This guest post was provided by our friends at Atlas, the recurring revenues growth consultancy.

How do you currently decide which article is free or premium?

The overarching trend is that a decision to block an article with a paywall or not is based on the article itself, generally the value-level: 

• Short articles are “free” – e.g. breaking news and service news
• In-depth features are “premium” – e.g. Columnists, in-depth analysis

Mather Economic’s matrix summarizes it quite neatly, sharing KPIs for these ‘content-types’, each of which has a different business goal. In particular, mass appeal content is for advertising, whilst premium content is for subscription revenue.

Ultimately, it’s about the reach and conversion potential of the article. Who makes this judgment – and based on what metrics- varies for different publisher respondents.

For example, one publisher in the survey shared that whilst the above is true, they also measure velocity and engagement within the first three hours of publishing, producing a list of potential premium articles. Editorial teams then make a decision on which articles to block with a paywall from this list, post-publication. 

A few in the survey specified that this freemium model has been developed to better facilitate a balance between frustration and engagement. Specifically:

• Free articles are blocked by a registration wall, allowing readers access to a set quota of articles for free per month. This also allows for data collection and increased ad revenue through targeting
• Premium articles are open for the first article, and blocked on the second, allowing the reader to see the value of subscribing

Others go even deeper in their dynamicity, often applying the above, but with some dynamic additions based on the user:

• Churned subscribers are always hardwalled (blocked on all articles by a hard paywall) because of high propensity to subscribe
• Social referrals have a registration wall and free pageview because of low likelihood to subscribe
• The paywall journey can also depend on device-type
• All articles that are also featured in print are hardwalled
• Readers that are gifted an article by a subscriber are presented with a 48h discovery pass

AOC in France employ the strategy in this final bullet point, asking for the reader’s email address in exchange. Click-through rate on this wall is at 32%, well above market averages.

Another interesting criteria on when to unlock or lock articles is based on time-since-publishing. One publisher noted that they hardwall all articles for one week, unlocking them for standard metering after 7 days.

BILD case study

BILD in Germany also brought up the topic of article relevancy in a podcast, giving the example of an article covering the news of a player transferring teams. Whilst it’s still breaking news, this is valuable information for subscribers to be able to access before other readers, so at this time it’s premium.

Then, as Daniel Mussinghoff, Premium Director at BILDplus shared, “at some point it just doesn’t make sense to leave this article behind a paywall as it’s all over other news portals too. But then we also know that we can follow up relatively quickly and try to get more information. In other words, the first photos of the medical check, the first interview, the first details about the contract, how much he’ll be earning, the transfer fee, what the agent is getting… We’re of course interested in being able to follow up and also follow up with more plus articles.”

> To read next: How to evaluate the success of your subscription model (before optimizing)

Going beyond a decision made on content type alone

For the most part, respondents’ focus was on using the content type (as detailed above) to define whether the reader would be blocked by a paywall or not. However, this proves to be limited in its value for publishers given the wide variety of reader profiles visiting a publisher’s site. In particular, with different reader profiles comes different levels of engagement, so a blanket approach is rarely going to apply for all of them.

DRIVE research reveals that 95% of users fall into the ‘unengaged’ category, with less than 120 seconds active on the website per month.

As a result, the best solution does appear to be taking the ‘freemium’ base, and adding on layers of dynamicity based on the user’s level of engagement.

In this model, you have 4 contexts to build a conversion journey for: 

• Less engaged, on a ‘free article’ -> goal of engaging, maybe through a newsletter wall or leaving the article open
• Highly engaged, on a ‘free article’ -> goal of frustrating slightly and increasing value, maybe through registration
• Less engaged, on a ‘premium article’ -> goal of showing the value of subscribing
• Highly engaged, on a ‘premium article’ -> goal of converting to subscription

You can then develop this model by adding more layers of dynamicity to adapt to more than just level of engagement, such as: 

• Device type
• Content tags (e.g. topic, author, etc.)
• Reader location
• User status (e.g. ex-subscriber, registered member, event attendee)
• Source of traffic (e.g. social media, newsletter)

In order to tailor your conversion approach to maximise engagement, you need real insights into why your readers are on your site, what content they value and their needs as customers, A “one size fits all” approach assumes every reader wants the same thing, whereas a dynamic approach driven by audience knowledge allows you to provide bespoke, engaging and authentic experiences. Atlas are seeing personalization driving results across publishers of all sizes, supporting the idea that customer-centric thinking is more likely to achieve your goals. – Abi Spooner, Strategy Partner, Atlas

Back to the survey…

Is this decision manual or automated? 

The majority of respondents chose manual, making the decision based on their overall business model – advertiser value from all customers versus higher value from paid or registered subscribers.

The decision of whether the article will be free or premium is usually made before the article has even been written, but this is situation dependent. For instance, some publishers note that article performance is tracked post-publication and that teams might decide to add a paywall to a free article if it has particularly high traffic with the goal of maximizing its value for conversions.

But some note that it’s rare that the reverse change is made: i.e. that they remove the paywall to make it free to read.

For another, they barely ever change their mind post-publication for SEO reasons.

We were curious on what these SEO reasons may involve, so we turned to the WTF is SEO? Team who shared that it “depends on how Google sees it. Nowadays, since everything has a paywall it tends to say ok as long as this still meets intent, but if there’s an unlocked version of the same intent it may favor that or knock the story after the bounce rate increases from people hitting the wall. We’ve seen it both ways and experimented with it with little effect though so I wouldn’t be too worried.”

“The decision is automated”

For those who shared that the decision is automated, it’s based on predefined metrics like author name, section, etc. 

One publisher in South America mentioned an engagement scoring system that we’d never encountered before:

UVS (User Value Score) – a number between 1 and 100 that determines how much content a user gets access to. 0 is fully premium, 100 is free. 

UVS is determined by frequency of visits and how many articles a non-subscriber user reads a month. The more they read, the less content they will have for free (paywalled articles).

But another publisher who shared that the decision is automated highlighted that top editors can choose to exempt articles with limits.

The case of Business Insider

In a recent Digiday article, Business Insider announced their move to an automated ‘smart’ paywall model: 

Instead of the manual free vs premium split, the new smart paywall instead determines the content that individual users are most likely to pay to access based on their previous reading habits, which platform they come to the website from and the propensity that each genre of content has for converting readers. Using those insights and Google Analytics data, the AI’s algorithm decides whether users meet a paywall, registration wall or nothing upon entering the website.

By the end of the testing period, which spanned December to April, the team said that 60% of new conversions happened on “non-premium” stories, meaning stories that never would have been paywalled in the previous model.

This is a big challenge to all of those publishers who are making manual decisions – is it the right strategy to follow?

Ultimately, manual-only decision-making tends to be the first step in a journey towards highly dynamic, machine-learnt models. It is, however, an important step that allows teams to understand the processes behind automating, better train and inform editorial teams on what successful articles (for conversion and advertising) look like and ensure machines are being used effectively. 

If you’re thinking about automating your decision-making, perhaps consider these key questions from Lars K. Jensen – they were written about automating tagging for user needs, but fit equally well in this context:

• What are you trying to automate? 
• Why do you want to automate that?
• What are the scenarios – what do we risk losing in terms of skills and knowledge?
• How will the machine decide or suggest? How is the algorithm built?
• What data is it trained on?
• Can it be trained on our content and data?
• What is the definition of success in this particular automation and/or implementation?

What percentage of your content is currently behind a paywall?

Respondents to this survey shared a range from 10-99%, but average is 60-70%. 

Importantly, however, a key metric to measure is the percentage of traffic visiting premium content. Because, of course (and particularly in the interest of doing more with less) there’s no point producing a huge amount of premium content if no one visits it. As a benchmark, Poool data reveals an average of 68% of total traffic on premium (compared to free) content for Q2 2024.

Do you block with any other types of walls?

Cookie walls are mentioned by Europeans, where tightening regulations on cookie consent are leading to falling consent rates. This type of wall is shown to readers who decline cookies on the CMP banner – they’ll be asked to either change their mind (i.e. accept cookies) or support the media in another way, such as by paying to subscribe. Importantly though, in countries such as Germany and France, the alternative option must only involve data collection that’s considered ‘essential’ in order to be legal (see France’s online data privacy regulation board, the CNIL’s response to Cookie Walls) . 

Publishers in France and Germany have been employing this strategy for a few years now, and the UK has recently followed, leading to increasingly more cookie walls being used across the continent. 

> Cookie wall benchmarks and best practices to increase consented page views

But registration walls were the most common in this survey – typically being displayed after 1-3 articles allowing the reader access to another 2-3 more articles.

An interesting precision by one: registration walls are used for commenting on articles and account creation is required to read articles gifted by subscribers.

Tests to inform the ‘free vs premium’ decision

• Tests on registration walls and the number of free articles.

“We used a hard reg wall (first page view of all content) for a 6 month trial- while we saw an expected increase in registrations, we saw a severe decrease in traffic, engaged time and returning visitors. We moved to a second page view reg wall to capture people who are more engaged than flyby visitors.” 

Nikkei Asia ran similar tests, finding that just a single article for free, compared to 10, was optimal for conversion rate to subscription. More on their experiment here.

• Tests on which content to block.

“We have analyses on which topics, authors, and themes fall into the average audience quadrant that most commonly convert subscriptions. Some subjects always convert. These were recommended to be published with a hard paywall.”

Another notes that they often test blocking/unblocking a journalist’s work or certain topic area to see which is more valuable for that context.

• Tests to find out the average page views per topic, and per reader-type to be able to develop dynamic models.
• Tests on conversion “assists”, i.e. the last article read before a conversion

How do you measure the success of your premium articles?

• Last-click conversion and assists (ie articles read in the run-up to a conversion)
• First click conversion (working on last click), subscriber page views, time on page
• Last click conversion and engagement
• Premium content visibility rate
• Subscriber engagement
• Paywall stop rate
• Media Time

Atlas’ 5 top tips for paywall success

• Measuring success varies across publishers, but most are focused on engagement by topic or subject. There’s a clear desire for analysis to understand what role an article plays both in direct conversions and assisting conversions overall. Engagement measurements are – out of necessity – bespoke to brands and their content, but the overall approach does seem to be aligned. What is the key engagement metric for your brand?
• Understand your audience and what they value. Identify those who are more likely to engage in the long term and focus on them.
• Tech facilitates personalization – understand your use cases and implement wisely and methodically.
• Understand what success looks like to your bramd and define what KPIs will help you assess performance, both immediately and over customer lifetimes
• Consider context, especially for high-impact or sensitive events. Align decisions with the brand mission and customer expectations. Be sensitive
• Test, test, test – don’t just set rules and leave them.

The Audience Research Methods Resource Pack was developed by Dr John Mills, the founder and director of Archen Innovate, a consultancy specializing in user-centred innovation, audience research, and developing emerging technologies, and commissioned by International Media Support.

If you made the event, you’ll have received the slides by email in the weeks following. If you didn’t and you’re a Poool client, you get access to the slides now and forever;)

On the program:

• 3 trends in the publishing industry in 2024 to ace your digital reader revenue model, with Madeleine White, Co-founder of The Audiencers, and Jimena Llamas, Audience Conversion Expert at Poool. Slides 3-17
• Subscription trends: The challenges of subscription models in the face of the end of the open web, with Pepe Cerezo, Independent Consultant. Slides 18-40
• “Subscription models in Spain, a mature market?”, with Esther Alonso, Member and Marketing Director at El Diario, Vero MilAo, Product Director at EL ESPANOL, and Aloysio Araujo, General Subscriptions Director at Vocento. Slide 41
• Breaking Boundaries: The AI ​​Frontier in Metro World News’ Editorial Workflow, with Vincente Yarad, Head of Tech and Business Development at Metro World News, and Jay M’Bei, VP EMEA ar Arc XP. Slides 43
• Moving from a print to a digital mindset: bridging functions, KPIs, breaking silos, etc, with Lucia Gonzalez, La Vanguardia. Slides 46- 67
• The argument for registering users, lessons from Argentina’s Clarin, with Ismael Nafria. Slides 69-97
• Panel of experts: the importance of registering your users in a subscription model, with Anna Cuyas, Head of product at Diari ARA, Roman Garcia, Head of digital strategy at Prensa Ibérica, and Tomas Garcia, Head of digital strategy at La Voz de Gallicia. Slides 98-122
• How to optimize your subscription model, with Jimena Llamas, Audience Conversion Expert at Poool. Slides 124-144

> More data and best practices on how to optimize your conversion rates here and in your client-exclusive Conversion Funnel Benchmark Report

• Tools to help publishers make data-driven business and editorial decisions, with Genoveva Marin, Partner Manager at Google. Slides 145-153
• Churn reduction: metrics and operations to increase subscriber retention, with Angélica Dominguez, Head of Client Strategy at Prisa Noticias, Inigo de Juan Sainz-Planillo, Head of Subscriptions at Unidad Editorial, José A.Navas, Head of Subscriptions at El Confidencial. Slides 154-169

> From newsletters to predicting possible cancellation: tactics to reduce churn from The Audiencers’ Festival Madrid

The Audiencers’ Festival’s 3rd stop in 2024 was in Toronto, to bring together Canadian publishing professions for an incredible day of expertise on stage and valuable discussions off stage. Hearing from the likes of Toronto Star, CBC, Les Coops de l’information and DallasNews Corp, we covered everything from registration and bridge roles to community building and paywalls and SEO. Oh and did we mention the event was held in a music venue where the likes of The Rolling Stones have performed?!

If you made the event, you’ll have received the slides by email in the weeks following. If you didn’t and you’re a Poool client, you get access to the slides now and forever;)

On the program:

• 3 trends in the publishing industry in 2024 to ace your digital reader revenue model, with Madeleine White, Co-founder of The Audiencers, and Mark Zohar, CEO and President Viafoura. Slides 2-25.
• Bridging editorial with commercial goals around subscription, with Duncan Clark, Chief Content Officer at Postmedia, Rebecca Zamon, Audience Growth Manager at The Globe and Mail, and Christopher Patheiger, Chief Product & Innovation Office at DallasNews Corp. Slides 26-45
• Optimizing SEO with your paywall in mind, with Shelby Blackley, Manager Newsroom SEO at The Athletic and Co-founder of WTF is SEO? Slides 47-67

> Paywalls & SEO, lessons from The Athletic

• How to build registration as a product, with Dustin Block, Audience Development Lead at Graham Media Group, Elliot NG, Director Customer Experience & Loyalty, CBC, and Ashley Hawley, Head of Product at Toronto Star. Slides 70-96

> Pins, commenting and seamless login: Graham media, CBC and Toronto Star share registration success stories

• From the brink of bankruptcy to digital transformation: the impressive story of Les Coops de l’info, with Marc Gendron, Publisher at Le Soleil interviewed by Marion Wyss, Co-founder The Audiencers. Slides 103-115

> Catch up on Les Coops de l’info’s story

• Unlocking customer lifetime value, with Michael Gagliano, VP Audience & Commerce at SJC Media, and Jill Marchisotto, Strategic Consultant at Atlas. Slides 121-137
• Maximizing the value of readers without digital subscription, with Viafoura. Slides 138-145
• Understanding, targeting and better serving audiences, with Dustin Titus, CDO of Zoomer Media. Slides 146-162

At the first Audiencers’ Festival in London, in October 2023, we spent an afternoon discussing everything bridge roles, newsletters for a reader revenue model, subscription strategies and growing an engaged community. With 100 publishing professionals packed into The Drum Labs in Shoreditch, we were in awe of the energy that attendees brought, the openness of the experts on stage and the variety of conversations being had off stage. It was the first of our Festivals in English, but certainly not the last!

If you made the event, you’ll have received the slides by email in the weeks following. If you didn’t and you’re a Poool client, you get access to the slides now and forever;)

On the program:

• 3 trends in the publishing industry in 2024 to ace your digital reader revenue model, with Madeleine White and Marion Wyss, Co-founders of The Audiencers. Slides `2-20.
• Bridge roles: bringing editorial, marketing & product together to increase ARPU, with Martina Andretta, Audience Specialist & Head of Social at New Statesman, Lars K. Jensen, Audience, Data, Journalism, Berlingske Media & Dmitry Shishkin, Independent Digital Publishing Consultant. Slides 27-24.

> Full session summary on The Audiencers (definitely worth a read)

• Content workflow optimization: how to streamline processes and deliver exceptional content experiences, Arc XP. Slides 75-92.
• Panel: how to make your newsletter valuable in a reader revenue model, with Michael MacLeod, Founder, The Edinburgh Guardian, and Maire Bonheim, Head of Newsletters, The Telegraph, interviewed by Peter Houston, Media Voices & Host of The Newsletter Awards. Slides 93-96.

> Panel key takeaways in this article

• How to optimize your conversion funnel, with Madeleine White, Co-founder of The Audiencers, and Maxime Moné, CEO of Poool. Slides 98-130.
• From community to a growing subscriber base, interview with Jo Holdaway, Chief Marketing & Data Officer, The Independent, by Mark Zohar, President and CEO, Viafoura. Slides 134-142.

> From community to reader revenue: lessons to learn from The Independent and Reach PLC

• “It’s all greek to me” – the art of translating between editorial and commercial, discussion with Morten Ro, Independent engagement designer and advisor, and Maria Bissendorf, Head of Membership Development, Hearst UK. Slides 143-149.

> Takeaways in an article here

If you made the event, you’ll have received the slides by email in the weeks following. If you didn’t and you’re a Poool client, you get access to the slides now and forever;)

On the program:

• Introduction by Madeleine White, co-founder of The Audiencers, and Jill Nicholson, CMO at Chartbeat, with 3 key trends we’re seeing in the publishing industry today. Slides 2-24
• Audience engagement and research: how to better understand audiences to drive engagement and revenue, with Mariah Craddick, Executive Director Product at The Atlantic, Gina Bulla, Audience Research at The Atlantic, and Patrick Boehler, Innovation and engagement at Gazzetta. Slides 25-57

> Article summary: bringing more value to readers and subscribers through our mobile app at The Atlantic

• The importance of newsletters to drive loyalty, subscriptions & revenue, with Maya Neria, Director Product at The New York Times, Elaine Piniat, Manager, Newsletter audience and revenue at Reuters, and Brad Streicher, Senior Customer Success Manager at Chartbeat. Slides 59-67

> Key takeaways from the session in this article

• The KPIs and strategies to continuously optimize your conversion funnel, with ELLE Magazine, slides 70-91

> More on ELLE Magazine’s strategy in this article

• Increasing your logged user base: the operations and best practices, with Marion Collombat, Head of CRM and Data at Reworld Media, Megan Hess, Senior Editor Digital Subscriptions at Bloomberg, and Ludivine Paquet, Head of Customer Success at Poool. Slides 97-118

> Key takeaways in this article: Data, subscription and LTV, how Bloomberg and Reworld Media are maximizing on registration

• Developing long term relationships with young audiences, with Julia Munslow, Senior Platform Editor at The Wall Street Journal. Slides 120-129

> Full session takeaways in this article

• Unlocking customer lifetime value, with Jill Marchisotto, US Business Partner, Atlas. Slides 130-137

Held in the News UK Building, with a view over the London skyline and a surprise ‘fête de la musique’ celebration, the day didn’t disappoint! Plus of course plenty of expertise from leading publishing professionals from across the world, including Germany, Canada, Brazil, France and Spain.

If you made the event, you’ll have received the slides by email in the weeks following. If you didn’t and you’re a Poool client, you get access to the slides now and forever;)

On the program:

• The warm-up act: How to succeed in the current reader revenue landscape, Madeleine White, Co-founder of The Audiencers. Slides 2-40.
• How The Guardian has developed and promoted its product portfolio to gain reader support, with Jim Scutt, Senior Growth Manager and Julian Hinds, Senior Propositions Manager, Reader Revenue, The Guardian. Slides 41-70

> The Guardian: reader revenue growth & proposition development

• Clarin’s digital transformation: the secrets behind the most successful Spanish-language media subscription, by Ismael Nafria Mitjans. Slides 71-105

> Read more about Clarin’s success and how they define articles that are likely to convert

• Audience-driven subscriber acquisition: strategies from 3 corners of the world, with Eliz Mizon, Strategy Lead at The Bristol Cable, Donika Lilova, Head of Paid Content Subscription at FAZ, and Flavio Moreira, Product Management/Editor in chief at UOL. Slides 113-123

> Read more about FAZ’s dynamic model and testing mindset

• From the brink of bankruptcy to digital transformation: the impressive story of Les Coops de l’info, with Marc Gendron, Publisher of Le Soleil. Slides 125-144
• From community to reader revenue, with William Whittington, Lead Community Moderator at The Telegraph, Birger Soiland, VP Sales at Norkon, and Peter Jackson, Reader Community Editor, The Times and Sunday Times. Slides 150-159

> Developing community beyond commenting, with The Telegraph and The Times

• Multichannel anti-churn strategy: 5 examples from Libération, with Adèle Bacos, Head of Subscription Marketing
• Churn reduction stories from two sides of the Channel, with Lisa Stevens, Head of Subscriber Engagament & Retention at The Times, and Romain Lhote, Head of Marketing at L’Équipe

> L’Équipe: limiting churn when increasing the price from a highly discounted subscription offer

This is an extract of an article published in Tom Burrell’s Retention Blueprint Newsletter. The Retention Blueprint' is a free, retention-focused digest delivered straight to your inbox every Friday, providing you with the insights you need to drive retention-led growth.

The math is simple: if you meet your retention targets, your acquisition targets don’t move. Miss your retention targets, and your acquisition efforts and associated media costs skyrocket, reducing profitability. The most successful subscription brands (think Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, and Apple) prioritise protecting Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), which hinges on successful retention. 

The Problem – Lack of Focus 

While working within and consulting to subscription brands, one of the key challenges I have observed is a real lack of understanding of where to focus retention efforts. There can be a desire to optimize all customer interactions and this would be fine with infinite resources, but I have never encountered an organization that has infinite resources. So what ultimately transpires is a very haphazard approach to customer retention efforts, with teams often differing to HIPPO syndrome (the highest paid person’s opinion). 

Where to Focus Customer Retention Efforts 

There are two key aspects to focus: 

1. Focusing on the right customers 
2. Focussing on the right moments 

Focusing on the right customers is about leveraging customer lifetime value to prioritise your retention efforts. This is the subject for another post. 

In this post, we will explore how to focus on the right moments. 

Focussing On The Right Moments 

In any subscription business, there are key moments in the relationship; the first 90 days, or in life when usage drops, an important service issue, the cancel journey – these are all often key moments of truth which require the most focus. Other aspects of the experience matter much less. 

The key is to understand your subscription business’s most important moments of truth. You can do this using analytics and data science to understand what happened immediately before a churn event or to identify which types of interactions, experiences, or behaviors have led to improved retention. You can also understand these moments through experiential NPS tracking or qualitative research. 

The Path Forwards 

Once you have identified the right moments, you must obsess about them to drive the most optimum retention and, therefore, P&L outcomes. This means extensive experimentation and a program of always-on optimisation, ideally at a sub-cohort level. As you do this, you will see ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) grow. 

Case Study – Amazon Prime

One of the best examples of a brand prioritizing its their most important moment comes from Amazon Prime. In 2005, when Jeff Bezos launched Amazon Prime, there was a lot of concern at Amazon that this would be a margin reducer and indeed, when it first launched it absolutely was. Jeff even acknowledged this at the launch: “We expect Amazon Prime will be expensive for Amazon in the short term. In the long term, we hope to earn even more of your business..”

Almost 20 years later Amazon Prime customers are worth 5X more than the rest and the company has grown 30X since the Prime launch ($30m v $900m), all as a result of protecting the highest value customers and prioritizing the moment that mattered most to them, the delivery window. 

Some case studies:

Like many data-heavy brands, The Financial Times runs a digest of each subscriber’s consumption, e.g., articles viewed, number of stories per month, favourite topics, etc. However, rather than being an annual all-subscriber communication sent at a specific time of year (like Spotify), it is tailored to each subscriber’s contract end date, and where usage is heavy, it is linked to an upsell.  

Netflix approached one moment of truth very differently from most subscription brands. Netflix used to offer free trials and near the end of the free trial period, they provided a clear reminder that customers would be charged after they ended the free trial period (many brands simply avoid communication and let the customer roll onto a paid plan). This transparency helped to avoid bill shock, reduce complaints, improve brand perception, facilitate referrals, and, in fact, reduce churn from cohorts who would have been annoyed had Netflix not told them about the expiry of the trial. This is an excellent example of examing customer data and behaviour at a moment of truth and responding accordingly, despite being against common wisdom. 

The Starbucks loyalty program is a brilliant tool for understanding customer behaviour and optimising moments of truth and is leveraged by more than 40million people in the US. By linking purchase history, payment history, and basic demographic information, Starbucks can create highly personalised experiences that drive retention (2). For instance, when you visit a Starbucks in a new city and leverage your loyalty program details, the order screen will display your favourite drink, recommend your favourite treat, the barista will call you by your name and you will earn rewards for your transaction, which you can use in any other Starbucks in the country. This is another great example of leveraging customer data to optimise a key moment of truth.

For more from Tom, and to transform your retention impact in just 5 minutes per week, subscribe to ‘The Retention Blueprint’ Newsletter.