Industry Dive boosts CTR by 40% through personalized content with Lytics CDP

Industry Dive publishes dozens of online publications for business decision-makers, drawing millions of daily readers to sites including CIODive.com, EducationDive.com, and HealthcareDive.com through its freemium model, generating revenue through a mix of paid advertising and co-branded content. More than 100 journalists, editors and designers develop Industry Dive’s varied content, including articles, podcasts and other digital assets. Staff need to be able to provide the right depth of coverage, as well as enough variety so that readers remain engaged. 

To attract advertisers and sponsors, and catch the attention of executive decision makers in industries including finance, biopharma and medtech, Industry Dive wanted to uncover deeper insights about their readers than they could achieve with tools like Google Analytics. For example, the business wanted to segment readers by title or region, and identify content preferences of readers across its different brands.

While Industry Dive knew a lot about which content was being read the most, they knew relatively little about who was reading it. Their existing online analytics provided a very broad picture of reader engagement, with too much “noise” that clouded their ability to track the individual customer journey.

“We wanted to be able to tailor offers to the individual by recommending products based on past behavior,” Robin Re, VP Marketing, Industry Dive, said. The idea of engaging readers at an individual level also resonated with Industry Dive’s advertisers, who were looking for new ways to ensure the relevance of their ad spend.

The Industry Dive team began researching technology solutions that could help them get closer to their customers, and one solution kept surfacing—a customer data platform (CDP). After researching the market, Industry Dive selected Lytics, a Contentstack company, and launched a trial deployment for one of their content sites.

Immediately, Industry Dive felt that the “noise” of their previous analytics had been removed, and its customers were brought into much clearer focus. Instead of educated guesswork, the team was able to understand exactly what their readers wanted, with a much more precise picture of each customer’s journey. For example, Industry Dive found that marketing managers who read the BioPharmaDive site were more interested in agency work than company news — so editors were able to increase the number of stories from the agency perspective, encouraging higher reader engagement on this site. As creating new content costs both time and money, the business and advertisers have a vested interest in making sure content resonates with their audience. 

Today, Lytics reports are required daily reading for Industry Dive’s editorial teams.

Not only do the reader insights from Lytics drive better content, but they also ensure that Industry Dive gets better mileage from the content they and their partners produce. “If we know a reader is a CIO at a university,” Re said, “we’ll show them content from both CIO Dive and Education Dive. It’s very individualized cross-channel promoting that helps our advertisers stretch their influence across our entire readership.”

One unexpected benefit was the impact of Lytics in promoting Total Reboot — an online game about data security. Initially targeted to security and IT professionals, Total Reboot guided players to build their own security team and then test their team’s preparedness in a simulated data breach. The game proved to be a big hit and, with the help of Lytics, Industry Dive was able to track its popularity beyond its original audience and re-target the game to a broader group that had already shown an affinity for tech-related topics. The result was an increase of more than 40% in click-throughs that ultimately led to a significant boost in new subscriptions for their CIODive.com site.

“We want people to see the value we get from Lytics because, for us, it’s a strategic investment and a differentiator,” Re said. “In the past we sometimes had to spend money outside the organization to hit our campaign goals. With the insights we get from Lytics, we can improve the quality of our targeting emails and content to reach our campaign goals on time without spending money elsewhere.”

With the ability to pool its collective customer intelligence into both content and engagement, Industry Dive has only scratched the surface of its potential with Lytics CDP. 

Key wins for Industry Dive with Lytics, a Contentstack company, include: 

• Personalized customer journeys: Relevant content is now delivered to the right visitors and readers, based on data-driven recommendations. 
• Increased customer engagement: Industry Dive has used Lytics to boost conversions by more than 40% for certain campaigns. 
• Quantitative business benefits: The team has reduced the external costs needed to meet campaign goals.