Verslo žinios Bets on Data, Not Just News

Interview with Ugnius Jankauskas, CEO of Verslo žinios

What is the situation in the Lithuanian advertising market? Are you growing?

Last year Verslo žinios saw about 10% growth overall. Lithuanian Internet portals’ net revenues, reported by Kantar, showed around 3% growth last year—very modest, compared to our 10%. For 2025, we expect between 5–10% growth, based on what marketing leaders have told us. B2B marketers’ focus is shifting from advertising in local media to other means —they’re investing in content marketing, international platforms, LinkedIn, and digital channels.

Is that shift a long-term threat to your business? What would you say if a client tells you, “I’m directing funds to LinkedIn and content instead of you”?

The key advantage we offer is context. Our clients want credibility and reputational strength. Whether it’s a portal, conference, magazine, or native placement, we can provide high-trust environments. We focus on multi-platform sponsorships and tailor-made campaigns—combining articles, banners, and video across different channels. That’s where we stand out compared to generic LinkedIn posts.

And what about events? Are those still growing?

Demand is huge, but we’re bumping into capacity limits. Three years ago you could book venues months in advance—now, for events over 100 people (and certainly 300+), venues in Vilnius and Kaunas are often booked a year ahead. So the issue isn’t lack of interest—it’s infrastructure bottlenecks.

Your Estonian sister publisher Äripäev rebranded its advertising department to “marketing solutions department.” Have you made a similar move?

Yes, already back in 2015 we moved from calling it the advertising department to “communication services department.” That reflects the reality—ads like banners or newspaper pages now make up just 10–20% of our revenue. But internally, people still say “advertising department” because it’s simpler. In public, we use “communication services,” which better matches the scope of what we do.

That said, in Lithuania, the term “advertising” still carries a positive connotation, while “communication services” can sound pretentious or abstract to some. So the rebranding is more than semantics—it’s about striking the right chord with both clients and the public.

Given the flood of AI-generated content and branded messaging on blogs and LinkedIn, how do you ensure your content—both journalistic and sponsored—still gets attention?

Fifteen years ago, competitors were chasing traffic via social media. We decided instead to focus on building our direct audience. Since around 2011–2012, our strategy has been to grow the Verslo žinios brand and drive loyal, repeat traffic directly to our site.

Last November, we did a full relaunch of the site, and the results were huge—30% growth in engagement and paying subscribers.

As for sponsored content, we focus on relevance and placement. Not every native ad performs the same. Some get great results; some underperform. The difference is in execution—but we ensure every piece runs in a context that matches the content and the target audience.

Where do you see the biggest business potential?

Interestingly, it’s not media.

The core of our growth and future potential is our data product, Rekvizitai.

It’s a B2B intelligence platform—similar to Infopank in Estonia, but we’ve built it out in our own way.

If you compare traffic, Rekvizitai now generates even more pageviews than our news portal. And from a business perspective, I can honestly say that data is more financially attractive than the traditional media business.

We’ve already expanded Rekvizitai to Estonia, and this summer we’re launching in Slovenia. We’re also considering a few other markets. What’s exciting is the synergy between news and data—it goes both ways.

News content can drive data insights, and structured company data often gives rise to news stories.

Our focus is on company-specific data that supports real business decisions. We’re not just recycling public registry information—we’re aggregating multiple sources, analyzing trends, and delivering meaningful insights. That’s what gives Rekvizitai its value and makes it more than just a directory or database.

Screenshot of rekvizitai.lt website

Many startups use AI tools to pull information from public business registries and automate lead generation. Isn’t that a threat to Rekvizitai’s value?

Yes, we’re very aware of those startups. The registry data itself is public. But we don’t just scrape it—we enrich it with insights, client reviews, ESG documentation, predictive analytics, and multi-source data integration. That’s not something you can reproduce with a simple API scrape.

More importantly, we invest in native advertising and editorial-quality presentation within the data portal itself. It’s a hybrid model. AI is definitely increasing the complexity of our work, but it also brings big opportunities in forecasting, financial modeling, and deeper analysis.

Another advantage you have is your archives—30 years of paywalled content that isn’t available elsewhere. That’s not easy to replicate.

Yes, exactly. That’s a huge strength for us. But the problem is, we’ve already started seeing cases where AI systems have scraped and used our content—even the parts behind paywalls.

We’re not entirely sure how it’s being done technically, but we’ve found evidence that some of our material has ended up in these AI engines. That’s illegal. It’s a copyright violation, plain and simple.

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning. The real fight around content ownership and AI usage is only starting now.

We’re definitely preparing for that legal and ethical battle, because protecting our content is critical—not just for us, but for media industry as a whole.

Aside from Rekvizitai, what other areas are you exploring for future growth?

We're developing several verticals beyond media and data. One major area is legal services—we’ve built the best legal document database in Lithuania, pulling from all institutions and court cases. It’s tailored for lawyers, with advanced search, tagging, and deep cross-referencing.

This vertical is especially promising with AI, because we already have structured, interconnected content that AI tools can leverage. Within the next two years, I expect we'll be offering a significantly improved product for legal professionals—something AI-enhanced but rooted in verified, high-value data.

Another vertical is related to the HR. Our HR assistant helps companies digitalize internal processes—recruitment, documentation, etc. It's still growing, but the synergy with our media and data products is strong.

Looking ahead, we’ll continue adding verticals—either sector-specific or process-based (like HR or finance)—but all within the B2B scope. That’s where our strength lies.

How is AI impacting journalism and content production in Verslo Zinios?

AI is helping journalists create much better content, more efficiently. A task that might have taken four hours—like writing up this interview—can now be done in one. But more than speed, it’s about depth: AI helps gather background, find context, and surface patterns that improve the story.

Still, I believe human editing makes a huge difference. AI-generated text lacks the subtlety and soul of a well-crafted human article. The same goes for translations—five years ago, machine translation was awful. Now it’s better, but top-quality texts, like books, are still edited by humans for a reason.

But doesn’t AI level the playing field? Now anyone can write a decent article using these tools. What’s the advantage of professional journalism?

True, but there are two things AI still can’t replicate. First is originality—getting the actual insights from people. Like now, I’m giving you input that doesn’t exist online. It’s fresh material. AI can’t manufacture that.

Second is human perspective. Even with AI, a journalist brings trust, experience, and narrative skill. You can feel the difference when something is written or refined by a real person.

If you could go back in your professional career and change something—what’s a mistake or missed opportunity you’ve learned from?

We made a lot of mistakes. One was trusting Google and social media too much in the early days. We treated them as friends, opening our content too freely. Now, with AI, we’re much more cautious. We protect our content and our intellectual property.

Another lesson: we underused data in our early years. If I could go back, I’d embed data thinking from day one—even in our print days. The synergy between journalists and data analysts is powerful and we should have built that earlier.

What’s a strategic decision you’re most proud of?

Introducing a paywall in 2010. At the time, everyone said we were crazy—"the internet must be free." But we knew free content would eventually kill us. So we bet on paid content, and it paid off. We were first movers in Lithuania and it’s been one of our best decisions.

Any recommendations for professional reading, podcasts, or blogs?

I really enjoy the podcast Masters of Scale—it’s insightful, well-produced, and offers valuable business perspectives. It’s hosted by Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder.