Bauer will offer SME clients marketing communication and lead generation as-a-service – a comprehensive and fully integrated range of solutions, brought together via an easy-to-use portal/cockpit enabling tracking, control and performance analysis. This addresses a clear and sizeable market opportunity; the European market for digital advertising amounted to roughly €50 billion in 2018 with a strong growth trajectory.

The new offer provides a good strategic fit with Bauer Media Group’s existing business, drawing on its knowledge and familiarity with the marketing ecosystem and capabilities already in the portfolio. Sunrise System, a leading Search Engine Optimization (SEO) company based in Poland, will provide a nucleus for the new service offering, which will be expanded via a buy and build approach to accelerate implementation.

Bauer Media Group continues to transform itself from a pure publishing house to a multi-business portfolio company focused on enduring value creation. Veit Dengler, member of the Executive Board (pictured) commented: “Publishing will remain the backbone of the company, but we continue to look for compelling opportunities to complement our core business and boost growth. This process first started in 2006 with the acquisitions of RMF, a Polish radio station, and has continued with the recent acquisition of leading online comparison portals across Europe. Building marketing and sales services for SMEs marks a new milestone in executing against this strategy.”