Are marketers on track with the news ecosystem?

When data is often called the new oil, something we’ve said ourselves, the digital advertising industry finds itself at a crossroads. As consumers become increasingly aware of their digital footprints and regulators tighten the reins on data privacy, tracking digital news consumption patterns is becoming more challenging.

As previously reported by exchange4media, part of this paradigm shift is also driven by digital news publishers taking more onus over the kind of consumer and viewership data they procure and then provide to data vendors in turn. The shift is forcing marketers and advertisers to rethink their strategies, potentially reshaping digital advertising rates and models.

Anand Jain, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of CleverTap, highlights a critical tension in today's digital landscape. “The modern consumer experience has shifted from transactional to relationship-based, with consumers expecting personalized engagement driven by their unique behaviours and real-time shifts,” Jain explains.

A McKinsey study shows that 71% of consumers expect personalized interactions, with 76% expressing frustration when these expectations aren't met. Given the increasing role that Artificial Intelligence is playing in news creation, dissemination, and consumption, this is perhaps only to be expected.

However, this desire for personalisation clashes with growing data access restrictions. “As third-party data is on the verge of going extinct, the focus on zero-party and first-party data becomes crucial,’ Jain notes. This shift presents both challenges and opportunities for marketers aiming to deliver tailored experiences.

Kartik Mehta, CBO and Head of Asia at Channel Factory, sheds light on why publishers are increasingly implementing paywalls. “Publishers have realized that while these crawlers often use this data to generate revenue, the publishers themselves have rarely benefited from this,” Mehta explains. “Just because the content is available on the open web doesn't give anyone the right to scrape and monetize it without compensating the original creators.”

This move towards paywalled content is reshaping the data landscape. You may have noticed it yourself, as a consumer, when trying to access news on certain articles on previously free-to-view websites. You’ll be glad to know that this is now cutting both ways.

As Mehta points out, “Marketers will now have to pay a premium to access consumer insights, but the data provided by publishers will be more valuable because it comes directly from first-party sources.”

Ankur Dasgupta, Head of Marketing, India Region at NTT DATA, elaborates on how these changes are affecting marketers' ability to understand and target audiences, saying, “The limitations on access to consumer data and the rise of paywalls have restricted marketers' ability to track and analyse consumption patterns that were once readily available.”

Marketers have identified several factors contributing to this shift, including