÈRE ACTIVE

STEP 2: MAKE THE MOST OF EXISTING CONTENTBefore analytics governance was adopted at Lagardère, an article’s life cycle ended upon publication.

But thanks to the implemented system, journalists can now enrich their content by making the most of their articles’ ex-posure. For example, by tracking the trends of all versions of an article over the past 8 hours, a journalist can update, modify, develop or refine his or her content to respond to a particular buzz or hot topic of the moment.

BUILD EDITORIAL DASHBOARDS This second layer of optimisation offers a wider view and greater tracking of traffic, notably in terms of Google News ranking. As high-ranking spots on Google News are highly coveted, the challenge is to boost article ranking as much as possible. Lagardère’s teams were able to identify certain time slots that are less competitive but have nonetheless a strong traffic potential. Teams can therefore manage and target content according to time of publication and optimal results.

6AT INTERNET / CASE STUDY / LAGARDÈRE ACTIVE

RESULTSBy implementing AT Internet’s tools, Lagardère Active was able to obtain unified measurements via a platform common to all stakeholders.

API technology helped streamline and generalise the flow of analytics data within the company. This technology enabled data to be redistributed to different content production tools: CMS, editorial dashboards, reporting tools, etc. In addition to facilitating access to information, this large-scale distribution of data contributed to the standardisation of internal processes within Lagardère. This was a cost-effective way to automate processes and secure data, as minimal human processing is required.

The adoption of analytics governance within the company has become a reality. Today, Lagardère is developing an editorial strategy that responds to the new digital challenges in the highly competitive media and press landscape. Journalist teams have understood the fundamental nature of digital analytics, and have adapted their editorial techniques and content management approaches.

SPOTLIGHT ON ELLE.FRELLE.fr’s editorial teams are enjoying the benefits of this new model of analytics governance.

The site saw convincing results for its content optimisation and reader loyalty objectives.

Elle.fr saw traffic from Google News jump dramatically in just months: Traffic grew by nearly 5X in one year, going from about 185,000 monthly visits to 1 million. It should be noted that this increase did not require any additional investments in terms of content production.

This acceleration happened quickly, and results were immediate in the weeks after the journalists began working in tandem with the Analytics Centre. In just 5 months, the number of visits had tripled.

But what is truly interesting is that this upward trend continued beyond the initial guidance phase from the Analytics Centre – clearly illustrating the longevity of analytics governance benefits.

“ELLE.fr’s traffic grew by nearly 5X in one year.”

7AT INTERNET / CASE STUDY / LAGARDÈRE ACTIVE

AN EVOLVING BUSINESS MODELBeyond the organisational changes resulting from this new data-driven approach, the media business model itself is undergoing a transformation. Until now, Lagardère sold its ad space in a segmented way, according to distinct themes (Cuisine, Fashion, Lifestyle…).

Now, thanks to AT Internet’s tools, Lagardère has access to highly advanced user profiling capacities. This deeper knowledge has allowed Lagardère to consider a new sales model – going from content monetisation to audience monetisation, thanks to qualified user profiles and ultra-precise indicators.

The result? Lagardère’s ad space has greater value for a wider spectrum of advertisers.

WHAT’S IN STORE? A MULTI-SITE APPROACH Thanks to “Custom Analysis” technology, profile data will be available for all of Lagardère Group’s sites. It will thus be possible to isolate profiles exclusively per title, as well as profiles shared by several titles. What will this mean? It will be possible to recognise and draw value from a targeted profile (for example, female in her 30s, employed with monthly revenues above €3,000) several times, across several different press titles, within the same day. This will revolutionise inventory management, which will now be based on qualified audience profiles.

BENEFITS • Organic traffic from search engines to ELLE.fr grew 5X • Journalists get real-time results for their articles and adopt analytic approach• Immediate and long-term traffic growth – traffic constantly increased over a year-long period

“We’re going from moneti-sing articles to monetising true, highly qualified user profiles.”

About AT Internet

AT Internet is one of the world’s major players in digital analytics. Its decision-making solutions and services provide companies with an integral analysis of their performance and presence on all digital platforms. The strength of AT Internet’s technology and the quality of its customer relations are recognised worldwide. AT Internet has more than 3,800 clients all over the world from all sectors. The company, which has more than 200 employees, is present in 32 different countries through its clients, subsidiaries and partners.

About Lagardère Active

Occupying a central place in French media, Lagardère Active has founded its strength upon emblematic and reputable brands like Elle, Paris Match, Europe 1, RFM, Gulli and Doctis-simo. A major force in the audiovisual sphere, Lagardère Ac-tive has 22 radio stations across the globe, 12 television chan-nels, and is the leading French audiovisual producer. It is also the leading French magazine publisher with 37 press titles in France, and 87 editions under license internationally, as well as the leading media group in France in terms of online and mobile audience. Its advertising branch, Lagardère Publicité, is the third-largest in France.

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