Hi, I'm Lennart Schneider, Founder of Subscribe Now, helping decision-makers in the subscription economy attract subscribers and keep them happy.

When I talk to newsletter creators, it usually doesn't take long before one of two questions comes up:

1) What actually constitutes a good open rate?

2) My newsletter has an open rate of 40%. That's great, isn't it?

The honest answer is: There is no such thing as a "good" open rate, and the open rate really says nothing about the quality of your newsletter. 

In this article, I want to clear up this misconception and explain when you should still pay attention to it.

I completely understand the need for benchmarking and comparability. With newsletters, you have relatively few metrics, so you try to draw as many conclusions as possible from what you do have. Often, however, you draw more conclusions than are actually useful.

Let’s start with the basics: open rate is a fraction. You calculate it by dividing the number of unique opens by the total number of recipients. So far, so simple.

However, this leads to a small detail that is often overlooked. You can increase the open rate in two ways: more openers, or fewer recipients.

The latter point is often overlooked, but it’s crucial. People who don’t open your newsletter are often the same ones. And especially with older mailing lists, you often have a large proportion of inactive subscribers who have lost all interest.

So, if you have a 50% open rate with 10,000 recipients, then there are probably several thousand among them who haven’t opened a single email in six months. Let’s say there are 3,000 of them. If you remove them from the mailing list, your open rate immediately jumps from 50% to 71.4% (5,000 opens/7,000 active recipients).

Has this improved the quality of your newsletter? Are your readers more satisfied? No!

Has the quality of your distribution system improved as a result? Absolutely!

Why would you delete valuable leads?

Admittedly, I’ve recommended this to many newsletter creators, but the enthusiasm is usually lukewarm. They’ve put a lot of money and effort into acquiring these subscribers, so why would they just delete the addresses? Perhaps the reach is even important for advertising sales (even if nobody sees the ads).

But here are a few reasons why it’s worth it:

1. If someone hasn’t opened your emails for a long time, the likelihood of them returning is relatively low
2. You increase the risk of being perceived as spam
3. Depending on the newsletter tool and contract, costs increase as you send more emails
4. Your brand suffers when customers perceive you as pushy
5. Your advertisers are surprised when clicks fail to materialize on a supposedly large distribution list, and become suspicious
6. …

Many of the world’s leading newsletters therefore place great importance on the quality of their mailing lists and remove users after a long period of inactivity. The New York Times even discloses this quite transparently:

How can I find out who is inactive?

Good question! And not so easy to answer. Since Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection, it’s often difficult to track who actually opens an email – Apple automatically opens emails before they reach the recipient, and therefore your email program thinks these users are active. Other users block tracking and are registered as inactive, even though they enthusiastically read every issue. So if you’re unsure: just ask the users.

Clicks can be tracked more reliably than opens, and if readers don’t click after (repeated) requests, you can remove them from the mailing list with a clear conscience.

Do I really need to delete them?

No. You can also pause them for now, or reduce the frequency. A good example is the sports newsletter “The Gist”. They temporarily pause inactive subscribers, and then when a major event is coming up (for example, the Olympics), they try to reactivate them.

However, you shouldn’t overdo it. If you haven’t contacted them for 1.5 years, you should continue to refrain from doing so. After that time, their consent to contact them also expires.

Even more reasons why open rate is misunderstood

Your open rate depends on numerous factors, and the quality of your content is just one of them. Here’s a (likely incomplete) list of factors that affect open rates:

Mailbox display:

• Subject lines (Do they encourage clicks?)
• Pre-header (Do you tease the content well?)
• Sender’s name (Do they trust you and look forward to your emails?)
• Sender images (Will they stand out in the inbox? Only works with certain clients)

The quality of your distribution:

• Cleanup of inactive users (Are non-openers regularly removed?)
• Segmentation (Do you always send emails to the entire mailing list or do you select recipients based on interests?)
• Preference Center (Can users configure which emails they receive and how frequently?)
• Age of the addresses (How long ago did someone sign up?)
• Lead campaigns/address origin (On which channels and with which promises were the users acquired? Did they want the newsletter, or did they just share their email to participate in a competition, for example?)

Deliverability

• Advertising tab in Gmail (Are emails from Gmail classified as advertising and not delivered to the main mailbox?)
• Spam (Do the emails often end up in the spam folder?)
• Bounces (Can the emails not be delivered? What are the different types of bounces, hard and soft?)
• Image sizes (are the images too large?)
• Email size (Will the email be truncated, for example, by Gmail, which happens from 102 kb upwards?)
• Shipping time (Is the shipping time chosen?)

Contents

• Good quality & relevance
• Diversity (do you cover different needs so that every issue contains an “aha” moment?)
• Continuity & predictability (Do readers know what to expect and why each issue is worthwhile?)

Technology

• Email tool or measurement technology (each mailing tool measures opens slightly differently, which affects the KPIs)
• Tracking Opt Out (Have users disabled tracking of clicks and opens?)
• Auto Opens on iOS (Are open rates inflated because emails are automatically opened due to privacy settings?)

So I can ignore the open rate?

Not quite. Since we don’t have many metrics, it’s still a valuable signal, as long as you’re aware of what it tells you, and what it doesn’t.

What you shouldn’t do is compare your absolute open rate with competitors who use completely different tools and whose lead generation works differently. This apples-to-oranges comparison is completely pointless.

What you can do instead:

• Observe long-term trends: Is my own open rate constant? Have there been any sudden changes I should understand? (But keep in mind that these changes could be due to technical reasons, e.g., more users with tracking protection.)
• Optimize your open rate with A/B testing: e.g., send each email with 3 different subject lines to a sample group beforehand and send the best version to the rest of the distribution list.
• Examine outliers: Were there any particular issues that were opened more or less frequently than average? What can I learn from them?
• Re-contacting those who didn’t open the email: Some companies send a newsletter a second time if it wasn’t opened the first time. I find it a bit spammy, but it seems to work.
• Use net reach (recipients x open rate) as the basis for advertising deals: This is fair to your advertising clients and you can also justify why the CPM (cost per thousand contacts) is higher if you are contacting a cleaned distribution list.
• Comparing segments: When running different lead generation campaigns, you shouldn’t just focus on the short-term cost per lead (CPL), but also consider whether the campaigns generate active recipients in the long run. A sweepstakes often generates a large number of addresses cheaply, but the open rate drops significantly after just a few campaigns.
  For better comparability, you can calculate a cost per lead after, for example, 10 campaigns. If you generate 1,000 leads per campaign for €1,000 in each of two campaigns, the short-term CPL is €1. If, after 10 campaigns, 70% of the leads in campaign A are still active, while only 30% remain active in campaign B, you get a clear picture: In campaign A, an active lead cost €1.43, while in campaign B it cost €3.33.
• …

PS: My newsletter has an open rate of 51-58%. That’s great, isn’t it?…

PPS: To hear more from me about subscription and newsletters, sign up to my own newsletter, Subscribe Now, here

This article was originally published in German on the Subscribe Now website, translated and republished with permission.

The Norwegian group Amedia started with a troubling observation: its publications had more subscribers over the age of 80 than under the age of 40. To break this deadlock, their team tested a radical approach in two local newsrooms: tailoring editorial content exclusively to the behaviors of readers under 40. The result: a product deemed more relevant for all generations and, at one of its publications, Romerikes Blad, a 30% increase in the under-40 demographic over nine months.

Company card:

SWI swissinfo.ch is the international online service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC).

For many national broadcasters, the "international service" is often a secondary consideration. At SWI swissinfo.ch, it’s their core mission. Operating in 10 languages, ranging from the four Swiss national languages to English, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian, the platform serves as a bridge between Swiss perspectives and global conversations, with about 75% of audiences located abroad.

“Our content puts Switzerland in touch with the world and reaches people in all 195 countries recognised by the United Nations.

Thanks to our journalistic quality, our articles are referenced up to 80 times a week in 46 languages and serve as a reliable source not only for diplomatic services and journalists abroad.” - Swissinfo.ch

“We aim to be at the intersection of where Switzerland has an impact on global conversations,” says DeVore. “Whether it’s the pharma companies operating out of Basel, the diplomatic hub of Geneva, or the unique system of Swiss direct democracy, we look for touchpoints that resonate internationally.”

Adaptation over simple translation

One of the most striking aspects of the swissinfo.ch workflow is the move beyond literal translation. Instead, the team practices adaptation.

With small teams of roughly three people per language service, journalists must act as cultural mediators. “It’s not just translating from English to Chinese – you have to adapt for the context and the market. For example, how do you explain the Swiss Federal Council, a body that has no single president, to an audience in China? Our teams often have to invent lexicons and style guides to transmit these unique political concepts effectively.”

Deep engagement through debating

Moving away from a traditional broadcast model, swissinfo.ch has pivoted toward community building to bring these diverse audiences together. Five years ago, they launched a debate format to replace standard comment sections. 

Instead of readers commenting in their own language, often sharing information that didn’t really serve anyone’s needs (not to mention the necessity to moderate heavily), journalists now pose specific, theme-based questions seated in a theme currently being explored. 

To solve the problem of linguistic silos, they implemented auto-translation within threads, usually using Deepl but not only. The best tool/LLM is chosen per language depending on the feedback of the editors. This allows a reader in Brazil to engage in a conversation with a reader in Russia, both viewing the thread in their native language.

This focus on dialogue has led to long-running, nuanced discussions on high-stakes topics like Swiss neutrality, which DeVore notes has seen consistent engagement for over a year following the invasion of Ukraine.

“On some topics, we get really interesting, nuanced, and sometimes surprising threads going, for instance on things like Swiss neutrality. Of course, it’s a hallmark of Switzerland; people think of that quite quickly alongside cheese and chocolate and army knives when they think of the country, but what does it really mean in practice? Especially after the Ukraine war started. And this thread has had hundreds and hundreds, an evergreen comment section that’s been going for a year or more.”

Products for niche needs

SWI swissinfo.ch also develops bespoke products for specific audience segments. Of course, part of their niche is the Swiss connection, but at the same time they’re trying to fill gaps in people’s media needs in markets where accessibility isn’t exactly a given, or where content might be behind paywalls.

• The SWI Plus App: Tailored for the Swiss diaspora (over 800,000 citizens living abroad), allowing them to personalize their news feed across multiple languages

• The Russian Edition: Recognizing that their website is partially blocked in Russia, the team has leaned into video-based platforms like YouTube, producing long-form, one-on-one interviews (up to an hour) to provide in-depth context to Russian speakers
• ‘Truth or Tale’: A short-form video series focused on myth-busting common misconceptions about Switzerland, designed for social media discovery

Trust in the age of AI

As a publicly funded media outlet, trust is the currency swissinfo.ch relies on. DeVore highlights their involvement with a recent research cohort piloted by the US-based nonprofit  Trusting News, which helped them understand audience needs around AI transparency and develop “disclaimers” regarding the use of AI.

“We are a niche media with an international footprint, which makes it even more important to show people at a glance that we are trustworthy.” While the organization uses AI for translation assistance and other tasks to manage resource limitations, they maintain a strict “human-in-the-loop” policy to ensure cultural accuracy and editorial integrity.

> If you’re working on a similar strategy, you’ll also be interested in hearing about the business logic behind Le Monde in English

TL;DR
-> Mediahuis has built an 'essential subscription' bundling journalism with hiking apps, e-books, masterclasses and the New York Times

-> The bundle is structured around three layers — Inform, Guide and Enable — tailored by brand rather than by individual subscriber

-> Its 777 strategy aims for 70% of operational margins to be from digital by 2030, using the bundle to drive both volume growth and tier migration

-> 170,000 subscribers activated RouteYou; activated users show 26.5% lower churn, and subscribers log in 2.4–3.0 times per month on average

Key lessons: 
-> Stay within one degree of separation from journalism
-> Services that require a bigger conceptual leap tend not to stick

• The New York Times partnership sits alongside the premium titles — NRC in the Netherlands, De Standaard in Belgium, and the Luxembourg brands — where an internationally minded readership sees a natural connection.
• E-books are offered more broadly, with selections varying by brand.
• RouteYou has been rolled out for all titles, but is particularly successful in regional and Belgian brands with strong outdoor and weekend-lifestyle content, where a survey of more than 10,000 subscribers had already shown that 24% wanted a hiking and biking app as part of their bundle.

“Different bundles work better for different brands,’ van de Peppel explains. ‘We try to tailor it really around the brand and make those choices which make sense to the brand.“

The RouteYou acquisition

RouteYou is a Belgian company used by more than 15 million outdoor enthusiasts, with its strongest presence in the Netherlands and Belgium. Since the Mediahuis acquisition in 2023, coverage has expanded into the Irish, Luxembourg, and German markets, where the publisher’s titles already have deep roots. It competes in the same space as Strava, but with a distinctly local character and established relationships with regional tourism boards.

Mediahuis’s regional titles had long published hiking and biking content, especially in weekend editions, but the next step was always missing: readers could learn about a trail, but had nowhere to go from there. Now, a QR code in the article links directly to the route in the RouteYou app. ‘It’s a strong connection with the editorial rooms,’ van de Peppel says. “You can really make a direct connection between the content and then going out and doing something with it.’

The acquisition was not conceived purely as a bundle enhancement — Mediahuis bought a standalone business, intending to develop both sides of the business. Since then, investment in a native app and an expanded RouteYou team has driven +98% growth in standalone subscribers in 2025. 

When RouteYou access was extended to over a million Mediahuis subscribers, it immediately dwarfed the app’s existing standalone user base. Those who came through the news bundle were subscribing to journalism; the outdoor features are a welcome addition rather than the draw.

What the numbers show

The activation numbers tell part of the story. The retention numbers tell the more important one. Mediahuis tracks whether subscribers who have activated RouteYou behave differently from those who have not, and they do. 

Over a 12-week period, subscribers who had activated RouteYou were significantly more likely to remain subscribers at the end. For every 100 who had not activated, 4 had churned. For every 100 who had, fewer than 3 had churned. At the scale Mediahuis operates, that difference compounds quickly.

The perception data reinforces this. 

• Among all Mediahuis subscribers, around 52% consider RouteYou a valuable addition. 
• Among those who have actually used it, that figure rises to 82%. 

The gap between the two numbers is the central challenge: the product works, but only once subscribers try it. Getting them to that first experience is where most of the activation effort goes. Mediahuis offered exclusive webinars to help subscribers get started; 12% of readers attended, and 54% of those participants were already Mediahuis readers who engaged with the outdoor content in their titles.

Sustained usage backs up the initial activation picture. Active users log in 2.4 to 3.0 times per month on average, with 15% opening the app at least once a week, numbers that predictably spike in the spring and summer hiking season. In total, 49% of eligible Mediahuis subscribers used RouteYou at least once in the past year.

Mediahuis has been drawing lessons from the New York Times, whose bundle is a well-documented case study in how added services drive both retention and revenue per subscriber. ‘They see strong effects on retention and ARPU when people start using more services, van de Peppel says. “We are seeing the same thing, which is really encouraging.’

The 777 strategy

The essential subscription is the commercial engine behind Mediahuis’s 777 strategy: shifting 70% of operational margins to digital by 2030. Currently, the balance runs roughly the other way, at around 60% print and 40% digital.

Van de Peppel frames the mechanism plainly: it works on both Q and P, quantity and price. A more compelling subscription drives digital subscriber growth. And because most additional services are only available in the full premium subscription — not the basic tier — the bundle creates structural upward pressure on ARPU. The full subscription costs roughly twice as much as the basic tier, and as the bundle becomes more valuable, more subscribers opt for the full tier, either at sign-up or by upgrading.

‘We also see a shift from the basic subscription to the full subscription,’ van de Peppel explains. ‘Which in the end means they pay a higher price. We increase value, but of course, the value coming back is also higher.’ Volume growth and tier migration together are designed to get digital subscriptions generating the margins that print once did, and within a seven-year window.

Advice for publishers considering a similar path

Van de Peppel’s guiding principle is staying within ‘one degree of separation’ from core journalism, adding only services that connect naturally with what the newsroom already produces:

• The New York Times partnership works because Mediahuis titles already cover international affairs.
• E-books work because those titles are already reviewing books.
• RouteYou works because brands have always written about the outdoors — and the data already showed subscribers wanted it.

Where the connection has to be invented, it tends not to stick. Van de Peppel’s advice to other publishers is simple: don’t stray too far from what your newsroom already does well.

The lesson he returns to most on RouteYou is editorial embrace. Newsrooms are independent — there is no guarantee journalists will link content to the app. Where they do, the activation numbers bear it out: Belgium, with the strongest editorial collaboration, hit nearly 30% activation, compared with a portfolio average of 1 in 5. The success of RouteYou’s adoption really depends on editorial collaboration.

Van de Peppel’s target is for at least 70% of digital subscribers to regularly use at least one additional service, weekly or monthly. ‘We launched a lot last year. This year, we won’t launch as much. We will focus on what we have and really make it work.’

David Carzon (formerly of Arte, Télérama, Libération, and Binge Audio) is a journalist, consultant, and author. This article was originally published in his newsletter Hupster, and provides a follow up from Audiencers first article on Le Monde in English, published six months after its launch in 2022.

John Rahim is founder of The Media Stack, a newsletter delivering in-depth analysis of the advertising, media, and marketing technology sectors, with a focus on emerging trends in AI and monetization.

In this article, John shares his interview with Joshi Herrmann, founder of The Mill, a UK-based digital publisher known for its award-winning, high-quality local news newsletters. They discuss what an "overwhelmingly reader-driven" revenue strategy means for their business:
-> Cities are chosen based on having the right person to pioneer the launch. Herrmann looks for someone who loves their city and believes in narrative journalism
-> Funds, when needed, have been from individuals who care about journalism, not firms with processes and exit timelines
-> The company has a model that prioritizes readers over traffic and quality over volume

By 2020, the infrastructure was in place to try something different. Substack had shown individual creators could build businesses charging for content. Tony Mecia was running a successful local business newsletter on the platform in Charlotte, North Carolina called The Charlotte Ledger.

“I thought, well, it is a different market, he’s operating in a much more affluent area than Manchester—but this might be worth a go.”

Herrmann had no money for a big team. That constraint became an advantage. He’d launch a newsletter, keep costs low, and focus on quality over volume. He set the price at roughly double what most Substack newsletters charged, betting readers would value proper local journalism enough to pay for it.

They did.

The numbers

Mill Media now operates in Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool, Birmingham, London, and Glasgow. About 175,000 people are on free email lists. 13,000 paying subscribers.

The original Mill in Manchester has 4,000 paying subscribers. The Sheffield Tribune has 3,000. Liverpool Post has 2,000. Newer titles are growing.

Revenue is overwhelmingly reader-driven. Advertising accounts for about 5% – high-quality sponsorships with the FT, Royal Horticultural Society, and Manchester Museum. Herrmann wants to grow that to maybe 20% for diversification, but the core model stays reader-funded.

“If you’re reader-funded, your incentive is to give quality to those readers,” he says. “We’ve got to maintain that.”

The company moved from Substack to Ghost, cutting platform costs to less than a fifth of what they had been paying while gaining greater control over design. “It’s a lot cheaper… it allows us to experiment.”

How to pick a city

There’s no spreadsheet. Herrmann doesn’t analyse demographics or run market sizing models. He looks for someone who loves their city and believes in narrative journalism.

“The most important determinant is the person in the city who wants to do it.”

The Bell in Glasgow happened because Robbie Armstrong got in touch, they met for a drink, and Herrmann recognised someone with encyclopaedic knowledge of the city and genuine passion for quality work. “At the beginning, when it’s difficult, and it’s a real battle, and you have almost no money, and it’s a real risk, you need that first person who is a pioneering person.”

Cities with universities help. Strong local identity distinct from London helps. But the human element matters most. “If someone came along in a city that I really loved, and I had the right person, I’d probably go for that over not the right person in a very large city.”

Individual backers, not VCs

Herrmann raised funding from people, not funds. Mark Thompson, former CEO of the New York Times and current CEO of CNN, Nick Johnston from Axios and Investor Turi Munthe.

They’re individuals who care about journalism, not firms with processes and exit timelines.

“The conversations I had with those people were no different from the conversation I’ve had with other journalists”, Herrmann says. “Someone who cares about journalism asks a bunch of questions for 45 minutes, and then I say at the end, would you throw in a bit of cash?”

They provide advice when Herrmann asks for it. They don’t interfere with editorial. “Fundamentally, you can take all the advice you want, but you have to go with your gut. The mistakes are mine, and the decisions are mine.” The investors share Herrmann’s view that journalism must be commercially sustainable.

“The only genuine solution to the journalism problems that we have is via commercial sustainability.”

City by city profitability

Each city aims to break even within two to three years. Manchester and Sheffield are already profitable. Liverpool and Birmingham should hit profitability this year. London by year’s end. Glasgow early next year.

“I don’t expect us to be the most profitable company in the UK, but I expect us to cover our costs in our cities after a couple of years,” Herrmann says. “Otherwise, you’re creating some sort of vanity project. I’m not interested in that.”

When The Bell launched in Glasgow, journalists at traditional Scottish newspapers weren’t thrilled. They felt they were doing quality work but were stuck writing 14 stories a day to feed the traffic machine. Herrmann’s not criticising the journalists.

“It’s not the quality of the journalists. It’s not about their effort. It’s about the fact that the people who make decisions in these newsrooms have made bad strategic business decisions that have led them to a model that means these young journalists have to write 14 stories in a day.”

What works

Mill Media now employs 22 people and is growing. The company has a model that prioritises readers over traffic and quality over volume.

“We’re trying to introduce a way of people valuing high-quality local journalism in a way that hasn’t been there in the culture before,” Herrmann says. It’s not easy. It requires exceptional journalism every day, smart promotion, and relentless focus on basics. But the growth is real. From one person during lockdown to a multi-city operation, backed by media veterans and sustainable economics in each market.

Regional journalism’s problems were never about reader appetite. They focused on business models chasing the wrong revenue. Herrmann’s success is the proof. The question for Britain’s struggling regional newspaper groups isn’t whether this model works. It’s whether they have the appetite to execute it.

Interactive map at LA Times

One of my favorite examples is from LA Times who have built interactive “places” lists, providing an excellent demonstration of Integrated Utility Design – the interactive features eliminate friction and deliver immediate value to a local audience.

Instead of a static list of top restaurants, this interactive map format transforms the article into a powerful, real-time decision-making tool.

• Eliminate user pain points

The interactive map that moves as you scroll eliminates the most common pain points of a list: location and proximity. As the user reads about Restaurant X, the map instantly highlights its location. This allows the user to judge factors like neighborhood, parking, or proximity to their current location without opening a new tab.

• Provide as much usable information as possible

For food writing, the menu description and the geographical reality are equally important. The synchronized map connects the author’s text (the food) with the real-world utility (the location), making the entire proposition easier to visualize, share, and act upon.

• Make it actionable

The design often includes action buttons—like “Visit Website,” “Call,” or “Make Reservation”—embedded directly next to the map marker. This design respects the user’s intent: they aren’t just reading, they’re planning a meal, and the article facilitates that action immediately.

• Allow for personalized browsing 

Instead of forcing a linear read (top to bottom), the user can toggle between the list and the map. A user can find a restaurant on the map first (e.g., “I need a place in Santa Monica”) and then click the marker to jump directly to the editorial review in the list, catering to different planning habits.

• Data collection

The publisher can track which areas on the map are being viewed and clicked the most. If users consistently interact with restaurants in, say, Koreatown, the editorial team gains valuable data for covering future food and neighborhood trends.

Check out the article on LA Times

Debating at DER SPIEGEL

Commenting on articles is a well-recognized way of engaging readers. But ultimately the value of conversations are diluted across the many articles discussing a single topic.

At Der Spiegel, they built a new format of content that brings value to both readers and the publisher – debating. The debate format offers users a structured and respectful platform for co-creating content, making participation feel more meaningful than a typical comment thread.

• Structured dialogue

By separating the Debatte section from regular article comments, Der Spiegel established a clear “safe space” for discussion. Strict moderation ensures the conversation is constructive, focusing on the content (E.g. horror film recommendations) and not descending into trolling or hate speech.

• Ritualized interaction

Users can vote, share their views and discover articles discussing the same topic. By creating a weekly or regular “Debatte”, the publisher creates a ritualized interaction. Loyal users return to the site not just for news, but to actively participate in the ongoing conversation, leading to high visit frequency and sustained loyalty

• User Generated Content (UGC)

For a question like “Which horror film do you recommend?”, the audience provides the content itself. This crowdsourcing approach leverages the collective expertise of thousands of readers to create a dynamic, useful, and diverse list of recommendations that a single author couldn’t replicate

Check out the debates on DER SPIEGEL

> Read more on how they built this unique format

Sub-categories at Wired

Wired’s “AI of a thousand faces” article is fantastic example of a content strategy known as Layered Storytelling. This dual “bitesize” and “full article” format is highly effective, especially for complex topics like AI, and provides distinct value to both the casual and the deeply engaged audience.

• Adaptable discovery

Each card shares a brief introduction to this ‘possible reality’, linking to an article diving deeper into the topic, accommodating the skim-reader and deep-reader equally. Skimmers can quickly browse the entire issue to see what interests them, while divers can transition to the comprehensive text with a single click, fulfilling their curiosity.

• Low barrier to entry

Complex topics, especially in tech and science, can be intimidating. The creative, interactive wrapper and bitesize snippets lower the barrier to entry. The user isn’t faced with a massive wall of text; they get an accessible, visually engaging appetizer before committing to the main course.

• Can be controlled by the user

It’s almost like a tool that the reader can control – it respects the their time and attention span by allowing them to choose their level of commitment.

Check out the article on Wired

Interactive check list at The New York Times

The NYT’s interactive checklist format is a prime example of how digital design can transform content utility into a powerful driver of audience engagement.

• Personalized utility

Any list is useful in itself, but a checklist instantly transforms the static text into a form of ‘progress’ bar (“I’ve seen 75 of 100 films”) shifting the ownership to make the content instantly more valuable and relevant to a user’s life

• Gamification

The gamification element builds a sense of accomplishment as well as a challenge to go try to watch more of the listed films. Think Duolingo and the value of their ‘goal setting’ element.

• Optimized for engagement

For the publisher, this is priceless for engagement – unlike a static article where a user scrolls once and leaves, the checklist requires multiple actions (reading, clicking, checking, scrolling, filtering), increasing the amount of time spent on page.

• Social sharing potential

The team have also made sure to build a personalized list summary at the end that readers can download and share. It makes me think of Spotify Wrapped and how users are proud of their ‘performance’.

Check out the article on The New York Times

Interactive health quiz at The Telegraph

This article from The Telegraph uses an Assessment Calculator format, one of the most effective types of interactive content for health and lifestyle publications. This structure is designed to transform complex, sometimes intimidating, health metrics into a simple, personalized, and actionable score.

• Instant personalized self-assessment

Users input personal data (age, diet, exercise, habits) and receive an immediate, unique result. This moves the experience from reading a generic article (e.g., “7 Ways to Get Healthier”) to getting an assessment score (“Your health age is X years old”), creating a powerful, personal “hook.”

• Actionable insights (not just information)

The interactive element forces the user to actively consider their habits one by one. By showing the input directly affecting the output, the quiz implicitly educates the user on which behaviors have the largest impact on their health, making the advice feel more tangible and relevant.

• Conversion potential

Not in this case, but health calculators are also prime candidates for strategic gating. The publisher can ask for an email address to “receive your full, personalized health report” or “save your score and track your progress.” This turns a casual visitor into a valuable, qualified lead at a high conversion rate.

Check out the article on The Telegraph

Heiko Scherer is the founder and CEO of tchop. In this article, Heiko discusses how the homepage has changed - it's no longer about one screen. It’s about shared intent that runs through the entire product experience.