ABS-CBN News participated in the Google News Initiative (GNI) Data and Insights Launchpad (DIL) delivered through a partnership between Google and FT Strategies. DIL was a three-month long program aimed at addressing and accelerating publishers’ data and insights capabilities, from reader discovery to subscription strategy.

During this program, the reader survey revealed that there was an opportunity to promote products with low consumption by better defining the value proposition. The high volume of responses highlighted the need for the organization to collect feedback from its audience on a regular basis.

Internally, the ABS-CBN digital news team identified that there was a chance to improve the way that data is shared within the organization and how it shapes the team’s output. The separate teams were excited about the user behavior, insights and actions that the program revealed - it also helped develop new strategies for some underperforming platforms.

Using responsible data collection practices, ABS-CBN has been leveraging insights to make strategic decisions however there is a need to be more efficient particularly when collecting first-party data. The first action that the ABS-CBN Digital News team has prioritized is improving their approach to first party data - both in terms of the quantity gathered as well as the quality of the insights that their teams are able to draw from them. The updated approach focuses on collecting interests and preferred topics. There are also plans to experiment with the main website’s access model options in the near future, which will further capitalize on the increased availability of richer audience data.

Crucial to the success of this initiative has been ensuring that the data collected is accessible for all teams beyond the analysts. Allowing teams across functions to understand what data will be most useful to them, has been key for the ABS-CBN’s news team in developing a more structured and cohesive approach to utilizing data across the organization. Improving the collective data capabilities of staff in multiple departments has aided internal messaging and helped emphasize the importance of embracing a more insight-driven approach to data.

This improved way of collecting and using first party data has opened up the capacity for ABS-CBN to develop a personalized user experience on its digital news site. Most notably, the team has been able to develop a more concise content recommendation strategy that leverages user-level engagement data. ABS-CBN is continuing to explore several further ways in which the increased quality of insights, owing to the availability of data, can lead to better reader experiences across its portfolio of brands and platforms.