Nine Publishing's journey to advanced analytics and 50% better acquisition costs
XPON rebuilt Nine's analytics, Floodlight, and Google Tag Manager ecosystems across five mastheads, then migrated to GA4 360 and deployed server-side tagging with Conversion API across Meta, LinkedIn, Reddit, and X. The result was a unified, trusted measurement foundation that halved subscription acquisition costs.
Confidence in measurement was limited, and so was the ability to remarket
The Digital Performance team for Nine Publishing had inherited complex account structures that lacked the analytics integrity to confidently remarket within the Google Marketing Platform. That hindered the primary business objective: growing Nine Publishing's subscription base across The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, AFR, Brisbane Times, and WA Today.
The team also couldn't accurately measure campaign effectiveness against behavioural attributes, and couldn't make confident data-driven optimisation decisions on the data they were collecting. In brief, confidence was limited in:
- Nine Publishing's advertising campaign performance
- Google's advertising remarketing capability
- Marketing budget allocations and decision-making
Rebuilding the adtech foundation, then upgrading the measurement layer
Building adtech confidence and maturity
XPON conducted thorough audits of Nine Publishing's analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Floodlight ecosystems. We identified inconsistencies caused by outdated tagging and excessive containers - the GTM ecosystem held four containers for a single domain.
To rectify these issues, we:
- Revised Floodlight tags and built a new parameter structure that captured subscriber status, engagement level, specific articles, and content themes for each session.
- Provided the data team a blueprint on how to best structure their GTM accounts going forward, proposing a single GTM per masthead.
With the new Floodlight tags, the Digital Performance team had increased confidence in the Google Marketing Platform, enabling the team to access granular user segmentation data and personalise their remarketing strategies to grow the subscription base.
Unlocking new analytics, segmentation, and revenue growth with GA4 360 and CAPI
Building on previous success, XPON assisted Nine in transitioning from Universal Analytics 360 to Google Analytics 4 360, migrating data collection parameters and reports. We completed a full migration across all mastheads over 6 months, including conversion tracking, data collection parameters, and the reports XPON had revised in 2022 around their GMP advertising ecosystem.
A key value-add was the implementation of Conversion API (CAPI) across Meta, LinkedIn, Reddit, and X. XPON implemented server-side GTM and CAPI for each platform, resolving conversion measurement challenges that were starting to become apparent across these advertising platforms.
Finding a technology partner who combines deep technical expertise with practical business acumen isn't easy, but that's exactly what we found in XPON.Lauren McCannDigital Performance Lead, Nine
A unified, trusted measurement and bidding foundation across five mastheads
With XPON's support and expertise in adtech and measurement, Nine Publishing were able to gain confidence in their advertising strategies, including their performance data and investments within the Google Marketing Platform and across Meta, LinkedIn, Reddit, and X.
Uplift in conversions
Conversion events sent via server-side tagging fired on average 21% more than the pixel events, thanks to better first-party signals and handling of ad blockers.
Better cost-per-acquisition
Driven by better data collection, Nine's advertising campaigns saw a 50% improvement in their cost per acquisition - strengthening the team's business impact.
Remarketing audience growth
Improved data collection meant a larger volume of users fired key conversion signals before becoming subscribers, enriching the remarketing audiences central to Nine's advertising strategy.
Additional outcome: reduced client-side load improved site performance. As a publishing business, Nine balances a constant tension between the volume of third-party tags vendors require and the need to keep mastheads loading quickly for users. Reducing the marketing pixels was a major win for the data team.
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