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Operations

How to analyze your subscription data
Today it's all about data. I probably don't need to explain to you how important it is for subscription success, but data is often still a specialist topic that many people…
Meta’s news ban on Canada – a chance to strengthen Radio-Canada
Written by Christophe Cluzel and Catherine Léger from Radio-Canada. Christophe, Radio-Canada's Senior Director of Marketing Strategies, guides the teams in acquiring and retaining audiences, while Catherine, Senior Head of Digital…
What is a dynamic paywall?
If you're in the media business, likelihood is you already know what a paywall is. It blocks content and asks a reader to pay to subscribe in order to gain…
Newsletter landing page: 9 essentials for a successful acquisition strategy
I've subscribed to over 2,000 newsletters over the last few years. Most of them had terrible landing pages, but a few were excellent. What sets them apart? They focus on…
State of the mobile publishing market report 2024
Media businesses are facing their most difficult moment ever, Politico and Axios co-founder Jim VanderHei recently said as he ticked off challenges in audience acquisition and monetization. To compete, publishers…
L’Équipe: limiting churn when increasing the price from a highly discounted subscription offer
Romain Lhote, CMO of L’Équipe, spoke at The Audiencers’ Festival about their retention strategy whilst increasing their subscription offer price.
Developing community beyond commenting, with The Telegraph and The Times
Reader-led journalism, live Q&As, polls… how British publishers are developing subscriber engagement through community
Stand out with an onboarding pack: How The Economist increased new subscriber engagement by 3.5%
The context Educating subscribers about their entitlements is critical for successful onboarding. One effective method is to send subscribers a targeted email welcome series. However, inboxes are becoming more crowded…

Registration

NZZ: How do you inspire people in the first 100 days?
100 days. During this time, you have to convince new users that your subscription is worthwhile for them. One of the latest guests on my Subscribe Now podcast has been…
Keep calm, carry on, and launch a registration wall
Finding the best paywall strategy for your titles is no mean feat. At Alternatives Economiques, we've worked towards a model similar to that of the New York Times: based on…
From community to reader revenue: lessons to learn from The Independent and Reach PLC
Mark Zohar shares how community builds a valuable stepping stone between un-engaged users and subscribers.
Publishers, let’s stop talking about advertising vs subscription, sustainability means advertising AND subscription
Registration is a valuable strategy for diversification, combining subscription and advertising revenue models
Registration wall: benchmarking publishers’ account creation journey
We're all aware by now of the value of registration for collecting first-party data, boosting engagement and personalizing the user experience, not to mention supporting both ad and subscription revenue…
How publishers are using A/B testing to optimize conversion rates
3 examples of A/B testing – what you can test, what you should define before a test and what can you learn from these examples to apply to your own…
Building the optimal registration journey
Registration is a valuable model for digital publishers at any level of maturity or revenue model: …
Managing editorial production: giving an objective to each content
What is my content actually seeking to achieve? With 50 pieces of content produced each day across 14 sections, Elodie’s team at Unify’s women’s brands need to make each content…

Inspiration from publishers around the world

Newsletter Walls: How a French publisher is innovating to increase its subscriber base
This French print and digital news publisher has developed a unique engagement strategy involving newsletter inscriptions and registration walls to boost ARPU and de-anonymize audiences. 
The Wall Street Journal: how to develop long term relationships with young audiences
The Audiencers' Festival at The New York Times Building on March 15th brought together 150 digital publishing professionals to discuss everything from audience research to newsletters, engaging young audiences and…
Audience research at The Atlantic: The questions that data can’t answer
Exclusive interview with Gina Bulla, executive director of audience research at The Atlantic
Retention, engagement & subscriber-only newsletters: lessons to learn from the experts at WAN-IFRA’s Digital Media Europe
From LADbible group and Die Zeit, to The New York Times and The Mill, what did the experts have to share at WAN-IFRA’s event?
How we introduced group subscriptions to The Atlantic
From the early days of market research homing in on a target audience to finding ways to incorporate user feedback throughout the development cycle, the goal was “seamless.” For years, The Atlantic has…
The Atlantic: bringing more value to readers and subscribers through our mobile app
"Our products are better when informed by the people who use them" The Audiencers' Festival at The New York Times Building on March 15th brought together 150 digital publishing professionals…
A Spirit of Generosity: How The Atlantic team collaborates to launch features like article gifting
At The Atlantic, we pride ourselves in fostering an environment that abides by a guiding principle: a spirit of generosity, or, in other words, “a natural disposition in each colleague toward…
7 lessons for publishers from 7 different subscription businesses
Learn from other subscription businesses to increase engagement, conversion and retention

Conversion

4 things to learn from Babbel’s e-learning subscription success
Humans and machines should work hand-in-hand, personalization is good but individualization is better, and other lessons to learn from Babbel’s subscription
Takeaways from INMA’s town hall, the world’s largest annual event covering news media subscriptions
From FT Strategies’ advice for setting up an effective framework for a subscription model, to case studies about experimentations from the Irish Times and audience diversification at the Hamburger Tageblatt,…
The Essential Engagement KPIs for Optimizing Conversion Rates
Why engagement is important, the essential KPIs for tracking it, and how to turn this measurement into actions that will optimize conversion rates.
5 simple hacks for publishers to increase paywall conversion rates from Poool’s CEO, Maxime Moné
Increase conversion rates in no time with these 5 simple hacks, effective for all types of paywalls
What is a dynamic paywall?
If you're in the media business, likelihood is you already know what a paywall is. It blocks content and asks a reader to pay to subscribe in order to gain…
Retention, engagement & subscriber-only newsletters: lessons to learn from the experts at WAN-IFRA’s Digital Media Europe
From LADbible group and Die Zeit, to The New York Times and The Mill, what did the experts have to share at WAN-IFRA’s event?
Don’t feel like subscribing? 12 examples of alternatives to increase ARPU
I'm guessing that you're a fan of subscriptions, otherwise you're in the wrong place. But, unfortunately, not all of our users and readers are as enthusiastic about this model. Some are…
From community to reader revenue: lessons to learn from The Independent and Reach PLC
Mark Zohar shares how community builds a valuable stepping stone between un-engaged users and subscribers.

Subscription

Engagement data & conversion strategies to increase revenue
Quantify user’s loyalty journey, monetize conversion events and adapt user experiences to increase reader revenue
Forget focusing on paywall types, it’s time to put your audience first 
Instead of trying to find the ‘best paywall model’, look at your audience, segment them into engagement groups and present each group with an adapted journey that’s most likely to…
How publishers are using A/B testing to optimize conversion rates
3 examples of A/B testing – what you can test, what you should define before a test and what can you learn from these examples to apply to your own…
How to reduce the risks of launching a subscription strategy
How can you launch a subscription strategy without putting your traffic, SEO, advertising revenue and your reader’s view at risk?
The New York Times dynamic paywall model, analyzed
Registration as a soft conversion step, developing numerous levers for value creation and not worrying too much about bypassing are just some of the strategies you can apply to your…
Newsletter Walls: How a French publisher is innovating to increase its subscriber base
This French print and digital news publisher has developed a unique engagement strategy involving newsletter inscriptions and registration walls to boost ARPU and de-anonymize audiences. 
Paywall visibility rate: the essential KPI you should be tracking in your subscription strategy
Tracking and optimizing both premium content visibility and paywall visibility rate will help move users through the funnel towards subscribing in the future.
Subscription Conversions: Finding the balance between frustration and engagement
Too much frustration and a user leaves your site to find content elsewhere. Leave too much content open and you may well increase engagement but this won’t increase your revenues. So…

Retention

From newsletters to predicting possible cancellation: tactics to reduce churn from The Audiencers’ Festival Madrid
This article is a translation of José's article on his blog, El Caos, with additional insights from speakers on the panel following the event. In the pursuit of increasing subscription revenue…
Dopamine & the Hook model: how The New York Times harnesses the power of games
Julien Ancel is the founder of Anthm, a gaming platform designed for media organizations wanting to adopt the gaming strategy that revolutionized the New York Times. However, it's important to…
Why retention is more important than acquisition
Retention costs less than acquisition and brings in more revenue… it’s a no brainer!
The retention-acquisition connection
This article is from Tom Burrell's, Retention Blueprint Newsletter. Written specifically for Subscription businesses, 'The Retention Blueprint' is a free, retention-focused digest delivered straight to your inbox every Friday, providing…
Key publishing insights from media leaders at Mx3 conference in Berlin
From data & subscription growth to Gen Z & new content formats… what can we takeaway from Di5rupt’s Mx3 event for publishers?
Why recirculation should be one of your KPIs and how to increase it, with takeaways from The Independent
The real-time metric that leads to higher engagement, loyalty and propensity to subscribe – all of which directly correlate with revenue
Lock-in effects: How to make your subscription irreplaceable
9 types of lock-in effects with real world examples to better retain your subscribers
The concept of Engagement Economics: connecting engagement to commercial outcomes
How can you put engagement into increasing ARPU throughout the funnel towards recurring, premium subscribers?