The first moments post-conversion, when the subscriber is still in the transactional mode, are vital for retention.

It’s the moment to:

• Deliver immediate value
• Capture key data points
• Educate subscribers on what they now have access to
• Set expectations
• And, importantly, activate subscribers, pushing key engagement products and features that correlate with high retention

With this in mind, Lise Benamou, Sophie Cassam Chenaï and the team at Le Parisien have built a new on-site onboarding journey with Poool Engage, leading subscribers through 4 steps to optimize for retention from the moment they click “Confirm payment”.

Le Parisien’s 4-step onboarding journey

First things first, before launching into the classic onboarding journey, it’s essential to reassure your new subscriber.

Le Parisien uses this moment to confirm that the transaction has gone through and is associated to X email address.

Step 1 – newsletter sign up

Incase you need reminding, newsletters are an important engagement-driver, allowing for habit-forming around your content and increased return visits.

• At El Confidencial, readers who are registered for a newsletter have a 15% greater chance of renewing their subscription
• For La Vanguardia, churn is reduced by 50% when a subscriber is signed up to the newsletter
• Whilst at Financial Times, research has proven that 18% of engaged subscribers would be disengaged if it wasn’t for the newsletters

In fact, according to a FT Strategies poll, newsletters the most effective product by far with 2 in 3 publishers choosing them as a key habit forming feature.

Promoting some of their most popular newsletters was therefore the most valuable first step for Le Parisien when building this onboarding experience.

What we love in particular: readers can subscribe directly on this page, in a single click, scrolling through the newsletters on the right. Once subscribed, or if they’re already subscribed to a newsletter, the CTA button changes to blue.

Recommendations:

• Highlighting the most important word in the main text (here, newsletters) supports each comprehension
• Communicate to users the number of steps in this onboarding journey. This helps to reduce frustration and shows the time-to-value (i.e. that it won’t be long until they have full access to your subscription product).
• For most publishers, these newsletter ‘cards’ include an image, heading, short description and the periodicity (“Every weekday at 7am”)

Step 2 – download the app

Apps are essential for high engagement (including time spent and frequency of visits) and retention rates, as proven by the PugPig State of Mobile Publishing Market Report 2024.

At The Atlantic, for example, subscribers who use the app have a more engaged “reader state” than those who don’t, meaning they were coming back and using the product more frequently than others. They are also more likely to renew than subscribers who do not use the app.

However, app adoption is often lower than other products (as The Atlantic found) so integrating promotion of the app in onboarding journeys is therefore very valuable.

To activate app download, some publishers present a QR code, like Aftenposten:

However, Le Parisien asks for a subscriber’s phone number to be able to send a link to download the app, a great way to collect another data point whilst delivering value simultaneously (i.e. a value exchange!).

Recommendations:

• Offer a “Skip this step” link (“Passer cette étape”)
• As always, images and highlighting important parts of the text support comprehension
• If a subscriber skips this step, work cross channel to promote in other ways – on-site post-onboarding, via email, WhatsApp, phone… – considering the type of message and when you’re sending it

For instance, L’Équipe shows subscribers a bottom-banner with Poool Engage on mobile if they haven’t yet logged in on the app.

The Telegraph sends a dedicated email 10 days after subscribing:

Whilst The Economist includes a page on this topic in their printed onboarding pack:

Step 3 – data collection

Given that the payment has already been made and subscription confirmed, this is a great moment to collect data without causing too much friction.

Le Parisien asks for name, postal address and phone number, but any data that has already been collected (here, first and last name), including phone number from step 2, is pre-filled.

Recommendations:

• Don’t ask for anything you don’t need! The key to data collection is to balance your needs / what’s valuable to you, and frustration
• Ideally you should explain why you need each data point – ITVX (TV replay platform) in the UK does a great job at this

> Find more onboarding benchmarks and best practices in The Audiencers’ Collections

Congratulations to Lise Benamou, Sophie Cassam and the team for this launch!

If you’re interested in doing something similar, get in touch with the Poool team.

The post Le Parisien launches on-site onboarding journey for new subscribers appeared first on Audiencers.

The “article gifting” feature is an important initiative within Le Parisien, aimed at increasing subscriber engagement while attracting new prospects. The feature is based on a robust technical architecture, designed to ensure security, scalability, and a seamless user experience. Julien Houllier shares how they built this user journey.

> Le Parisien lets subscribers gift a temporary link to any article. The recipient must log in or create an account to read it, which turns every gift into a registration rather than a free view

> Each link carries an expiry date and dies automatically when it passes. The article returns behind the wall, so generosity is bounded and the value of paid content holds

> Subscribers get a quota of gifts that renews on a cycle. Scarcity is deliberate, making the gift feel like a benefit worth using rather than an unlimited firehose

> Every link carries a signed token checked on each access, and each gift is tied back to the account that sent it. Sharing is traceable, which is what makes it safe to allow

> Expiry rules sit in configuration rather than code, so the team can change how long a gift lasts without a deployment. Tuning the policy does not require engineering time

General design of the feature

The idea for this feature is that we allow subscribers to share a unique and temporary link providing non-subscribers access to an article for free. When a subscriber chooses to share content, a specific link is generated, associating the article with their account and a predefined expiration date. The recipient of this link must log in or create an account to gain access, ensuring security and complete traceability. Once expired, the link automatically becomes invalid, thus preserving the value of premium content.

The post Gifting articles at Les Echos-Le Parisien appeared first on Audiencers.

In early February 2023, the homepage of Le Parisien.fr was given a new look. 40 additional articles per day, a new navigation bar, matching web & app, optimized photo placement, layout changes based on the news stories and interchangeable slices... A whole host of new features with one clear goal - to increase entry rate to this essential, crossroad page, to double the click-through rate, and encourage readers to recirculate between articles. 

We met with Vincent Briot, Chief Product Officer, who told us about this homepage project, a page which receives 15 million visits per month.

Hello Vincent! So, you recently redesigned leparisien.fr’s homepage. Why did you do this? Did the previous one have any problems?

Lots of problems!

First of all, because of its monolithic structure, our editorial team felt that the homepage just wasn’t suited to cover all our editorial needs. In the event of a major event or special news item, they had to get a specific developer involved to forefront this news story. This meant that there was a real lack of emphasis on ‘hot’ news, which was hardly distinguishable from the other content.

The post Le Parisien’s new homepage: optimizing editorial and conversion simultaneously appeared first on Audiencers.