ELLE | Audiencers

Contextual paywalls on ELLE.fr increase conversion rates by 20%

Marion Wyss — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 08:02:58 +0000

Adapting the paywall to a reader’s context, and particularly to the editorial topic they’re interested in, has enabled the women’s magazine ELLE to boost conversion rates. We spoke to Sophie Thierry-Clébant, Premium Manager, who tells us all about the project.

Where did you get the idea of contextual paywalls from?

When we launched the premium offer on ELLE, we obviously looked for the paywall model that would work best:

In terms of visuals, images and colors
In terms of how to present the offer

We often offer strong promotions, which we adapt to current events or seasons (sales, vacations, Mother’s Day, etc.):

These paywalls work very well, but you can’t run promotions all the time!

We needed to liven up the non-promotional periods by developing a more harmonious and coherent creative concept, linking print and digital. We also wanted to adapt our paywall to the profile of our female readers based on their browsing behavior, to ensure we met their expectations. Thus the idea of contextual paywalls was born!

What were your constraints in this project?

We have a predominantly mobile audience, so the paywall needs to be short, easy to read and understand quickly.

Our other constraint is a legal one: we have to show all subscription benefits in the paywall directly (since they’re not listed on the next registration page).

What was the outcome of this thought process?

We therefore thought about a fixed composition of paywalls that could be adapted to the reading context and the section the reader is in, via:

A targeted tagline
A frieze of visuals that are relevant to the topic
As well as an adapted benefit, highlighting the editorial pieces most appreciated by subscribers in that specific section

We have now developed:

1 generic paywall, deployed on the site’s smaller sections

7 paywalls for various editorial topics:
- Society (“Société”)
- Fashion (“Mode”)
- Psychology-relationships (“Psycho-sexo”)
- Beauty (“Beauté”)
- Design (“Déco”)
- Cooking (“ELLE à table”)
- Well-being / Fitness (“Forme / bien-être”)

> How the fashion magazine ELLE is using a dynamic paywall and continuous optimization to improve conversion rates

How did this work technically?

We’ve been using Poool’s journey builder for several years now, so it was very easy for us to put these ideas into practice. All we had to do was upload the subject tags into Poool, before building an adapted scenario for each rubric.

In the Appearances section, we created the generic template, duplicated it 7 times, adapted it to each context by modifying the tagline, the visual frieze and the first subscriber benefit and integrated then integrated each into the relevant scenario.

A screenshot of the Appearances section in ELLE’s Poool Dashboard

Did you launch on 100% of your audience straight away?

On the 7 major sections concerned, we A/B tested the generic paywall vs. the contextual paywall 50-50, to analyze the impact on conversions. We also tracked click-through rates, but our main KPI remains the conversion rate.

What are the results of these dynamic paywalls?

Custom paywalls clearly outperformed generic paywalls. Specifically, 3 sections showed a leap in conversion rate of +50% on average on contextual paywalls versus the generic paywall.

Other sections trended towards a +10% conversion rate, and only 2 sections performed either similarly to or slightly below the generic paywall. In the last 2 cases, we believe that the teasers were not optimal and are currently reworking them, before continuing the A/B tests to validate our hypothesis.

Overall, in the last quarter of 2024, the conversion rate to subscription using the paywall source rose by +20%!

Have you put any other dynamic strategies in place that adapt to a reader’s context?

Yes, absolutely. It’s something we’ve had for a few years now, but readers of certain newsletters have seen paywalls adapted to the theme of their newsletter:

Paywall for readers coming from the psychology-relationships newsletter

Paywall for readers coming from the fashion newsletter

The lesson to anyone reading:

In conclusion, contextualizing paywalls according to reader preferences and needs is proving to be a particularly effective and profitable way of optimizing our KPIs.

By placing the reader at the heart of our strategies, we can send the right message, at the right time to maximize the impact of our actions. It’s a great example of how to increase conversions when you’re under pressure with little time on your hands!

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5 projects of a PMO at NYT – The Interaction Model

Perrine Pavageau — Tue, 18 Apr 2023 06:05:00 +0000

As part of a reorganization of The New York Times marketing department, Perrine Pavageau took on the role of "Program Manager" (PMO), a role at the crossroads of strategic vision and execution (read our article introducing her role here). Her main objective: to put in place operational mechanisms to ensure the success of marketing strategies. It's a function that answers the questions "how do we do it?" a contact person for teams to turn to express and overcome their organizational challenges. 

In this series of articles, Perrine recounts 5 operational projects carried out in this role for The New York Times.

As The New York Times revisited its paywall strategy, a specialist media strategy team was created in-house – expertise that had previously been completely outsourced. Why this decision?

Firstly, the cost. Working only with agencies could limit the work to “scopes”. With The New York Times strategy in the midst of reform at the time, greater flexibility was needed. As Janis Huang, VP Subscription Growth, says, “Working with an agency required a lot of work to convey our strategy, but we were in the process of redefining our strategy.”

Also, the desire to rethink the marketing campaigns for The New York Times, which were mainly made up of banners and emails. According to Janis, the answer to the question “What should The New York Times Marketing look like to the world?” was to bring the campaigns to life, for a stronger emotional impact. This could be done with new media such as audio, radio, TV or outdoor.

Finally, there was a desire to measure the “brand affinity” impact of these new formats on specific brand attributes.

The New York Times therefore switched to a hybrid model. Experts in digital and traditional media were recruited to join a team called “Marketing & Media Strategy”. The New York Times chose to bring in experienced leaders to guide the strategy and establish capabilities from the ground up. While still using agencies, especially for brand campaigns or specific expertise.

My first project as Program Manager was to review the campaign execution processes to integrate the media team’s work. This was called the “Interaction model“. A new term, which has become part of everyday language.

An Interaction Model is a framework that defines the roles and responsibilities of each team, strengthens collaboration, and brings transparency and alignment. For The New York Times, the objectives were:

Minimize disruption from reorganization

Provide a common structure, understood by all

Improve visibility throughout projects

Establish a structured and positive collaboration

Reduce operational risks

A bit like an internal consultant, I went through the following steps:

Listening to existing processes and challenges
Defining a framework that included phases, roles, interactions and deliverables
Obtaining validation from the teams and management
Integrating the framework into the templates of project management tool
Communicating and evangelizing the framework to ensure adoption

It included:

A high-level framework for monthly, quarterly or annual planning. The objective: that teams anticipate together, and are aligned on the priorities and necessary resources.

An end-to-end campaign framework with all steps and interactions.

Here are the points that really made an impact, in my opinion:

Clearly naming each phase – like in agile. It doesn’t sound like much, but it helps. When I said to management “we have a sticking point in the media build phase”, they knew what I was talking about

An “official” kickoff phase followed by a brief for the creative and media teams. This avoided projects being launched on an impromptu request. And everyone was briefed in the same way

Creative & Media checkins so that creative teams and media planners would work together, just like in an agency. Imagine: the creative team starts with an illustration-based concept, but the media team ends up recommending audio. These teams need to communicate upstream to have time to look at each other’s progress

Sharing results with the creative teams, so that they understand what worked and what didn’t. Through this, the creatives have started to acquire a business language and a better understanding of the issues at hand.

The challenge was to get this framework adopted. We quickly had to make specific versions for different types of campaigns or business lines. The 3 weeks of Concept & Planning were not always possible with the increasing pressure on the pace of promotions. And not all projects needed an innovative media plan. In contrast, Brand Campaigns had a much longer Concept & Planning phase.

For me, what has kept these interaction patterns going was:

Management support

The Program Management function, which guaranteed their adoption

Daily stand-ups with the project teams. They allowed us to discuss the status of each phase, the blocking points and the dependencies

Today, the teams still rely on a system of Interaction Models, which have of course evolved over time, constantly being called into question according to structural changes and company objectives.

> To add to your reading list: The New York Times dynamic paywall model, analyzed

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