You're reading The Audiencers' newsletter #84 sent out on March 4th, 2026. To receive future newsletters straight to your inbox every two weeks, sign up here.
I send out this newsletter every 2 weeks, and I promise you EVERY time it falls on a week when we have a Festival 😂 But so excited to share articles from our time in Hamburg!
But so many great subscription success stories coming in at the moment. Plenty in today’s newsletter:
- Lessons on breaking the subscription plateau from Forum Communications’ Chief Revenue Officer
- For many, subscriptions are rising even as traffic shrinks
- Behind The Guardian’s record-breaking end-of-year campaign
- Links to add to your reading list (including a debate on whether the NYT is still a news company…)
Lessons on breaking the subscription plateau from Forum Communications
Don’t overlook the subscriber acquisition goldmine that is archived content !
As publishers, we tend to obsess over today’s headlines.
At Forum Communications, they decided to looked at 30+ day-old content.
Stephanie Schroeder, Chief Revenue Officer, told me that when they checked Google Analytics, they discovered that ~10% of page-views were on articles older than 30 days.
And unlike homepage traffic, this content is typically accessed via search, social and direct links, which means users are actively seeking out this content.
> High intent = high propensity
So they tested hard paywalling 30+ day-old articles.
The results:
> Conversion rate doubled compared to standard paywalls
> 15–20% of all subscription conversions now come from archived content walls
(and no, they didn’t notice any negative SEO impacts as a result of this change!)
> This is just 1 of the many small tweaks that have culminated to having a big impact on helping Forum Communications to break the subscription plateau
-> Find more lessons in our full interview with Stephanie on Audiencers
For many, subscriptions are rising even as traffic shrinks
This ^^^^ is important news for publishers and your strategy
Despite traffic falling (according to various research, including Reuters Institute)…
> Irish Times journalism is now fully funded by subscribers
> The Atlantic now has “well over 1.4 million subscriptions”
> Daily Mail has seen huge success since launching their subs offer – they “raced past a quarter of a million subscribers” last March
> At The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, growth isn’t just continuing, it’s speeding up
The future of media, and the survival of journalism isn’t about page views, but relationships.
Behind The Guardian’s record-breaking US End of Year campaign
The Guardian’s end-of-year support campaign, running from early November, through Giving Tuesday and on to midnight on December 31st, is the most critical window in their financial calendar.
And their 2025 EOY campaign surpassed expectations:
- $3.1M total raised in cash (beating the $3M goal).
- $8.6M lifetime value including recurring gifts.
- An 83% increase in value over the 2023 baseline
So what were the secrets behind this success?
> Phasing, using lessons built up through the year:
- The campaign isn’t a single burst of energy but a carefully choreographed sequence that leverages cultural and political moments.
- For instance, the campaign starts early, in November, launching on the anniversary of Trump’s 2024 victory to lean into the “defense of the free press” mission)
> Test & optimize in real time:
- While traditional A/B testing is the industry standard, it’s often too slow for the “winner-takes-all” windows of Giving Tuesday or New Year’s Eve. To combat this, the Guardian team uses multi-armed bandit testing to optimize messaging in real-time
> Deeply root the campaign in the newsroom:
- Georgia Warren, US Executive Editor and VP, Reader and Supporter Strategy at The Guardian, serves as a bridge between journalists and commercial teams.
- Every public-facing module is reviewed by an editorial eye to ensure the tone is a seamless extension of the journalism, not a jarring commercial break
> Find my full chat with Georgia on Audiencers
Links to add to your reading list
- Digiday’s article mentioned above is worth a read: Subscriptions are rising at big news publishers – even as traffic shrinks
- How South Africa’s Daily Maverick keeps fine-tuning its membership programme
- Is The New York Times still a news company? This graph caused some debates (but don’t forget how news is still part of the bundle!)
See you in 2 weeks for the next newsletter,
Madeleine
