At yesterday’s (1 May) Masterclassing Digital Publishing Masterclass event in London, members of senior management from publishing brands were brought together with digital experts to discuss the use of digital marketing tools and techniques – including search, social media, mobile marketing, and more – and how they can be used to generate business and retain loyal customers.

If you weren’t able to attend the event, here are a selection of some of the best soundbites from the day.

“You really have to understand those audiences behind AMP pages and how could you apply more of that audience with the right content, the right messaging, depending on their search behaviours.”

“Understanding the unique searches for each of those audiences, and how you can better serve and make better connections.”

The event was kicked off by Emma Moorman, senior product manager at Hitwise, who took a look at how publishers can utilise search to gain a better understanding of their audience.

“Most publishers have various different versions of their website ready to go at any point and all of these versions should have the same URL. If they don’t have this, you run the risk of Google treating your website as different entities and that’s going to have a huge impact on your SEO. So, in a nutshell: no m. sites, no redirections.”

Heather Mungin, strategic partnership manager at Marfeel, offered some advice on SEO.

“There is a feeling in the market, that we get from our publishers and the ad tech market at large, that somebody, somewhere is quite likely to get caught on a meat hook quite quickly and not exist anymore as a direct result of this new regulation. I think in general terms, if we take a step back and think about it from the consumer’s perspective, handing that power to an individual in terms of their own data and their own privacy has got to be a laudable approach. But, obviously, it’s creating quite a lot of turmoil within the marketplace.”

James MacDonald, global CRO at Thirdpresence, believes that GDPR will spell the end for a few companies but still thinks it’s for the best.

“Within publishing PPC campaigns, audience management is so important because we have large volume and large-scale traffic, a lot of which isn’t going to convert to anything. Of course, it’s helpful for advertising or if you’ve got revenue target to hit as well.”

The importance of audience management cannot be stressed enough, according to Laura Davidson, director at Tag Digital.

“Agencies are under pressure from their clients and their competition. They are being challenged and one of their solutions for that, their new USP, is creating their own data asset.”

“Publishers must understand the value of their data, especially if you’re collecting data from on your app or your website about where the user is accessing your publication. If you’re doing that, you’re generating a resource that marketers are looking for.”

Aymeric de Lansalut, director of data partnerships in Europe at AdSquare,  knows the importance of data right across the industry.

“A little while back we launched a strand of content on the web called ‘travel news’… We avoid the hard-hitting news and leave that to the established news brands. The idea is very much social, very much shareable, and very much mobile. So, we’ve made all of those travel news posts AMP. We’ve seen pretty good success with this content, especially on Apple News over the last six months.”

“What we’ve seen in various industries, but in particular with travel with the phenomenal success of Airbnb, is you can’t have a good brand without a community.”

 “What have we learnt as a media brand? Consider the context behind the content, expand but don’t forget your core purpose, and community really matters.”

To close the event, Sebastian Neylan, director of online marketing at Lonely Planet, took the audience on a journey through Lonely Planet’s history and its digital strategy.