FD Media Group: Building a data platform that respects user privacy and delivers business value
About FD Media Group
FD Media Group is the leading information company for the business community in the Netherlands. The company provides information on the most important financial and economic news to entrepreneurs, corporate executives and professionals.
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About Crystalloids
Crystalloids is a Google Cloud Partner that helps organizations accelerate their data-driven journey.
FD Media Group worked with Crystalloids to build a new customer data platform on Google Cloud, enabling it to successfully make the switch from leveraging third-party to first-party data.
Google Cloud results
- Enables the switch from third-party to first-party data, respecting changes in data privacy regulations
- Powers a scalable end-to-end customer data platform that supports the delivery of relevant content through user behavior analysis
- Offers self-service data analytics with Looker Studio, empowering sales, advertising, and editorial teams
New customer data platform developed in months
While leveraging big data is key to staying profitable as media outlets transition from analog to digital, the types of data that are available and the ways they can be used have changed. In 2018, GDPR legislation in the EU introduced limits to the way personal data can be used without prior consent, and Google is taking further action to phase out third party cookies and limit covert tracking in the coming years through the Privacy Sandbox. Users are also increasingly using ad blocker extensions to prevent advertisements on both desktop and mobile browsers.
FD Media Group, which serves the business community in the Netherlands through channels, such as Het Financieele Dagblad and BNR Nieuwsradio, needed to adapt its approach, and switch to making more of the data they collect from consumers with direct consent. "The way people consume our content is changing," explains Sjoerd Wolthers, CIO, FD Media Group. "They want to access the most relevant content via print, websites, apps, and other platforms across various devices, and they also want to keep their data private and secure."
To continue diversifying its revenue streams while leveraging first-party data to stay ahead of changes in data usage, FD Media Group decided to build a new customer data platform, choosing Google Cloud as the best fit for its needs, with support from implementation partner Crystalloids.
"Our priority is creating new revenue streams by evolving our digital offerings," says Wolthers. "The new customer data platform on Google Cloud is at the heart of this strategy, enabling us to deliver governed data products to our business teams."
"Our priority is creating new revenue streams by evolving our digital offerings. The new customer data platform on Google Cloud is at the heart of this strategy, enabling us to deliver governed data products to our business teams."
—Sjoerd Wolthers, CIO, FD Media GroupHarnessing the potential of first-party data
The Data & Analytics team at FD Media Group is responsible for providing internal insights to marketing, sales, and editorial teams across the group. In order to adapt its data usage to meet changing privacy and security requirements, the team needed to extend its data environment. "We previously had an on-premises data warehouse that we used to create internal dashboards, but it wasn't suited to sharing and leveraging first-party data over different channels," says Jeroen Veldhoen, Manager Data & Analytics, FD Media Group.
FD Media Group chose to migrate to Google Cloud because of the platform's scalability and modularity, which enabled the team to build an end-to-end system that included collecting, monitoring, and exporting the data in a single ecosystem. "We already had Google Analytics 360 in place, and liked the fact that we could start small with Google Cloud by just paying for what we were using without upfront licensing costs," says Veldhoen. "The platform was also powerful enough to handle large data volumes as we added new use cases over time."
Engaging a partner with media sector expertise
To achieve its goals for the data migration as quickly as possible, FD Media Group worked with Crystalloids, an implementation partner with specific expertise in data deployments in the media sector.
Crystalloids worked in a structured way to gather information about FD Media Group's goals and create a backlog of tasks together with key stakeholders, including developers and commercial directors. These were prioritized by business importance, complexity, and ease of development. Crystalloids then implemented the solution, working in sprints of three weeks to develop use cases and carry out demonstrations to ensure all teams were able to access appropriate training.
"We wanted to make sure people understood the value of Google Cloud, rather than just building a technical solution with the platform as an end goal," says Wolthers. "We really appreciated the way Crystalloids worked, as being able to demonstrate successful use cases from the beginning encouraged organizational adoption and improved data literacy within our teams."
Supporting data-driven targeting and self-service analytics
The key aims of the migration were to enable FD Media Group's marketing teams to use data-driven targeting to improve its marketing conversion and retention tactics, and support the delivery of relevant adverts based on the context and customer interests using first-party data. To do this, FD Media Group uses Cloud Dataflow for its batch and real-time data streams, with Pub/Sub as an endpoint. Data is first stored in Cloud Storage before being loaded into BigQuery, using Cloud Composer to orchestrate data loads. Cloud Logging and Cloud Monitoring enable it to keep a close eye on data consumption, to track its monthly usage and costs.
To share data externally, the team uses APIs to export data from BigQuery, leveraging Cloud Functions. That enables it to deliver customized ads via its marketing channels, including Google Ad Manager and Google Marketing Platform.
Data is now available in a more democratic way, enabling teams to generate self-service analytics reports with minimal technical knowledge. "We use Looker Studio to make data available as self-service datasets and reports, rather than just dashboards," says Veldhoen. "That empowers our advertising sales and marketing teams to access insights without relying on the data team, which saves everyone time."
"We use Looker Studio to make data available as self-service datasets and reports, rather than just dashboards. That empowers our advertising sales and marketing teams to access insights without relying on the data team, which saves everyone time."
—Jeroen Veldhoen, Manager Data & Analytics, FD Media GroupDeveloping new use cases to deliver value for the business
FD Media Group's customer data is now centralized in a single platform, offering an overview of all its customers across the group for marketing and advertising sales teams. "Using Google Publisher Provided Identifiers and our new Google Cloud data platform, we've been able to replace third-party cookies and continue delivering relevant content to our customers," says Veldhoen. "Without it, we would have been in the dark in terms of analysis and targeting." Privacy is built-in by design, taking different types of consent into account and supporting a data strategy that's sustainable over the long-term.
FD Media Group is using models to predict churn, Customer Lifetime Value and a user interest profile. The next phase of the project is to use FD Media Group’s data to create new ways of working, such as leveraging advanced data science and machine learning to make recommendations based on past reading behavior.
"Working with Google Cloud together with Crystalloids has enabled us to develop and deploy our new data platform within a matter of months," says Wolthers. "That's much quicker than if we had undertaken a more traditional approach, and it is already bringing us important benefits."
"Using Google Publisher Provided Identifiers and our new Google Cloud data platform, we've been able to replace third-party cookies and continue delivering relevant content to our customers. Without it, we would have been in the dark in terms of analysis and targeting."
—Jeroen Veldhoen, Manager Data & Analytics, FD Media GroupTell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About FD Media Group
FD Media Group is the leading information company for the business community in the Netherlands. The company provides information on the most important financial and economic news to entrepreneurs, corporate executives and professionals.
About Crystalloids
Crystalloids is a Google Cloud Partner that helps organizations accelerate their data-driven journey.