Find out how we helped the Financial Times build an internal experimentation capability that generated £12.5M in revenue and won ‘Best Experimental Campaign’ at the PMA Awards 2025.
The Financial Times is one of the world’s leading global business news organisations, with a print and digital readership of over one million subscribers. Operating across a dual-revenue model (subscriptions and advertising) the FT faces the ongoing challenge of balancing audience growth with sustainable monetisation. As a premium publisher navigating a rapidly evolving digital landscape, the need for data-led, scalable decision-making had never been more critical.
Financial Times needed to establish their in-house experimentation team and scale performance marketing and audience revenue without compromising subscriptions. They required a transformative approach to audience monetisation.
FT needed to establish their in-house experimentation team and scale performance marketing and audience revenue without compromising subscriptions. They required a transformative approach to audience monetisation.
Specifically, FT was grappling with how to grow its pool of registered (but not yet paying) users, while maintaining the integrity of its subscription funnel. Without a robust framework for testing and learning, decisions around paywalls, registration prompts, and audience segmentation were being made without sufficient data. At the same time, the impending deprecation of third-party cookies added urgency to building a first-party data strategy that could future-proof their commercial model.
In Digital established an embedded capability within FT’s teams, leveraging their Martech stack to deliver a high-impact test-and-learn program. We developed predictive models, defined optimal trade-offs between subscription and registration, and built a 2-phase test model with live risk mitigation controls.
Rather than operating as an external agency, In Digital integrated directly into FT’s existing teams, working alongside editorial, product, and data functions to ensure alignment from day one. This embedded approach allowed us to tailor our methodology to the FT’s unique audience dynamics and commercial priorities. The 2-phase test model was designed to balance short-term conversion goals with longer-term audience lifetime value, giving FT a repeatable framework for decision-making that would outlast the engagement itself.
The results of the programme significantly exceeded initial targets across every key metric
600,000
Marketable registered users in year 1
2.5x
More ad revenue from registered users
26%
Reduction in paid media CPA
PMA Awards 2025 – Best Experimental Campaign
The industry recognition at the Performance Marketing Awards validated the approach as genuinely best-in-class. It serves as a benchmark for how publishers can build durable, data-driven growth capabilities from within.
Achieved by the In Digital team
Vittoria Gianoli
Managing Director
Maria Rivelles
Head of Innovation
Eleanor Payne
Associate Director, Growth and Paid Media
Kate Lindars
Associate Director, Paid Media and Growth
Tom Hobden
Senior Manager, Growth and Experimentation
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