Publisher unsubscription journeys: benchmarking and best practices

The goal during the unsubscription/cancellation journey is to both retain the subscriber whilst not harming potential future re-subscriptions or referrals.

Create a fair amount of friction to prompt reconsideration
Not be too obstructive to cause frustration
Highlight the value loss
Understand why they’re leaving to be able to…
…offer relevant alternatives
Encourage them to commit for a longer duration
Ensure they’re confident in the fact that they’ve cancelled but can come back if they want to

Starting the cancellation process

Don’t hide the “Cancel” button – the publishers benchmarked here all included this button in the subscriber account page, often in a “Manage subscription” tab

The Washington Post subscription and billing

Make use of this moment to provide alternative options to cancelling, such as changing to a different subscription offer or pausing subscription

Manage your FT subscription — Notice how the “Change subscription” button is bolder than the “Cancel your subscription”

Understand why the subscriber wishes to cancel

This step is only necessary if you’re going to do something with this information – either internally to improve your subscription product or to personalize the subsequent steps in the unsubscription journey, perhaps with offers adapted to the reason why the reader wants to leave.

For instance, The Economist adapts the messaging based on why someone wishes to cancel:

Loss aversion

Encourage your reader to reconsider and question whether they want to lose out on these benefits. This can be within the on-site journey but also in the period when the subscriber has cancelled but still has access, like the example from Amazon Prime who sent this in an email a few days after cancelling.

Financial Times personalizes this page based on articles saved by the subscriber in their account

Continue to push your value proposition, considering why the reader may have subscribed in the first place
Create a sense of FOMO with messaging such as “lose” or “miss out”
Provide a “Keep my subscription” button, perhaps making this bolder and more visible than the other
Ensure help is easily accessed, perhaps with a call center number or link to a FAQ

Offer alternative options to cancelling

The New York Times / The Athletic is very clear and direct, laying out what the subscriber currently has and what they could get, helping to build trust

The Telegraph frame this page as if it were the subscriptions offers page, offering monthly or annual payment options

Le Monde offer the option to pause subscription instead of fully cancelling

Consider mutually beneficial offers – low cost for the subscriber, long term length to support your retention strategy
Note that this step is the final one before confirming cancellation and often follows the step highlighting the value included in the subscription package, making the low offers seem even better value for money

Confirm cancellation on- and off-site

The cancellation has now been made. Although all is not lost (win-back campaigns can be highly effective), now is the time to reassure the reader that they will no longer be billed.

Confirm cancellation on-site and via email
Reassure them that they’ll no longer be billed
Make it clear when they’ll lose access
Offer the chance to speak to support
Provide a button to reactivate their subscription if they change their mind
The Altlantic remind the user of the benefits of subscription:

Financial Times promotes their lighter subscription offer, FT Edit, below the fold on this page:

What not to do in the unsubscription journey

Make it hard to find the unsubscribe button
Not provide easy-to-find information related to cancellation
No possibility to cancel online
Lack of written confirmation post-cancellation

The Philadelphia inquirer subscription account page — On The Philadelphia Inquirer, it was difficult to find the unsubscription option

The Philadelphia inquirer subscription cancellation journey — …even when searching for this option in the FAQ and help section

Case study: making cancellation possible online at The Financial Times

The Financial Times shared 5 goals for online cancellation:

To allow Customer Service to focus on increasing engagement and complex queries
To allow subscribers to transition between products, especially at trial or discount end points
Before considering Customer Service time saved, cannot be a revenue loss
Improve NPS / customer feedback
Reduce GDPR risk

The online cancellation flow:

The Financial Times online cancellation flow

Depending on the subscriber’s current state, there are 3 offer strategies:

Offer transition: offer a lower price product instead of cancellation. For example, Standard Monthly instead of Premium Monthly.

Offer discount: keep the same product but have the next X renewals at Y% off

Offer price freeze: your current discount would have expired after your next renewal, but you can keep it for another X renewals

Importantly, they measure the performance of these offer campaigns, and the value of online cancel vs Customer Service cancellations using the LTV adjusted save rate. If you only measure save or churn rate, campaigns will bias towards larger discounts.

The Financial Times subscriber cancellation online

As this data shows, save rate is slightly lower than Customer Service calls but the average discount given is smaller, so price adjusted save rate is higher.