Snack Media is a leading independent sports digital media company that uses data-driven engagement strategies to create connections between brands and fans. The CEO discussed how Snack Media has diversified and grown over the past decade based on insights from user data. Key points included how data on gambling consumption led them to focus on ads-to-subscriptions in that space. Data also showed high fan media and streaming consumption, leading them to develop fan tools and the live streaming platform StreamFOOTBALL. Looking ahead, the CEO discussed opportunities around continued fan media growth, AI, voice/speech, and live streaming based on analyzing usage trends.
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Data Driven Engagement
Interpreting user trends as the road to diversifying
Niall Coen
CEO
Digiday - Barcelona 2018
2. • Snack Media
• Market place trends, our growth & diversification story
• Our approach to diversification
• Insights we uncovered 24 months ago…
– Sources of data
– Gut feelings supported by data
• Projects
– Commercial content consumption trends that lead us to focus on…
• Gambling – Ads to subscriptions
• The growth of Fan Media & Streaming
• Questions
Next 15 minutes…
3. Our Model
Snack Media collects and leverages
fan data & audience for commercial
return
4. Snack Media is a leading independent sports digital media company
with over 26m sports fans. We specialise in multi-channel content
creation, distributed at scale.
Through data driven engagement strategies Snack Media creates
authentic connections between brands & fans.
Snack Media
Experien
ce
Reac
h
Scale Targete
d
Content Succes
s
11 YEARS SINCE WE
STARTED IN 2007 AS A
SINGLE PODCAST
TODAY WE REACH 26M
SPORTS FANS
370 OWNED &
EXCLUSIVE SPORTS
SITES
DATA TARGETED
DISPLAY & NATIVE
CAMPAIGNS
MARKET LEADING
CONTENT & SOCIAL
AWARD WINNING
ACTIVATION
CAMPAIGNS
5. Revenue Model
Snack is a successful, and award-winning audience
business that works for high profile brands like
GAME, Ford and Europcar.
Snack is organised around two core revenue
generating areas:
1. ADDRESSABLE AUDIENCE NETWORK
business. Here Snack is generating revenues
from websites and associated content and
technology that it either fully owns or manages
on behalf of other parties.
2. ACTIVATION business. Here Snack is helping
brand advertisers use social media, fan tools
and platforms to extract maximum value from
their major sponsorship & investments.
#DATADRIVENENGAGEMENT
6. Diversifications to date: 2010-2018
2010 2018
Capital invested £100K Reinvest profits
Turnover £43,000 £4,500,000
Unique visitors 750K 26 million
IP 3 Websites 22 Fan Tools, 40 Sites &
Ad Tech
Clients 4 200+
Rev Streams Ad Sales Multiple Rev Streams.
Ad Rev, Content,
Activation, Data and
Licensing
Sell Ad Sales Advanced Data-Led
Strategy & Tech
7. Historic and future trends??
EXPLOSION OF SOCIAL MEDIA
FAN
ENGAGEMENT
AS A TOPIC??
UGC & self
Publishing
INFLUENCER
MARKETING
LIVE STREAMING &
OTT REVOLUTION
AI
VIDEO
MESSAGING
2007 2010 2012 2014 2016 2017
ESports
BLOGGING
SPEECH
AR & VR
PUBLISHERS USE
DATA IN ALL
SORTS OF WAYS
LOSS OF AGENCY POWER?
BRAND DIRECT?
SNACK MEDIA LAUNCHES
SPONSORSHIP
ACTIVATION DIVISION
Experience
WE BUILT OUR
OWNED SITES 6M
UNIQUE VISITORS
WE TOOK AD
SALES IN
HOUSE
WE SCALED BY
BUILDING OUR AD
NETWORK x 370
SITES TODAY
ADD NFL AS A
ADVERTISING
CLIENT
SEPT 2010: SEED
INVESTMENT
£100,000
FORD BECOME A
CLIENT FOR
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
CELTIC LIVE – REAL
TIME CONTENT
SERVICES LAUNCH
26M UNIQUE
VISITORS
ACROSS OUR
NETWORK
WE STARTED
AS A SINGLE
PODCAST
FAN TOOLS DIVISION –
SNACK GAMING IS
BORN
TREND
2018
MASS
ADOPTION
OF
PODCASTI
NG
FUTURE PROJECTS ARE BORN FROM DATA
INSIGHTS WORK
8. Our 5 key principals that are part of
every decision we make:
Will our diversifications increase
the companies…
• Volume of inventory
• Sales Price – per 1000 views?
• Longer term chances of the
above
Is this a commercially viable
project?
DATA
Can we capture more data?
Programmatic, Direct, Content,
Social, Events & Data exchanges
CONTENT
Can it improve our
Editorial, native & social
Product? For fans?
FANS
26m connections
Will they use it?
TECH
Can we use tech or tools
to scale our content &
maximise fan engagement
CORE BELIEFSCORE Principles …from 2015 onwards
IP
OWNERSHIP of platforms,
audience & tech
9. New Rights,
New Tools, New Revenues
EASY TO SELL
&
UNDERSTAND
SIMPLE TO
DEPLOY
ADDS VALUE
TO FAN
EXPERIENCE
BRANDING
FOR
PARTNERS
OWNED FAN-
LED
TECHNOLOGY
& EVENTS
DELIVERS
ROI
The result we want…
10. Publisher & Fan Engagement Tools – Top 6
SOCIAL POLLS
Opinion polls that allow site editorial
staff to ask their readers their thoughts
on the current burning issues in
football, enabling users to voice their
opinion on a yes-or-no basis
FAN HUB
Aggregated social media content
sourced and categorised into one
visually-pleasing feed .
Pulls in YouTube, Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter and RSS
NEWS TICKER
Rolling banner across the bottom of
the website, that stays in view on all
devices and provides users with the
latest news from a specific category.
Delivers news content from RSS
CONTENT LOCK &
POLL
Native unit to lock content. for
engagement.
Content unlocks on engagement. Great
for gathering first party data.
FANTASY GAMING
Fantasy Football & Predictor game
platforms, which can be customised as
per site requirements. Predictors,
fantasy league and micro games.
Priced on per project basis.
MATCH CHAT
Single sign on commenting tool.
Editors can manage comments and
users can sign into multiple websites
in one go. Increasing
11. Our Process…
1. Look for insights… across all our data sets.
2. Do they serve our market? Could they serve our extended
clients?
3. Do they have the potential to increase price?
4. Can they bring increased volume to O&O & our network?
5. Is the fan at the center?
6. Can we test it quickly and get swift Fan feedback?
7. Will it cost us if we fail?
“If you have waited for a case study in your
industry… you have waited too long” Billy
Bean
12. Click to edit Master title style
SURVEY
CONTENT
CONSUMPTI
ON
DMP
DATA
PURCHAS
E DATA
INDUSTRY
INSIGHT
OWN
EYES
Creating authentic & meaningful conversations between fans & brands
Snack uses data to support ideas and trends we see in other market
places.
Sources of DATA …
YOU HAVE MORE
DATA THAN YOU
THINK!!
13. SPECIFIC SPORTS
Football Fans
Cricket Fans
Rugby Fans
NFL Fans
Golf Fans
Our DMP-enabled data segmentation, provide commercial and content opportunities for specific fan types
Our Data 2015/16 – We Understand Sports Fans
SEGMENTED SUPPORTERS
Active Footballers
Armchair Viewers
Avid Supporters
Family Football
Big Eventers
FAN LIFESTYLE
Betting & Gambling
Finance Followers
Auto Enthusiasts
Male Grooming
Avid Travellers
Tech Savvy
INFLUENTIAL FANS
Constant Commenters
Life Long Loyalty
Widget Warriors
Vigorous Voters
Forum Foghorns
Social Sharers
Snack Media truly understand who your fans are, how they
consume content and their wider behaviours across digital properties
This can inform content creation, commercial strategy & improved engagement for brands
14. DATA INSIGHT – 2016 The Football FanCast Fan
The typical
FootballFanCast.com visitor
• Is male
• Aged 35-64
• Has children
• Is employed
• Earns over $100K per year
• Enjoys beer
• Is interested in personal finance
• Plays video games
• Like foreign auto brands
15. DATA Details XYZ.com now a more advanced view
MID WEEK PEAKS…
CONTENT ANALYSIS
TIME OF DAY
CONSUMPTION
TRENDS ON
CONTENT,
YIELD PER
HOUR
CONSUMPTION
CONTENT TYPES,
TITLES ETC
16. Gambling Data points…
• Strong DMP data
• Great survey feedback
• High consumption of gambling
based content
– Time spent x 2.3 higher than other
articles
• High spend from gambling
advertisers via our platforms
• Logically this make loads of
sense…
Insight 1 - Gambling
57% of our betting & gaming audience
earn £70K+
This presented a great opportunity to
target high disposable income earners
& bettors across our network
HABITSINCOME
56% Of Snack Media’s Network has a
betting account
Spending on average £13 a week
42% betting more than 5 times a month
17. Gambling Solutions…
• Basic open market purchase & IOs
• Gambling PMPS
• Targeted gambling content
• Multi media
– The Accy Show for fans
– Social media content aimed at gambling
segment
• Development of PremierPicks
– White label for our network partners &
other publishers
• Test “serious football bettors service”
promotions with partner
• Q4 2018 Launch – Tipping service for
football betters on subscription.
– ThePuntr.com
Insight 1 – Gambling Ads to Subscriptions…
Tests Actions
Insights. Multiple
Do they serve our market? &
Extended clients
Yes Spoke to
users &
industry
partners
Potential to increase price? Yes High
potential
Can they bring increased
volume to our network &
O&O?
Yes Maybe?
Is the fan at the center? Yes 100%
Can we test it quickly and
get swift Fan feedback?
Yes Test
content
well
received
Will it cost us if we fail? No
18 months
18. • Rise of Fan Media
– Arsenal Fan TV – ½ Billion views
– EE Wembley cup – 34K tickets sold
– Increased request for help from these sorts of
entities across our network business
– Reader data
• Fan Behaviour & Streaming
– High % of movie & streaming users.
– These same people came to the site and
consumed x 3 more video than rest of our
audience
– This was a fast growing segment
– Traffic was coming from streaming sites –
Youtube etc.
• Industry news & data showed a move to streaming
services
• Is there more content than people can consume?
Do fans find it hard to source content? Do they want
to watch live?
Insight 2 – Fan Consumption + Streaming
BIG QUESTIONS…We
think we know the
answer?
19. • Football Blogging Awards Event
– 300 tickets sold
– Live streaming 100K on Sky Sports
Digital Channels
– Survey
• Playmaker FC – Q4 2018
– Snack Media’s, content creation
squad
• StreamFOOTBALL – BETA Live
– Move to platform
– Live football aggregation technology
– Amazing user feedback so far
Insight 2 – Fan Media + Streaming
18 months
Tests Actions
Insights. Some Test quick
Do they serve our market? &
Extended clients
Yes Helping
Potential to increase price? Yes High
potential
Can they bring increased
volume to our network &
O&O?
Yes Yes
Is the fan at the center? Yes 100%
Can we test it quickly and
get swift Fan feedback?
Yes Test
content
well
received
Will it cost us if we fail? No
20. • StreamFOOTBALL
– Move to platform business
– Live football aggregation
technology
– Advanced publisher tool
– Monetisation
• Data insight makes this lower
risk project for us
Insight 2 – StreamFOOTBALL Q4 2018
21. 1. Development of bespoke IP and technology for our O&O business;
• Looking to service the digital advertising and rightsholder markets
2. Development of Data Network via opportunistic acquisition of relevant bespoke technologies and websites;
• Tactical acquisitions and technical development technologies
• StreamFOOTBALL & Fan Tools
• Such as Match chat
3. Investment in content (e.g. video) to “seed and feed” addressable audience and grow the Data Network;
• Our detailed commercial analysis allows us to assess ROI per article and focus on effective innovation.
• A grow a number of native advertising platforms / formats
4. A successful diversification into activation
5. Investment in product(s) on a lower risk basis.
Use Of data & trends since 2015 has lead us
to….
22. Mistakes we made & Future trends
MASS
ADOPTION
OF
PODCASTI
NG
EXPLOSION OF SOCIAL MEDIA
FAN
ENGAGEMENT
AS A TOPIC??
INFLUENCER
MARKETING
UGC &
SELF
PUBLISH
LIVE STREAMING &
OTT REVOLUTION
AI
VIDEO
MESSAGINGNG
TREND
ESports
BLOGGING
MISTAKES WE MADE
• Leaving podcasting
• Leaving paid for fantasy
sports
• Not going into eSports
soon enough
• Investing into DMP too
early.
• Being too reactionary in
new ideas from time to
time
AR & VR
PUBLISHERS USE
DATA IN ALL
SORTS OF WAYS
LOSS OF AGENCY
POWER? BRAND
DIRECT?
CONTINUTED
RISE OF FAN LED
MEDIA
23. Increase owned & operated users – To improve
margin and therefore prices on a low-risk basis
Investment into advanced web technologies with a
focus on fan engagement tools used to collect fan
data – to increase volume & engagement
Multiplatform content – To entertain and retain
Strategic purchase of websites in our niche – To
increase volume and profitability
Snack Media: The Future
Significant
market
opportunities
Identified
through data
Past Now Future Diversifications
Organic Growth
from Seed
Investment
and Reinvested
Profits
24. We spotted some key data points for the
future across our niche…
• Fan Media is growing – Great for us!
• AI – Big industry efficiency to be had,
which could add to fan experience
• Speech & Voice search – Can we
producer products to take advantage of
these new changes four network &f
readers?
• OTT, Live streaming and other
technologies are only going to become a
bigger part of our lives & therefore media.
Thank you….
#DATADRIVENENGAGEMENT
Future Insights - Breaking Convention