Case Study

“With Access comes Insights”

How Atlantic Re:think’s art directed nativecampaigns are driving enormous engaged time.

| Case Study: Atlantic Re:think2

BACKGROUND

Atlantic Re:think

 

In 2012, The Atlantic launched their creative marketing group - Atlantic Re:think. What is now one of the leading branded content studios in the industry, Re:think has worked with a wide spectrum of premium partners ranging from H&M to Porsche to athenahealth to Allstate. “Brands turn to The Atlantic because they know our readers are loyal and have a great appreciation for quality content,” Mike Monroe, VP Marketing at The Atlantic and head of Re:think, said.

“They rely on our team to create compelling and engaging stories that are on brand for both our readers and our partners.” Native has grown to be a primary driver of digital ad revenue at The Atlantic; in 2016, it’s expected to contribute up to 75 percent of digital ad revenue.

Native has grownto be a primary driverof digital ad revenue atthe Atlantic; in 2016, it’sexpected to contributeup to 75 percent ofdigital ad revenue.

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THE CHALLENGE

How do you know that your content is working and scaling?

 

Publishers needed to clearly communicate thecontent’s effectiveness,engagement and reachback to advertising partners, and see whatwas working and modifywhat wasn’t.

By eliminating manual reporting and arming Re:think with insightful analytics, SimpleReach’s centralized data platform helped answer crucial business questions. For instance, The Atlantic was creating a lot of art-directed, high-production-value content for their partners. These programs require a huge investment of time and resources -- high touch from ideation, production, and execution. Were these visually engaging pieces actually worth the investment? Would a good old-fashioned blog post deliver the same results?

The industry faced a challenge when it came to measuring the impact and results of such native programs. Data was fragmented, requiring manual pulls of reports from an inordinate number of platforms, trying to make sense of traffic referral numbers to engagement and audience metrics. Publishers needed to clearly communicate the content’s effectiveness, engagement and reach back to advertising partners, and see what was working, and modify what wasn’t.

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MEASUREMENT SOLUTION

With Access comes Insights

 

By drilling down on this content type with SimpleReach’s benchmarking capabilities, the team determined that art-directed, high-production-value content pieces on The Atlantic:

* versus the industry standard.

102%AVG. ENGAGED TIME

118%TOTAL ENGAGED TIME

306%SOCIAL SHARES

SimpleReach’s industry benchmarks include both high and low-production native content from hundreds of leading publishers. Without access to multiple data sources, uncovering these insights wouldn’t be possible. These metrics let The Atlantic prove the worth of investing in content with a high production value, and justify the continued production and premium value of this ad product.

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DISTRIBUTION SOLUTION

How do you scale your native program?

 

Now that The Atlantic had all their data with a click of the mouse, all they needed was to scale performance to wider audiences. Easy, right? Actually, yes. SimpleReach’s takes a data-driven approach to distributing branded content, giving publishers the flexibility to optimize for multiple metrics and sources. “We put a lot of emphasis on making sure the right people see our content at the right time, both on and off our own platform,” Lindsey Emanuel, Executive Director of Business Operations, said.

“Using SimpleReach, we’re able to distribute the content in a targeted way, and track performance in real time - which ensures we’re hitting our KPIs and continuously able to optimize.”

With SimpleReach in their toolkit, Atlantic Re:think continues to prove ROI for their advertisers, making Native a meaningful source of digital ad revenue growth for The Atlantic.

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647.991.1389