Dennis Rößler, Managing Director of Funke’s Hamburg marketer “Mediahafen” (Hamburger Abendblatt) focuses on the revival of local advertisers through scalable cross-media offers upsold to each and every print ad as kind of an “auto-bundle”.

“The crisis could become an opportunity for regional publishers“, says Dennis Rößler, because of the fact that the publisher “is now moving closer to the advertiser again and can position itself as a problem solver“. This requires an “offer that is already available for small budgets of the local SME advertiser, and that media consultants can sell scalably from the home office. And which is profitable for us as a marketer at a single ad view,” Rößler added.

At the core of the “Smart Ads” offering in Hamburg is the creation of a banner (Medium Rectangle) set as well as a landing page directly from the print ad within 24 hours – without any feedback loops for the advertiser … and the publisher. At a fixed price per ad of 100 to 150€ the local advertiser receives not only the banner set plus landing page but also 5.000 or 10.000 regionally targeted local ad impressions as well as a reporting that he understands and that goes far beyond clicks and CTRs. Local businesses focus on attention and interactions created from the print ad and “Smart Ads” translates those KPIs into digital, and reports them accordingly in a Dashboard that is made for local businesses and not for online marketing managers at corporates.

The “Zeitungsgruppe Saarbrücken” newspaper group has already gone a step further and was able to introduce “Smart Ads” shortly before the crisis. Despite the shortened introductory phase, sales from the home office and the overall changed business environment, the results are very satisfying, reports Daniela Groß, Head of Media Sales.

“Smart Ads can be quickly implemented in sales, it also can be easily combined with print and secures revenues without long sales processes and on-site appointments, but as a standard option included in all print package, “says Daniela Groß. “In the first year since the launch of the product, we are aiming for a six-figure turnover for the newspaper group in 2020. And the most important thing is: The sales teams really love selling it!“

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