How Axios Built on RebelMouse

Dan Ackermann
Wed, 09 Aug 2017 21:01:12 +0000
Vimeo.com, Video, Case studies, Loyalty, Facebook.com, Developers, Media

The Axios founding team is composed of the industry veterans who built Politico and shaped The New York Times. They had a vision for building a next-generation media site that would not only win in the world of social, but would also build real loyalty and a subscriber base.

Industry: News Media
Headquarters: Washington, DC
Website: Axios.com

Axios is a new media company delivering vital, trustworthy news and analysis in the most efficient, illuminating, and shareable ways possible. They offer a mix of original and smartly narrated coverage of media trends, tech, business, and politics with expertise, voice, and smart brevity — on a new and innovative mobile platform.

With some of the best writers in the world, Axios knew that, to be successful, they would need to provide next-generation authoring tools as well as a next-generation front-end experience for their readers.

Project Requirements:

Get to launch quickly while still having tremendous depth in technology

Build a next-generation media property

Empower editors with technology for breaking news

Build a CMS that manages and elegantly assembles content into articles

Our Solution

RebelMouse is a contagious media company with deep technology solutions, and the RebelMouse CMS is a modern solution built in the age of social. The platform is highly customizable, with a robust developer program.

As a result, Axios was able to work with RebelMouse to build exactly to the vision the founders and Matt had when they set off on their journey. The writers and editors create their content on RebelMouse. The Axios newsletters are written in the RebelMouse CMS, which has a sophisticated integration with Sailthru for the sending of email.

"RebelMouse allowed me to get to launch with a really beautiful product that would have taken way longer to get to. Andrea Berry and her team understand our vision and opportunities and work with our own engineers and product team seamlessly."

— Matt Boggie, CTO, Axios

The front-end experience of Axios is innovative and has led to groundbreaking results. RebelMouse worked closely with the Apple team to build an Apple News integration that has led to massive exposure for Axios and an increasingly close collaboration between the companies.

RebelMouse also built sophisticated, next-generation tools that editors could use to take advantage of Facebook's Instant Articles for big feature stories.

Results

Axios has quickly become the darling of new media companies. The property grew impressively and rapidly, skyrocketing to 40M+ page views per month just three months after launch.

But it's not just the growth in audience that's caught everyone's attention: Axios is creating loyalty that nobody has seen among media companies since 2005. The site has a bounce rate under 15% — when today's industry standard with social is 80%. People are making Axios their home screen.

They're coming and staying longer, consuming more, signing up for more things, and — probably most important of all — sharing more.