Case study: The Canadian Press becomes a truly data-informed newswire
Malcolm Kirk, The Canadian Press, says Maro helps CP make more intelligent decisions
At a Glance
Client: The Canadian Press (CP)
Challenge: No clear visibility on how CP’s content performed once distributed to clients
Solution: Unified dashboards and instant insights with Maro
Impact: Editors and managers now have actionable data on usage and performance, enabling informed editorial and packaging decisions
Results: Stronger client engagement, improved performance on consumer-facing platforms, and new evidence-based approaches to commissioning and content packaging
The Challenge: A Wire Service Struggles to Make Sense of Scattered Data
The Canadian Press (CP), founded in 1917, is Canada’s national news agency and provides thousands of stories, photos, videos, and graphics to publishers daily, both on its English and French language services.
Like many press agencies, CP faced a key problem: because its content is distributed to a variety of end customers, any information it received back on its usage and performance is widely scattered, in various formats and difficult to make sense of.
“It’s very difficult to make intelligent editorial decisions without that data.”
This lack of visibility made it difficult for CP’s editors and commercial teams to understand which stories, formats, and packages were resonating most - and therefore to make fully informed strategic and tactical decisions.
“As a newswire, we’re not organisations that host a lot of data about how our content is used and performed,” explains The Canadian Press’ President, Malcolm Kirk.
”Those analytics usually reside with your customers. It’s very difficult to make intelligent editorial decisions without that data.”
The Solution: A Clear Understanding of What’s Working - and What Isn’t
By partnering with Maro, CP was able to aggregate scattered data from multiple distribution points and present it in a simple, easy-to-understand framework. Crucially, this also allowed the entire organisation - from editorial to commercial - to use the same evidence base.
A key factor in the rollout was Maro’s “top–middle–bottom” framework, which surfaces consistently high-performing and underperforming stories at a glance. This provided a clear and easily understood way for CP’s leaders to identify common trends and take action - when best to publish, how to package content for optimum engagement, and which topics were resonating most with which audiences.
“We had never seen the data presented like that before,” Kirk says.
”Suddenly we could see which stories were consistently performing, which weren’t, and start asking why.”
The Impact: From Guesswork to Informed Editorial Decisions
Access to clear and easy-to-digest analytics has reshaped CP’s approach to content packaging and delivery. The agency has hugely talented editorial staff, but with a lack of information to guide decisions they were often let guessing or relying solely on client feedback.
Now, Kirk says CP has evidence on what works best for its audiences - and acts on it every day.
The newsroom can now see clear patterns
Patterns in content use now inform strategic decisions on formats, subjects, and delivery methods. For the first time, the CP editorial team has access to actionable insights they can easily “get their head around”, says Kirk.Highlighting commercial opportunities
It’s not just the editorial floor that is getting value from the information. Being able to analyse CP’s B2B services and presence on B2C platforms is also helping the commercial teams to help identify potential new opportunitiesFuture-proofing with data as a guide
Using Maro has demonstrated clearly that articles packaged with CP’s vast range of multimedia content are better used by their clients and receive stronger engagement with end audiences. The team is now working to ramp up production of photo galleries and video content as a result.
“It's been a journey, there's no doubt about that. But it's an exciting one and [Maro] just powers us with information to make smart decisions," Kirk says.
The Results: Growth Across Platforms, And a Strong Foundation for the Future
Maro has given CP something it never had before: direct access to performance data in a format that is quick to interpret and act on.
That’s helping the team drive some really strong results:
‘Top’ performing content up 35%
There has been a dramatic improvement in the overall impact of CP content over the course of a year. In a year, the proportion of stories deemed ‘Top’ by Maro’s scoring system increased by more than a third across their English and French services.‘Bottom’ performers down 50%
Maro’s scoring system also identifies content that is failing to provide ROI on any platform. Analysing themes among this low performing content has allowed editors to change or cut things that aren’t working, freeing staff up for more impactful work.Performance growth on consumer platforms
This work has also led to a significant jump in audience engagement. Data shared by two consumer-facing clients showed page views on CP content up by 25% and 36% in the space of a year.
In their own words…
“For us, this is knowledge you can’t be without — it empowers us to make intelligent decisions that serve our clients and their readers.”
— Malcolm Kirk, President, The Canadian Press
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