INMA scored its biggest event of the year this week with an Audience Analytics Town Hall attended by 1043 people from 94 countries.

The event was fronted by INMA’s smart data initiative lead Greg Piechota with Meta’s Maíra Carvalho, with a team of contributors including Riske Betten of Mediahuis Nederland, Enrique Gómez of Mexico’s Grupo AM, Mariano Blejman of Grupo Octubre in Argentina, Alexandre Cordeiro (Editora Globo, Brazil), David Hinojosa Aguirre of Grupo Reforma in Mexico, Guilherme Vieira (Gazeta do Povo in Brazil), Gareth Lloyd of South Africa’s Media24, Giulianna Carranza (El Comercio in Peru), and Leonidas Mejia (Grupo OPSA, Honduras).

Keynoter Betten (pictured) – whose employer Mediahuis is growing rapidly, most recently with the acquisition of a German title – says it’s no surprise that data is “a huge part of this”.

She quotes the editorial mantra of ‘why, what, who, when and where’ with five w’s of her own: ‘Why, why, why, why and why’, and urges imagining yourself as the customer.

“Ask why we’re selling fewer digital subscriptions; maybe the problem is the app, maybe it’s the paywall, or a gap in the CTR,” she says. “We want to enrich personal lives with relevant content, outstanding products and satisfied customers.”

She urges listening to your customer – possible in a variety of ways – and warns that if you don’t listen, “someone else will”. And perhaps retentions will be a better measure of success that acquisitions, presenting a cartoon to illustrate the point that answers may be no help if the question isn’t on the map.

Piechota says with the global event, the aim had been to elevate data analytics to the top of the news media industry agenda. “I think we succeeded,” he says.

The event shared achievements from the audience analytics accelerator held for Latin America jointly with Meta’s Journalism Project and the International Center for Journalists.

He urges, “Break down your strategy into stages and build incrementally. Don’t sink into endless infrastructural projects.

“Start with the easy wins and solve single problems from beginning to end. Outsource what’s not your core competence – data strategy is a journey and not a project.”