“Thanks to a cross-departmental collaboration, we have created a new way to provide our sports readers with more unique content on Aftonbladet’s homepage,”says Sportbladet’s manager Magnus Herbetsson.
In practice, this means that readers whom Aftonbladet identifies as sports enthusiasts see an additional section with sports content high up on the site. If you, as a reader, then click into Sportbladet, new content will be displayed in the section when you return to the homepage.
At Schibsted, personalisation is one of several strategic goals. If readers can be given more tailored content that suits the individual user, this creates both traffic and loyalty. Aftonbladet is at the forefront of this development work and has won two awards for two other solutions this year – Innovation of the Year in Årets Dagstidning and The Paid Content Award.
All three are based on the same technical solution developed at the Schibsted level. Aftonbladet has then combined this with a self-built system called Coco, where segmentation can be used – i.e., creating groups that divide users according to different interests and characteristics. In Sportbladet’s case, sports enthusiasts.
Magnus Herbertsson, Sportbladet.
“It works great, and I am proud of the collaborative group that came up with this solution and all other initiatives that have enhanced our coverage and results,” says Magnus.
It all started when the sales organisation contacted Magnus ahead of the European Championship and asked for an estimate of how much traffic they could drive to the content.
“I gave them that, but then they came back and said, ‘we can sell a lot more ads, can we do something to increase traffic?’”
A task force was set up
Magnus then proposed a group that could brainstorm ideas together. What became known as a “task force” consisted of people from the editorial team, Aftonbladet’s business team and marketing department, Schibsted’s sales organization, and the product and development organization.
“We came up with and set up several different solutions. It also involved marketing, collaboration between the marketing department and the editorial team, and highlighting certain ad spaces,” says Magnus.
But the personalisation section has had the most impact. And any day now, they have reached the goal of 8 million page views per day. A more normal number is 5-6 million. In total, they aim to drive 250 million page views to Sportbladet throughout the European Championship.
But the real reason for the high traffic is Sportbladet’s content. Several special initiatives for the European Championship have become very popular, such as the close coverage of the English national team. Frida Fagerlund follows them on-site in Germany and reports daily.
“England is one of the most popular teams for football enthusiasts in Sweden and Norway. There is a deep-rooted love for England among the Swedish football audience, Premier League has always been big here.”
Strong profiles
The manager game EM-elvan has exceeded all expectations with over 32,000 activated teams, and Magnus also mentions the daily European Championship chat where you can ask questions to Sportbladet’s profiles such as Erik Niva, Simon Bank, Johanna Frändén, and Linn Nordström. Not least, the expert reporting is crucial.
“We have such strong profiles; they write an analysis at the final whistle with superior knowledge and emotion. It shines through that they love covering such a tournament.”
And yes – he is himself a true football fan. Unfortunately, his two favorite teams – Kalmar FF and Chelsea – are not doing so well.
“But that’s how it is to be a supporter.”
A European Championship without either Sweden or Norway is not optimal, but Magnus has appreciated that the tournament so far has offered many exciting matches – and quite a few surprises.
“At the same time, it’s great that the big football nations – like Spain, England, Germany, and Portugal – have delivered.”
