Adobe Digital Publishing

Earlier this week, Adobe Digital Index released the State of Mobile Benchmark, an analysis of the latest Internet browsing trends in mobile device OS and manufacturer as well as insights around the transition in the digital publishing industry to mobile apps. We’re excited to report that the data showed that purchases of digital content published by Adobe Digital Publishing Suite have reached an all-time high: 80 percent of content consumed in February was paid for in the form of a subscription or purchase of a single issue. That’s a 15 percent increase in paid-for content over the last 12 months. Further, digital magazine subscriptions now outsell single issues three to one.

What’s more, the number of weekly issues delivered by Digital Publishing Suite has been steadily climbing for the past two years – ninety million issues have been downloaded to-date.  There’s no reason to expect this trend to end.

What is the big take away? Consumers are buying digital magazines at an ever-increasing pace.  We’re at the point where digital magazines are moving from early adopters to the mainstream, print-reading audience and they have the potential to deliver a massive amount of ad dollars. People who consume digital magazines are proving to be very high value customers given their propensity to pay for content.

Digital magazine growth is also being driven by new devices coming onto the market. According to a February 21, 2013 article in the Economist, with the introduction of the iPad in 2010, “the market had its first electronic device that could replicate and even enhance (with features like video) the curated, tactile experience of a magazine.” The introduction of the iPad Mini last November added more momentum.

Therefore, it is no surprise that The State of Mobile Benchmark report indicates that tablet readership is up dramatically in the last 7 months – a 200% percent average increase in readers of titles published with Adobe DPS.  As more devices come in market, readers are voraciously consuming content –  from their favorite TV show totheir favorite magazines and newspapers  - on devices.

And of course, consumers want their choice of devices. While tablet usage continues to skyrocket, smartphone apps are starting to also contribute to overall readership. The State of Mobile Benchmark report also indicates that 75 percent of the time consumers are reading content on tablets and 25 percent of the time they are reading content on smartphones.

For publishers this means content ought to be available to readers whenever and wherever they are and ready for any device. Even if readers don’t always have their tablet with them, they’ll most likely have a smartphone.  We’ve found that reading behavior is dictated by device so publishers need to give readers an opportunity to engage with content regardless of circumstance – at home, at work, on the go. And that’s key

Engagement Drives Revenue

Additionally, smart use of interactivity has been shown to increase reading times and deeper engagement with content.  Case in point. Top Gear a leading UK publisher recently switched from a PDF replica publishing platform to DPS and found that engagement times with their content grew dramatically due to increased interactivity built into their issues.

This in turn has driven greater purchase of content with a sixty percent increase in paid download, eighty percent increase in single issue purchase and 165% increase in subscription revenue.  Publishers are able to monetize content on devices,  unlike the Web.  One last point.  Ad revenue jumped up 200%.

As the number of digital magazine readers continues to expand, the opportunity for increased ad revenue from interactive ads is real and immediate. Ads in a digital publication are the best of both worlds: they offer  immersiveness and bring products to life. They create connection between reader and advertiser, offering creative ways to extend a brand. A recent ad engagement study from Adobe indicated that interactive tablet ads drive greater brand engagement and 2 times greater product recall as compared to static PDF ad replicas on tablets.

To get a feel for how exciting interactive ads can be, check out these examples below. Then take a look at Adobe Digital Publishing Suite. The readership and engagement metrics tell a great story, but don’t take your eye off the creative potential Adobe DPS provides to make awesome digital content and ads.

Read the complete Adobe Digital Index PDF report here: State of Mobile Benchmark

*Updated May 14, 2013

The Digital Publishing Suite team is honored to receive the Digiday Publishing Award in the “Most Disruptive Publishing Technology” category, just announced yesterday!

The Digiday Publishing Awards honors “overall excellence and breakthrough achievement in digital publishing, branded content and advertising technology.” The DPAs are presented by Digiday, the host of the Digiday Publishing Summit. Hundreds of leading publishers, brand executives, publishers, journalists, experts, and technology visionaries participated in last night’s event, including representatives from The Huffington Post, Hearst Digital Media, Rodale, and Tumblr.

The “Most Disruptive Publishing Technology” category assesses innovation that has changed the publishing business through new methods of content display, delivery, distribution, discovery or monetization tools. (Last year’s winners in this category included: BuzzFeed Inc., Zinio, and Voices Heard Media / EventBox User Engagement Suite.) It is with great pleasure that we accept this award!

The DPAs include multiple categories that award innovations in the growing business of digital publishing, branded content and advertising technology. The judging committee is comprised of leading media and marketing experts, journalists, industry insiders, marketers, publishers and technology visionaries.

• Learn more about the Digiday Publishing Awards
• View the 2013 category winners

Results released from consumer survey of mobile purchasing behavior

In recent months, retail catalogers have increasingly expressed interest in producing apps that drive revenue and consumer engagement on tablet and mobile device. Today, we’re releasing the results of a new study that examines the purchasing and usage behaviors of consumers on mobile devices.

The 2013 Digital Publishing Report: Retail Apps & Buying Habits, Adobe’s U.S based survey of 1,003 consumers who use a smartphone and/or tablet, highlights data points about consumer preferences for shopping and catalog apps. New insights from the study show that retailers must adapt to meet the rising expectations for specialized mobile shopping experiences, and that the usage of mobile apps by consumers is on the rise.

In the survey results, respondents indicated that tablet users (55%) are almost twice as likely as smartphone users (28%) to purchase products and services from their devices. Across both mobile platforms, the use of retail apps will increase by approximately 15% in 2013 – more than half of all mobile shoppers are likely to make a purchase using a shopping app in the next year (56% of smartphone shoppers and 60% of tablet shoppers).

The findings also reveal that retail and catalog apps are rapidly catching up to mobile browsers as a viable shopping channel: nearly half of all mobile shoppers are interested in using apps instead of a mobile browser (45% of tablet shoppers and 49% of smartphone shoppers). Smartphone shoppers cite the slow speed of browsers and the ease of navigation on apps as reasons for their interest in using apps and digital catalogs. Of people who don’t currently shop on mobile devices, one in four intends to use mobile apps to shop in 2013.

Industry leaders like ASOS and Sotheby’s are among those who have used Digital Publishing Suite to engage customers and clients with tablet and smartphone apps – and for good reason. With increased opportunities for brand interaction and engagement, it’s no surprise that 38% of tablet shoppers and 42% of smartphone shoppers responded that app interactions strengthened their connection to the brand.

Finally, the survey results show that purchasing behavior is most influenced by a recommendation from a trusted friend, which creates the need for social sharing features in retail apps and catalogs – such as sharing products, reviews and news – to be effective in driving purchases and app downloads.

Learn more about retail apps and buying habits, and see how publishers are using Adobe Digital Publishing Suite to engage mobile consumers:

• 2013 Digital Publishing Report: Retail Apps & Buying Habits
• Infographic:

(PDF download of infographic available here)

Join the DPS team at the Folio: MediaNext Show on January 8-10, 2013 in NYC. The MediaNext Show pulls together leading publishers to discuss the future of media through keynotes, microsessions, and workshops.

Nick Bogaty, Director of Business Development for DPS, will be sharing the stage with Bill Mickey, Editor of FOLIO Magazine, in a fireside chat to discuss the role of technology in publishing. They’ll touch on what it takes to transition to digital, and how critical it is to choose a solution that let’s you stay on top of the device explosion, approach your marketing in an entirely new way, capture and use data, and stay connected to your readers.

Tuesday| January 8
12 p.m.

Gerald Farro, also from the business development team, will discuss what it takes to build an app using DPS and customize it to meet the specific needs of your publication and reader. Gerald will showcase apps built with Digital Publishing Suite that include features designed to help publishers reach a wide audience, deliver interactive experiences, and monetize content. Join the breakout session:

Wednesday | January 9
1:45-2:30 p.m.

Visit the Folio: MediaNext Show website to view the conference schedule.

Join the Adobe Meets MPA series on Thursday, November 27^th to learn how to promote and monetize content built with Digital Publishing Suite. Presenter Gerald Farro will share strategies for growing digital audiences, developing incremental revenue streams, and extending brands with in-app stores, social sharing, and geo-targeting.

Gerald Farro has been working with many DPS publishers over the past three years. Prior to Adobe, he worked in the trenches at top media organizations such as Wenner Media, Source Interlink and Bauer Publishing. The Adobe Meets MPA lunch is intended to be an open dialogue with publishers to build creative strategies for monetizing digital content.

Our customers who use DPS for retail catalogs will be excited about today’s news. This holiday season, Adobe forecasts 21% of U.S. online retail sales to come from mobile devices, with a peak on Black Friday when 24% of online sales will be from mobile. To put this in perspective, Black Friday is expected to bring in $2 billion for retailers, which means that $480 million will be driven by mobile purchases. You can track these data points, and many more, on the Adobe Digital Index Holiday Forecast Interactive Website this season. The Adobe Digital Index 2012 Online Shopping Forecast is built on anonymous Omniture data aggregated from over 150 billion online visits to 500 retail websites in the U.S. and Europe over the past six years. Adobe has big data and we are not afraid to use it.

The data shows that mobile retail shopping habits are rapidly growing – and it’s important for retailers to not miss out on these affluent customers. In the United States, sales from mobile devices is projected to increase 110% over 2011 sales. In Europe, sales from mobile devices is predicted to double.

While many retailers have websites designed for mobile, some savvy retailers use Digital Publishing Suite to drive traffic directly from highly designed digital catalogs to their websites. By bringing the catalog experience to life with videos, 360 rotation and other interactivity, they’re immersing customers in the product experience.  What’s more, with online shopping available in tablet catalogs, retailers are turning browsers into shoppers.

Data Points Worth Tracking
United States
24% of online sales for Black Friday will be from Mobile
-        13% Tablet
-        10% Mobile
-        1% Other

21% of online sales for the holiday season will be Mobile
-        13.5% Tablet
-        6.5 % Mobile
-        1% Other

Sales from mobile devices will be 12% of online holiday sales in Europe up from 6% last year. Online sales from tablets will more than double those in 2011 and sales from mobile phones will double those of 2011.

• Bookmark the Adobe Digital Index Holiday Forecast interactive website and track predictions for the coming year.
• Check out the Adobe Digital Index Holiday Forecast infographic
• Learn about retail catalogs built with Digital Publishing Suite, including Lakeland, ASOS, and Dick’s Sporting Goods

As publishers hone their tablet publishing sales strategy, they have new tools to upsell and cross-sell content to readers. Both publishers and corporations pay close attention to the visual presentation of products and services in order to entice customers toward purchase. Digital Publishing Suite, Enterprise Edition customers can build a custom store in the app to showcase fresh content and drive incremental sales to a captive audience. All Digital Publishing Suite multifolio apps include a Library view allowing readers to scan the publication’s titles and purchase new content. While this has been a fruitful business practice for publishers, Enterprise customers can build custom stores with HTML in order to more accurately reflect the publisher’s brand and promote top-selling titles, ultimately driving folio sales to a fully engaged audience.

What is a custom HTML store?
A custom store built in a Digital Publishing Suite app showcases products, services, and special features available for sale. It is accessed through a “Store” slot in the navigation bar. In contrast with the existing Library view in Digital Publishing Suite, it can be organized to feature and promote top-selling titles or products, influencing reader purchase. The publisher can use the store’s flexible design to incorporate images, typography and layout that provide a richer, branded experience.

Two Condé Nast titles use the same custom store structure, different branding

Several Condé Nast titles have created custom HTML stores in order to merchandise content and drive incremental sales to their readership. Download a copy of WIRED or The New Yorker to fully experience the features. The landing page showcases the most recent issue with a more prominent cover icon and a short description of featured articles. When the reader taps on the cover, he not only sees an enlarged view of the cover, but can also scroll through the table of contents, similar to the selection process at an actual newsstand. Swiping through back issues, the reader can scan the table of contents for each issue and carefully select and purchase relevant content.  The tabs on the top of the store navigate to featured items – such as the WIRED App Guide or The Year in Gear.

New Yorker has the same organization as WIRED, but uses colors, typography, images and content that reflect The New Yorker brand. Whereas WIRED’s customers are drawn in by the latest technology (such as apps or gear), The New Yorker customers are enticed by collections of stories from renowned authors.
Build your own custom store

The article “Build a horizontal swipe storefront with folio preview” provides developers with a template for creating and customizing your own store within a viewer app. This template enables users to swipe horizontally through store pages, view folio previews, and navigate to different sections of the store which can feature different categories of product offerings.

Two views of the custom store template included in the “horizontal swipe storefront” article

Custom Stores in Business Publications
The custom store is not limited to merchandising digital publications. Rather, its capabilities extend beyond content to products and services that readers may be interested in. For example, a fashion retailer may use Digital Publishing Suite to publish a catalogue that contains physical products for sale within the custom store of the app. A membership organization could sell t-shirts and mugs to its members. This streamlines the purchasing process without asking the reader to change gears and leave the app.

Why HTML?

• HTML provides the flexibility required for a custom store. Web pages in the custom slots of the navigation bar can be hosted by the publisher if desired, rather then embedded them in the viewer app. If a publisher needs to revise the price of an issue or feature a timely promotion, hosted HTML allows the designer to modify the content and immediately update the store without requiring the end user to update the viewer app.
• HTML allows for transactional capabilities, allowing customer to purchase content or physical goods within the app.
• HTML allows for highly customized visual design and user experience, and also allows existing web assets to be re-purposed.

• To learn how to build a custom viewer for your app, visit the Adobe Digital Publishing Developer Center. It includes articles on building a custom storefront and building a horizontal swipe storefront with folio preview
• Read the Merchandising with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite white paper to learn more about the business advantages of a custom store and more implementation options

Distimo, an app analytics firm, released data today that illustrate increasing consumer demand for Newsstand publications on the iPad. Over 7% of the top 200 apps in the app store are sold via Newsstand. Of those, Distrimo estimates that the top 100 grossing apps available in Newsstand are bringing in $70K in revenue per day. Included in February’s top five are The New Yorker and National Geographic, built with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite. Not surprisingly, most of the revenue comes from in-app purchases, where publishers can take advantage of upsell and cross sell opportunities.

Interested in more information about tablet consumer behavior? Last month, we released data aggregated from Digital Publishing Suite apps, showing that 68% of consumers pay for digital magazines built with Digital Publishing Suite and almost half of those are purchases are subscriptions bought on the device. Magazine readers are buying, and they’re coming back for more.

Are you still wondering if you should publish to tablets such as the iPad and Amazon Kindle Fire? How do you know if your business will make money on those formats? How will the growth of the tablet industry impact publishing?

In this video, Zeke Koch, Senior Director of Product Management at Adobe, discusses the business case for publishing to the tablet. He addresses major questions that businesses new to tablet publishing are pondering:

1. Why should publishers deliver content on tablets?
2. What kind of resources are required to migrate content to tablets?
3. How do publishers make money on tablets, and how is that different from websites?
4. Why should publishers move content to tablets now?

Koch addresses each question based on his experience collaborating with publishers who have forged a path in digital publishing. Some highlights are below. Watch the video for a more in-depth understanding of where the industry is moving and why publishers need to include tablets in their publishing strategy.

• Readers are willing to purchase content on tablets.

People who own tablets expect to purchase content because, in contrast with the web, tablet content is often considered higher quality than web content because the rich reading experience enabled through applications. A reading experience that often mimics print – but offers a higher level of engagement -that keeps readers coming back to their favorite brands on tablets. Tablets are a great way to invest in and acquire new readers, as 40% of people who purchase magazines on leading tablets are net new subscribers.

• Publishers can use existing resources to publish to the tablet. 

With Digital Publishing Suite, designers who do layout for print can easily do layout for tablet applications. Using the Adobe solution, designers can add interactivity and maintain control over the branding and design of a tablet publication. Therefore, companies and organizations can often create tablet publications with existing design and production resources, giving creatives complete control over the experience and quality of the application.

• Advertisers are willing to invest media dollars in tablet advertising.

Even though the web has ten times as many readers as tablets, advertisers can reach a more targeted audience through tablet applications. Plus, recent research from Adobe indicates that tablet readers tend to also be more affluent and more than 3X likely to make a purchase via ecommerce than those readers who consume content or shop via mobile phones. In a nutshell, advertisers can reach a premium set of readers who are willing to pay both for tablets and the immersive reading experience that they provide.

• Within the next few years, virtually everyone will have a tablet.

Tablet adoption is on the rise. Soon, readers will expect that many publications as well as other content currently in print will be available on their favorite tablets. Publishers, organizations and corporations need to migrate content onto tablets today in order to meet the growing demand of the marketplace.

Watch the video here: