Case study: NTB uncover their publishing sweet spot
Kåre Henriksen, Development Editor, says Maro is NTB’s most important tool for evaluating content performance.
At a Glance
Client: NTB (Norwegian News Agency)
Challenge: Data scattered across multiple tools, making it hard to get a clear overview
Solution: Unified dashboards and daily insights with Maro
Impact: Reshaped editorial discussions, stopped producing low-value content, identified new peak reading times
Results: Top-performing content up 15%, low-ROI content cut 49%, increased engagement from publishers and their readers
The Challenge: turning scattered data into actionable insights
NTB, Norway’s national press agency, is recognised as one of the world’s most forward-thinking media organisations. Founded in 1867, it has spent more than 150 years delivering fast, reliable and verified content and information to media outlets across the country and beyond.
Like many news organisations, NTB had built up a wealth of data on how its content was performing, but was struggling to make the most effective use of it. They had analytics showing how journalists were engaging with their coverage, data identifying what was published on media outlets’ websites and even audience figures showing how readers were engaging with NTB content on publisher sites.
So plenty of valuable information - the challenge was that it all lived in separate tools, making it hard to extract clear insights for the newsroom to act upon.
“Getting a clear overview was really difficult,” says Development Editor Kåre Henriksen, who leads NTB’s analytics work.
The Solution: a single view of content performance to guide the newsroom
That’s when NTB turned to Maro, which gives them one view of their performance across platforms. This helped journalists in the newsroom easily understand what was working - as well as what wasn’t.
“Maro gave us one interface where we could connect the different sources and present them visually in a way that was useful day-to-day,” Henriksen explains. “It was the quick overview we were searching for.”
Editors and shift leaders quickly adopted the tool. Insights are now shared daily, including in a dedicated Slack channel where production is planned and evaluated.
“It was the quick overview we were searching for”
“It’s used every day, especially by the editors and planners who decide what should be done on an operational level,” Henriksen says. “There are quite a lot of references to Maro in our daily evaluations.”
Importantly, the tool isn’t confined to management. “People are happy this isn’t something kept only at the top,” Henriksen adds. “Everyone can go in, investigate, and see for themselves how things are performing.”
The Impact
Within months of using Maro, the platform has already enabled some big changes to NTB’s workflows, supported by clear data insights. They include:
Fact-based editorial decisions
“In the past, editors could discuss endlessly whether something was a strong story or not. Now we know how it performed,” says Henriksen.
Internal discussions are now grounded in evidence, making them more productive and forward-looking. Maro is helping the newsroom plan coverage with historical performance as a guide.
Sharper use of resources
NTB has stopped producing some legacy content after seeing it wasn’t adding value.
“That’s important, especially when resources are tight — it frees up time for journalism that matters to our customers.”
New insight on timing
A deep analysis of summer output revealed that NTB’s prime time runs between 11pm and 11am — very different from TV or other media.
“Just knowing that changes how we think about planned publishing,” Henriksen notes.
The Results
‘Top’ performing content up 15%
The changes to NTB’s workflows have clearly had an impact on content performance - the proportion of stories scored ‘Top’ in Maro has increased by 15% since they began using the platform to inform editorial decisions.‘Bottom’ performing content down 49%
As Kåre mentioned, one early learning from Maro was identifying what the newsroom had been producing that was not as impactful as they wanted. The impact of their work was clear - within a few months they had halved the proportion of stories that were not generating the desired impact for customers and their audiences.Boosted engagement from both publishers and their readers
Journalists accessing NTB’s content via its web portal are now viewing 24% more stories. Data from their clients also shows that end readers are engaging more, with NTB story views on publishers sites up 16%.
In their own words…
“Maro is intuitive and easy to use — it’s already become our most important tool for knowledge sharing and evaluation. It’s helping us make smarter decisions and increase the value we provide to customers.”
— Kåre Henriksen, NTB
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