Nordic Adtech Case Study: Ekstra Bladet’s Søren Johansen

We sat down with Søren Johansen, Head of Ad Operations, Ad Tech & Products at Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet, to discuss what he looks for in adtech partners, and how the combined strengths of Netric and Index Exchange help deliver against those priorities.

Q: Welcome Søren. Can you give an overview of your role? How do you balance needs across such a diverse portfolio of publications - from Ekstra Bladet to Bold and Feltet?

SJ: Ekstra Bladet effectively acts as the adtech centre of excellence across our wider media group. We lead on contracts, development and best practices, which other titles can adopt if it fits their strategy. My role covers the full digital ad stack across our portfolio - from strategy and partnerships to operations and product development. 

That means overseeing our onboarding and adtech setup, programmatic monetisation, data infrastructure and yield management. It also means ensuring that each publication’s commercial needs and brand are reflected in how we execute.

Balancing titles like Ekstra Bladet, Bold, and Feltet means navigating very different audience behaviours and commercial dynamics, even where there is some overlap. Ekstra Bladet has massive reach and is a fast-paced, news-driven environment, while Bold and Feltet are highly engaged niche communities with deep user loyalty and specialised sports content.

Q: What were the key factors that led Ekstra Bladet to partner with Netric and Index? Were there specific challenges or opportunities in the Nordic programmatic landscape that influenced this decision?

SJ: The Nordic programmatic market is relatively small in scale but highly sophisticated - technologically advanced, regulation-heavy and with a high bar for privacy compliance. We were looking for a combination of scale, transparency, and local collaboration. 

Netric’s local presence and understanding of the Nordic ecosystem were key. Pairing that with Index’s global technology and demand access gives us both the operational control we need as a publisher, alongside incremental, high-quality demand at scale. 

Q: From your perspective, what does the combination of Index's global technology and Netric's local Nordic expertise bring to the table that differentiates this partnership from other SSP solutions you've worked with?

SJ: What this partnership offers goes beyond a traditional SSP relationship. Rather than simply onboarding publishers to a platform, they bring a broader and more complete value proposition. Their curation product stands out in particular, and we’re seeing strong agency adoption as a result.

Netric knows the buyers, the agencies, and the dynamics of our market. That local connection makes a big difference. We can have strategic discussions in our time zone, in our “language”, and with people who understand both the data privacy context and the buyer side here. It makes optimisation faster, communication smoother, and outcomes more tangible. 

It’s also a relationship built on honesty and transparency. We have full visibility into demand sources and performance.

Q: You're managing adops across multiple screens and formats for millions of Danish readers each month. How has the partnership with Netric and Index helped you optimise yield and operational efficiency across this complex inventory mix?

SJ: We deliberately work only with our own SSP accounts - no resellers - because control matters. From political advertising labelling requirements to category separation rules, we need full visibility into pricing and demand sources. That level of governance is non-negotiable for us.

Having a technically-strong and responsive SSP partner is crucial when you operate at our scale and across so many touchpoints - desktop, mobile web, app, video, native, etc.

Netric and Index have supported us with stable, fast and high-performing integration across formats - including increasingly important server-side set-ups. Operationally, the support and insights we receive are very hands-on. This allows our ad ops team to react quickly, make data-driven decisions and focus on strategic yield optimisation rather than troubleshooting.

Curation has become a meaningful growth driver, particularly as more local agencies adopt the Netric/Index set-up. When assessing incremental value, we look beyond topline revenue. If Index wins at €10 and the second-highest bid is €5, that €5 delta represents clear incremental value. It’s not a perfect science, but it helps us quantify true competitive uplift rather than simply adding another demand source.

Q: Looking ahead, what are your priorities for adtech and programmatic monetisation at Ekstra Bladet? 

SJ: In a privacy-first and increasingly signal-constrained ecosystem, our strategy is clear: strengthen deterministic signals through logged-in users, deepen contextual intelligence, and build durable first-party data assets across our sports verticals.

We’re also building a premium, click-to-play video environment with sound on, intentionally designed around attention rather than autoplay impressions. It’s about creating an experience advertisers actively choose - not just inventory that technically qualifies as video.

Netric and Index are key partners in helping us deliver against these goals. They help to ensure technical scalability and stable performance, but also give access to the right demand and insights to grow new formats like Premium Video effectively. With their help, we’re well positioned to adapt to an ever-evolving programmatic landscape.

Ready to unlock more value from the inventory? Speak with our team at netricsales.com/contact today to see how we can help drive up your ad revenues.