Case Study: Axel Springer Group doubles CPMs with 1plusX first-party data partnership

Media Impact doubles CPMs with 1plusX first party data partnership

Media Impact, the Axel Springer Group’s digital publisher sales house (covering brands like BILD, WELT and Business Insider), faced a high-stakes challenge when GDPR loomed: replace third-party data with a first-party-only strategy without losing reach, performance or margins. The team’s goal was to build a content-based rate card that targeted readers by reading behavior using only in-house resources, while avoiding higher costs and weaker-performing segments.

They partnered with 1plusX for bespoke segment building, data enrichment and AI-driven lookalike/predictive matching to fill audience gaps and scale targeting. The result: a first-party rate card and dynamic, behavior-based segments that doubled CPMs for targeted campaigns, drove an 18% increase in campaign sales, grew audience segment size 2x–4x, produced 300+ interest/intent segments, cut data costs and doubled targeted campaign revenue share.

Axel Springer Group

Carsten Schwecke

Chief executive officer