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Featured Post | Innovation

How Mail+ delivered nine major updates in two years to deliver 300% subscriber growth

The U.K.’s DMG is a media heavyweight by most measures and the group’s Daily Mail ranks close to the top on any chart for online newsbrands. In terms of web traffic, it places fourth in the U.K., 10th in the U.S. and sixth globally according to the U.K.’s Press Gazette.

At the FIPP World Media Congress in Portugal earlier this month, the U.K. news giant outlined its adoption of a “launch everyday” philosophy that, surprisingly, owes a lot to the paper’s print heritage. The result was a 300% increase in subscriber numbers in just two years.

Product director Simon Regan-Edwards was unable to travel, but Denis Haman of CMS supplier Glide stood in to explain how the Mail+ team brought a print mindset to the evolution of the Mail+ subscription product first launched in 2013.

Mail+ began by replicating the newspaper experience online. Between its launch in 2013 and 2020, Mail+ secured 40,000 subscriptions as a digital replica available across multiple devices, including Kindle and Amazon’s Alexa.

In March 2020,  the decision was taken to begin building out the Mail+ offering and by June 2022 it had 120,000 subscribers in total, with 76,000 digital only subscribers. This level of growth is impressive in itself, but even more so considering the free-to-access Mail Online site sits alongside it.

Two years, nine updates

Over the two years between the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2022, the Mail+ team delivered nine major updates.

These started with the introduction of briefings and newsletters and the addition of content in areas where the audience wanted to see more — TV and radio, food and health. Mail+ today incorporates Best Of sections, ListenTo functions and puzzles.

Moving through a homepage rebuild and a new storefront to improve the subscriber sign-up journey, Mail+ then made the shift to an edition-based format with three daily updates.

Additional releases have since brought author and category pages, new sections, and enhanced search functionality. More recently, the team implemented a second home page redesign to pull together a unified Mail+ offering.

“It’s been actually incredible to watch,” said Haman, “The Daily Mail team has managed to work and rework the product and reconfigure what it means to the customers. I have rarely seen a product move at such a pace and reinvent itself repeatedly.”

And the results have been applauded independently. Lewis Wiltshire, former head of media partnerships at Twitter described the most recent redesign as “A beautifully elegant looking website — almost Athletic-esque.”

So how did the Mail+ team do it?

Agile print

Haman began by exploding the misconception that a print foundation will slow digital development, arguing that print is possibly the most agile of all content channels.

“It gets destroyed and remade every single day, with the opportunity to redraw it, reshape it, rework it. And it has to hit the deadlines,” he explained. The Mail digital team brought that print mindset to the rebuilding of Mail+. That meant launching “every day, every week, every month.”

Of course, digital is not the same as print and Haman noted that there are “sensible limits” to digital development, meaning everything takes more time than you might think. Quoting Alan Hunter, former head of digital at The Times, Haman said: “This means you won’t be asking for a new product feature on a Tuesday and expecting it to be in the app by Friday.”

Crucially, the Mail digital team was given license from the very top to keep going until the right formula was found for Mail+. From that foundation and armed with audience data that suggested there was a real interest in the evolving subscription product, the team built quickly following a rigorous framework for decision making.

Ask what problem you are solving

Haman described the sweet spot for innovation between visibility, viability and desirability. He said it was important to be disciplined in asking key questions. Do customers want the features you are developing? Are they financially viable and are they technically possible with the available resources?

“It’s really important to fall back on the process,” said Haman. “If you’re under pressure you can easily find yourself jumping to conclusions.”

Data is crucial in building insight into what is building habits and why people do what they do. But Haman said it is also important to be open to new voices. He highlighted customer-service teams, sometimes overlooked, but often a powerful source of knowledge into what motivates or demotivates readers.

Data also avoids the HIPPO trap — the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion. Haman explained, “without data, it’s just an opinion.”

Networked teams bring together diverse groups with different perspectives and different skills, all the disciplines needed to launch a product. It’s  important to give everyone access to the data to understand how it relates to revenue, engagement, and readership.

Haman emphasized the importance of giving everyone on the team a voice, and making sure that they are truly engaged in asking “What problem are we solving?” However, he took care to explain that although everyone should have a voice, “not everyone makes the decisions.”

Be realistic

To separate “should” from “could” and focus on priorities, the Mail+ development team used the MoSCoW methodology:

  • Must have
  • Should have
  • Could have
  • Won’t have

This helped the development team move faster and, crucially, get data back quickly to provide valuable insights for moving forward.

The team used digital tools across functions to “dig into” designs before development started. Haman compared this to making sure your architect’s plans are solid before starting to build; it’s considerably cheaper to revise plans than tear down half the house to make things right. Then lock designs to prevent changes at the 11th hour. “I love the fact that they would laminate designs,” he said. “It’s genuinely locked until it is released.”

The elegant exit

Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, said it is important to act on your temporary conviction as if it was a real conviction; and when you realize that you are wrong, correct course very quickly.

Data, again, provided insight to what was working and what wasn’t for The Daily Mail. And if something wasn’t working, Haman said it was important to ignore the sunk cost fallacy — that we have spent all this money and we have to make it work. He explained, “If it’s going in the wrong direction, you need to be brave enough to cut your losses, pivot, or rather elegantly exit and move to a new direction.”

Regan-Edwards made a guest appearance at the end of the session via Zoom and I asked him if he thought at the start of the project he would make nine major updates in two years? He said, “No, but I think what we learned through this whole process is don’t predict what’s coming in two years time, focus on what are we delivering for this next quarter. What makes sense in this next quarter? What do we want to do in the quarter after that?”

He also re-emphasized the importance of being led by feedback from customers. “We have a big focus on puzzles,” he said. “That’s come from the feedback of how people are using the product.”

And finally, he said, overcome the “moonshot mentality” that says, “We’re done now, let’s put it in the cupboard. Instead, get into the mentality that you want to constantly improve.”

Perspectives | Revenue | Supporter Spotlight

Most paid subscriptions are for streaming services. Learn how they win customers

In a recent survey about the impacts of the pandemic and the overall sentiment of U.S. subscribers, Recurly found that 87% of respondents have a subscription to at least one streaming video service and 46% have a subscription to at least one streaming audio service. The increasing ubiquity of streaming subscription services leaves little to question about their popularity among consumers, particularly the Gen Z and Millennial generations. In order to rank among the highest-rated streaming subscription services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+, it’s important for subscription businesses to understand consumer behaviors and motivations that promote retention and preserve subscriber loyalty. 

In this article, you’ll learn how streaming subscription services and changing consumer habits have existed harmoniously and how they continue to thrive in an economy captivated by recurring revenue businesses.

Streaming service industry trends

At the core of any successful subscription offering is the subscriber experience, and an ideal subscriber experience starts with studying subscriber wants and needs for informed decision-making. One of the most important survey results concludes that consumers subscribe to goods and services because of brand preference, access to discounts as subscribers, help to manage a budget, and more. However, the prevailing motivation is content, and not just any content – exclusive content, as well as value and convenience. 

Our survey results reveal that 40% of consumers rank exclusive access to content or services as the main reason for signing up for a subscription service. Unlike a box of the month, streaming subscription services may give subscribers special access to coveted content such as a highly anticipated series or film. When consumers evaluate a purchase, they consider the value they will receive in exchange for a recurring payment. In this case, the value of a streaming subscription service is presented in the form of content, and the more exclusive the content is, the higher the value is to the subscriber.

How consumer sentiment affects demand

As a consequence of the pandemic, 91% of U.S. consumers are concerned about inflation and its impact on the cost of goods and services. Coupled with the recent news of Netflix losing 200,000 subscribers, many streaming subscription services are struggling to get a grasp on subscriber churn. However, despite climbing costs and unpredictable consumer behaviors, 68% of consumers still signed up for another streaming video service and 31% signed up for another streaming audio service in the last year. Furthermore, the same subscribers expect to use streaming video (78%) and streaming audio (36%) subscriptions the most this year.

Pertinent value remains a strong factor in subscribers’ purchasing decisions. For streaming services, this is an opportunity on which to capitalize. From promotions and free trials to the freedom to pause as a subscriber, streaming subscription services can strategically adapt to developing consumer behavior trends via stronger value manifestations. Rising costs may be inevitable, but how these changes are packaged and delivered plays a vital role in influencing consumer perceptions of your business. 

The smartest streaming subscription services don’t let value decline as the pandemic shifts the economy. Instead, they create value in novel ways. Recommended content and complementary goods and services in new forms are just a couple of ways to retain subscribers and remind them of the value they receive from your streaming subscription service.

A change in consumer expectations

Nowadays, with just a few simple clicks to manage an account, streaming subscription services have proven that convenience is more impactful to the subscriber journey than many initially thought. While traditional subscription convenience is typically defined as routine home deliveries, in the streaming space, convenience can also refer to the ease of setting up, changing, or canceling a subscription. 

A majority of survey respondents (62%) value this accessibility when considering a new subscription. Streaming subscription services, which are largely self-managed by the subscriber, make account changes as easy as possible – an intelligent response to changing behaviors and motivations. As a result, the subscriber experience faces little disruption. These considerations should extend into thoughtful dunning strategies and even the renewal or cancellation experiences for a seamless ordeal throughout the journey. While the decision to continue with a subscription is ultimately in the hands of the customer, the touchpoints throughout any subscriber journey contribute to the overall perception of a service.

The success of streaming subscription services

Streaming subscription services are one of the few businesses that can repeatedly present exclusive content as its main value driver. From a consumer’s perspective, this is one of the most enticing reasons to subscribe to a service, alongside relevant value and flexibility. Undoubtedly, streaming media subscriptions have a competitive advantage over their counterparts, and that edge only remains intact when the subscriber is placed at the center of a thoughtfully planned customer journey.

About the author

Theresa Mcendree is the Chief Marketing Officer at Recurly, a subscription management and billing platform that maximizes subscriber lifetime value with expertise, technology, and insights for global brands.

Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Multichannel experience: the key to surviving the media attention recession

The pandemic saw a historically high surge in media consumption and media audience growth. However, data heading into 2022 painted a bleaker picture. After two years of easy wins in the attention economy, media companies now face an attention recession. 

Getting it right in the attention recession 

Today, we face a difficult environment for media companies to prosper. That said, a few companies are getting it right and provide valuable lessons. The New York Times is one of them. The NYT managed to harness the temporary surge in media consumption and direct it into unprecedented growth for its new subscription services. While it has long been a leader in capturing subscriptions, the NYT was able to take the boom of the last two years and build upon it as part of a long-term revenue strategy. 

The key to their success? An ambitious and high-quality multichannel strategy. The NYT didn’t just farm its audience’s surging interest for clicks and ad revenue. Instead, it created a unique brand connection by remaking their product offering into a complete, multichannel media experience. They added new subscription services for games, cooking, sports and more and evolved the brand into a kind of one-stop shop for media engagement. 

And while The New York Times’ success stands out, it is also replicable. Media companies simply need to apply the core lesson: Gone are the days when customer attention was cheap and easily won with ad spend. Instead, the products that will drive revenue in the future will deliver a multi-or omnichannel experience that creates unique, differentiated value for the consumer.

Building for that kind of experience for your audience might seem daunting. But it can be done. 

Valuing customer’s attention

It starts with constructing a revenue model that values your customer’s attention as much as they value it themselves. Too many media companies are afraid to transition to premium content providers. They worry if they develop content consumers have to pay for, they’ll be left behind for whoever can afford not to set up a paywall. 

But that fear is misguided. Time and time again, consumers have shown they are more than willing to pay. However, they have to feel they are paying for something worthwhile. Most value their time, and the quality of how they spend it, more than they value saving a few bucks per month. 

So, don’t be afraid of the subscription model. Instead, focus on developing the kind of unique, premium content that makes a subscription worthwhile.

Creating strong customer relationships

That said, embracing the subscription model won’t be enough if consumers don’t feel connected to your brand. There’s just no getting around it: Strong customer relationships matter. Seventy-six percent of consumers say they would buy from a brand they feel connected to over any competitor. To succeed, you need to be more than just a content provider; you need to become a brand that customers feel connection and loyalty toward.

Creating that brand connection is one of the key components of today’s omnichannel experience. Almost three-quarters of consumers already use multiple channels when interacting with brands. Each channel presents the consumer with a swarm of touchpoints with your brand; you need to be reaching them across each one, and weaving a coherent brand story and image into each of those touchpoint encounters.

Exceptional customer experience is key

Finally, a key takeaway for any media company is to optimize for customer experience and not just views. In today’s media ecosystem, plenty of consumers are experiencing digital fatigue with how their attention is used and abused. Media consumers aren’t just downshifting their consumption patterns; they’re overloaded and overwhelmed. 

Attention-grabbing tactics won’t work any longer, and consumers are getting tired of clickbait. You want to optimize, not for views and clicks, but for a daily habit of interaction. Getting there starts with a media experience that can be enjoyed daily. And that starts with creating an owned media content experience that is high-quality and differentiated. 

Consumers today constantly engage with a wide array of digital products and services across multiple channels, devices, and platforms. Compelling customer experiences that leverage multi-channel engagement can build lasting, continuous relationships with consumers. And these relationships will form the backbone of revenue streams that will outlive the attention recession. 

About the author

Chris Hansen is the Senior Vice President of Communication, Media, and Technology at 3Pillar Global. 

Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

How to drive registered users to become paid subscribers

Getting a user to register is far easier than getting a user to pay—users shown a registration offer have a 1.69% median conversion rate, vs. 0.26% for a paid subscription offer.

The good news is that registered users are more likely to become subscribers. But it can take some time for them to convert. The best practices below can help you attract more registrants and ultimately push them down the funnel to become paid subscribers.

Asking the right users to register

The first thing to recognize is that a registration offer may not be the right path for all user segments. So publishers must be strategic on how to segment audiences and determine who to convert quickly as registered users, vs. those who should only see the paid subscription offer.

Email is the leading referrer when it comes to acquiring subscribers, according to Piano data, which validates the registration experience for anonymous users who are coming from lower-performing referral sources (search, social, etc.). Those coming from email could be more apt to convert, so you might show them a paid subscription offer right away. However, you should consider introducing a guest pass or trial for users who arrive on-site from lower-performing referral sources.

Another way to segment the appropriate users to show a registration offer is algorithmically, or through machine learning. If you can determine a user’s likelihood to subscribe, you can ask those who aren’t as likely to instead register. It’s a common “first ask” in the customer journey and a solid tactic to engage the user with your publication and content.

Converting registered users to paid subscribers

When you do get someone to register, how do you keep them engaged and ultimately to become a paid subscriber? It’s not uncommon to wonder whether registered users will ever subscribe, but a smart strategy can ensure that the registration experience does not impact your conversion rates for users who are more likely to become a subscriber.

Some users convert quickly on their first day or first week as a registered users, but many more users will take a month or more to become paid subscribers. These numbers can help you model potential subscriber growth over time.

Some tactics you might implement to encourage paid subscription include:

Collect first-party data

By analyzing your registered user group, define how many have hit a content lock and have not subscribed. Do they warrant a different journey? There are always going to be users that just won’t pay, so collecting more first-party data to build those users’ profiles can help you tap into more advertising opportunities and generate revenue outside of subscriptions.

Make a ‘“crazy” offer

Offer a great deal at a steep discount because it just might be an offer your audience can’t refuse. Not all users will warrant this offer. However, by segmenting those that visit often but never subscribe, this may push them across the conversion “finish line.”

Target logged-in no-access users

Running promotions outside of your content lock is a good tactic to target users who are logged-in but aren’t subscribed to your site. Less intrusive on-site messaging can show users an offer while they’re reading “free content.”

A few more registration best practices

Whatever your strategy or how a user registered, treating registered users the right way will help lift conversion rates:

Create a clear value exchange

Whenever possible, connect the registration to the user benefit. It’s not just about registering, but becoming a member, getting these exclusive benefits, getting something tangible in exchange for providing your information. This messaging tends to increase conversion rate and make user consent more likely.

Minimize friction

Utilize email-only registration or social signups for ease of registration and collect additional information over time. You might consider a passwordless initial option to get users in the door, then you can capture other data later on in the user journey.

Be transparent

If you are collecting additional information, tell the user how you’ll use it and what the benefit is for them. For example, don’t just use their email address for ongoing subscriber acquisition emails. Give them something they want and will engage with, like an email newsletter.

Treat registered users like customers

It may take time, but registered users are likely to subscribe, so treat them as you would a valued customer. Create an onboarding experience for registered users as you would for a new subscriber.  Encourage engagement, highlight user benefits and provide relevant content recommendations.

A registration experience can unlock a lot of additional value for your publication, but only if you proceed with caution so you don’t impact your existing paid subscription offer. Treating these users like customers with a clear value exchange will ultimately help audiences cross the finish line to become paid subscribers.

Perspectives

Why you need to unlock the hidden value of anonymous users

If your media company is directly monetizing its audience in any way or form, odds are, your registered users and subscribers are your biggest money-makers. Even so, the largest portion of your audience is probably made up of unknown readers who aren’t contributing much to your overall reader-revenue growth.

According to recent research we conducted at Viafoura, a shocking 99.6% of publisher unsubscribed audiences, on average, are anonymous visitors. While most of these visitors are passive readers who are less committed to a company’s content than known audience members, you can still get tremendous value from them.

In reality, your anonymous audience is far from worthless. It’s an untapped goldmine of information and revenue just waiting to be activated. But before you can extract the full value of your unknown visitors, you need to know exactly why and how they can become loyal and lucrative audience members.

Prioritizing anonymous to known audience conversions

Naturally, known audience members give your organization far more data and monetization opportunities than anonymous visitors. Viafoura’s research finds that engaged registered users offer publishers five times more return visits than non-registered users.

Rather than waiting for registered users to appear magically, successful publishers have recognized that the key to better monetizing audiences is to actively nurture their anonymous audiences and encourage them to log in. After all, each of your registered and subscribed audience members first started off as unknown visitors. 

Keep in mind that almost every anonymous user can become effectively monetized once they are registered. As Greg Piechota, Researcher-in-Residence at the International News Media Association (INMA), explains, “[we] see reader and ad revenue strategies converging as publishers refocus on registering and logging users.” 

Ultimately, converting your anonymous visitors to known users online is an essential step on the road to building audience loyalty and growing your company’s revenue streams. 

Registration as a means of improving content performance

Logged in users are not just more readily monetizable, they provide a raft of information that allows you to improve their experience and increase engagement. 

You can begin piecing together your users’ profiles as soon as they create profiles on your website or app. The more they interact with your content and fellow users, the more you’ll understand who they are, their needs, and the types of content topics and writers they favor.

This valuable data can be harnessed to segment your users into different groups with similar interests. Then, they can then be targeted with relevant content — including advertisements. 

Of course, content that aligns more with your users’ interests is more likely to draw their attention and keep them engaged on your website or app for longer. “Once you understand your target audience’s needs, you can develop personalized content that addresses their biggest concerns and pain points,” Gartner reports. “But timing is everything.”

To make the biggest impact on your audience and win over their loyalty, your media company must serve its users the content they want when they crave it, even as their needs and interests change. While you can’t get this information from unknown visitors, you can extract it through the data and comments of your known users.

Turning anonymous users into engaged subscribers 

Giving anonymous users the chance to log in to your website is not only key to getting their data, but it can also make your anonymous users become dedicated to your brand. The reality is that once you get anonymous visitors to register, you’re halfway to getting them to subscribe. 

In fact, Viafoura data reveals that registered users are significantly more engaged than their unregistered counterparts. They spend an average of 15 times more time on-site after registering. And all that extra time your registered users spend on your company’s website means they have more opportunities to connect with your company’s content and other users.

“News brands that see more known users see more subscribers, and brands that see longer session duration see lower rates of churn,” according to Piechota. He says that research proves that you earn one subscriber for every 10 registrations.

The Telegraph recently shared that its audience growth goal is framed around this research. The company is aiming for 10 million registered users and one million subscribers as of 2023.

This reinforces the fact that you can unlock significant value — including engagement and (eventually) subscription revenue — from a large portion of your anonymous audience simply by getting them to register.

So, if the majority of your company’s audience is anonymous, what’s stopping you from encouraging that massive group of people to become registered, known and returning users? From there, you can use their available data and growing loyalty to your advantage, further enhancing your organization’s engagement, content, subscription and ad revenue strategies.

Featured Post | Perspectives

Stay the course

Netflix’s earnings report last week sent a chill across nearly every company with a business model tied to a direct-to-consumer relationship. There are real concerns about the global economy and speculation about whether the  massive increase in streaming viewing habits seen during the pandemic will prove to be enduring. However, I wonder whether the insights gleaned from the Netflix situation are unique to Netflix and not a strong indicator for other media companies, most of which are just starting their streaming ventures.

First, let’s acknowledge the macroeconomy. Inflation registering over 8% will impact nearly every consumer market; this is especially true if inflation leads to higher interest rates and the dreaded “R” word. Unfortunately, this will be an ever-intensifying concern.

There has been a great awakening around the globe after two years of Covid, during which we had requirements and excuses to stay home and avoid socializing. There were countless stories in the trade and mainstream press as we witnessed streaming viewership’s outsized growth about isolation’s impact on our insatiable appetite for entertainment – escape. And binge-watching – which was already a trend after Netflix tossed a hand grenade into the linear schedule – only escalated during this period.

Certainly, Netflix finds itself with real competition for digital share of wallet for the first time in its history. Storied media companies have rolled out exclusive offerings that feature everything from hit television programs to blockbuster movie franchises: Batman, Star Trek, Yellowstone, Avengers from HBO Max, Paramount+, Peacock, Disney+, respectively. Many have regained rights to classic television hits that are endlessly bingeworthy.  Meanwhile, Netflix has increased its price, nearly doubling its monthly cost ($15.49 from $7.99 when it first launched) while cracking down on password-sharing as it, impressively, has saturated the market.

But while Netflix may have led the way in streaming, it may not be the best proxy for the subscription market opportunity. The company faces its own issues with stagnating growth and should not be mistaken for marketplace indicators. 

What is really happening

DCN’s 2021 research into the value of direct, trusted consumer relationships, brands as proxies for this trust, the needs and behaviors of Gen Z vs Gen Y, and the subscription market point to this lesson: Ignore Netflix and stay the course.

Most important are the lessons coming from studying the “next” generation. Consumer behavior is radically different in a world where payment and immediate gratification are merely a double tap of the thumb and face scan away on a mobile device. Paying for access to your favorite news or entertainment product, whether podcast, app or website, is no longer a foreign concept after hitting a “paywall.” Rather, it is little more than a friendly nudge along the way associating value with the products you love.

The number of people willing to pay for access to news and entertainment is increasing. In fact, Netflix’s greatest legacy for the market as a whole may have been leading the horse to the water. Netflix also worked with premium providers and helped build an appetite for great content and normalized paying for it.

What publishers seek

Now, distribution platforms from Apple to Google to Facebook are being pushed to finally act as true partners in driving subscription revenues and monetization for premium publishers. At times this nudge has had to come from regulatory threats in an effort to create more balanced bargaining power.

But what are publishers seeking? Publishers expect traffic to their owned and operated platforms and true ownership over the customer journey including the underlying transaction and customer data.

Publishers also want to take back control over the pricing, bundling, and messaging for their services from the distribution platforms. This allows a trusted publisher to extract and retain more subscription revenues by controlling their highly-valued brands and, importantly, the customer data from before, during, and after their subscription relationship. 

Putting things in perspective

For decades, the vast majority of digital content was available for free.

Meanwhile, Netflix built its business on spending (many would say excessively) on licensing and creating content. It helped rebuild the consumer appetite for quality content and experiences worth paying for. However, when we consider the implications of the company’s recent subscriber losses, we should not be so quick to predict a ripple effect across subscription-based businesses as a whole.

While a couple of news publishers, and a handful of other streamers count their subscribers in the tens of millions, the reality is that most publishers count theirs in the tens or hundreds of thousands. Thus, the basis for comparison with Netflix’s 220 million subscribers is specious at best. That’s like comparing a slowdown in Coca-Cola’s beverage sales to my kids’ driveway lemonade stand.

And the behavior of younger consumers points to a healthy appetite for great content and a willingness to pay for it. Now is not the time to panic, pivot, or radically shift your subscription strategy in Netflix’s wake. Instead, trust in the value of quality content well-delivered in trustworthy settings and know that audiences will be right there with you.

Featured Post | Innovation

Publishers try a fraction of the news for a fraction of the cost

As the subscriptions race has intensified, media companies are turning their attention to the substantial segments of their audience who aren’t willing — or financially able — to pay for a full subscription. Some are returning to the tried and true tactic of lower-cost ad-supported offerings, while others have doubled down on putting the plus in premium. 

News brands have always run the gamut from super-premium to completely ad supported. And some have speculated that the trend of premium digital news offerings – with the notable success of The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Financial Times – bodes poorly for readers in search of quality and value. And the proliferation of low cost or free offerings can often overwhelm, and even under-inform when consumers actually avoid the news. 

It’s possible that a new approach is emerging which may address these issues – and offers premium brands a way to expose a broader range of consumers to their content. 

A financial case

Last month, Financial Times launched a new lightweight offering called FT Edit. The app offers readers eight hand-picked stories every weekday for just £0.99 per month.

Though it has amassed 1.2 million subscribers to date, FT has traditionally attracted a certain kind of subscriber due to the high-end financial news it covers. A typical subscriber is of a higher income, with an interest in or working for the financial sector. Its most affordable digital package, which ranges from $40-$69 a month (£35-£55) would be a stretch for those who don’t need specialist financial coverage. If a consumer is after more general news, plenty of other organizations have more affordable subscriptions.

But increasingly, FT is gaining a following outside of its financial journalism. Part of that appears to be the result of making certain facets of its broader scope publicly available. Its coronavirus coverage was the first to be made freely available in March 2020. It currently has a page dedicated to free-to-read coverage of the Ukraine war “to keep everyone informed as events unfold”.

“We are known for financial news, and we’re incredibly strong at our core product. But we produce a wide breadth of news that matters, and I don’t think people really know that about the FT,” Assistant Editor Janine Gibson explained. “We weren’t really sure whether people wanted to read our free stuff more than anyone else’s, but it was very, very, very successful.”

Creating a more affordable product

The team began to see that there was a much wider appetite for their journalism. The conversations started to turn towards what a much lower-cost product would look like for the publisher. Their research about what people wanted came back with a core message: a simple product with a start and end point. Something more reflective, analytical, and deeply reported – but also expertly curated. 

“There’s a different thing happening in the world of quality journalism. People understand that paying for quality journalism is vital, but they don’t necessarily have the resources or the appetite for the full, unexpurgated experience,” Gibson said. 

Within a matter of months, FT Edit was conceived. Not only is the price point low, the limited offering provides a concise and digestible solution to too much news.  The company says “the purpose of FT Edit is to provide an alternative to endless scrolling, allowing readers time to digest eight important stories selected for them each day. It will launch with the strapline: time well read.”

An audience-centric approach

The concern for many publishers considering this option is cannibalization of the existing subscriber audience. But Gibson sees the audience for FT Edit as adjacent to their core subscribers, not competing. 

“This app isn’t here to solve a problem for a news organization,” she explained. “So many digital product launches over the last decade have come from a position of weakness, like ‘We need to replace this revenue gap’. This is, is there a wider audience out there at a lower price point for the FT? But we don’t need to offset the cost of what we already do.”

“The price point really reflects the commitment from the board and the chief executive to genuinely saying, ‘I would like to expose a much wider audience of people to some FT journalism.’”

Now, the app will go through some tweaks to find out how many stories each day works best. It is early days, but should the app get a good response in the UK, Gibson said a dedicated US version with content curated for a US audience would follow.

A bracing shot of news

FT is not the first publisher to experiment like this. The Economist’s Espresso app is the most well-known example of a separate, lower cost, lower quantity subscription offering. The recently updated app, launched eight years ago, was introduced as a daily digital briefing to complement the core magazine, with short pieces of news and analysis. It was marketed as a quick ‘shot’ of news to get readers ready for the day.

Espresso is included as part of The Economist’s full digital subscription. It is offered as a standalone app for $7.99 (£7.99) in the UK after a seven day free trial. Those who don’t choose to subscribe can still read one article a day. 

The publisher has been working on an upgrade of the app over the past few months. The new version delivers Espresso stories in both written and audio form, alongside charts, facts and quotes each day. It also includes a ‘For You’ tab that lets the user sample four stories a week from the main Economist site, based on their interests.

“The new Espresso is aimed at readers who may not have the time or inclination for the more in-depth Economist experience,” a spokesperson told us. “We see it as introducing a new generation of readers to the Economist brand.”

“We imagine that, over time, some will migrate to an Economist subscription as they come to appreciate the role that our full journalism offerings can play in their lives.” 

Is an app the perfect outreach product?

The question of affordable quality journalism is likely to become ever-more pressing as more publishers turn to reader revenue. From the Washington Post to Bloomberg – and even The Smith’s yet unlaunched Semafor – the market is saturated with publications targeting the global elite who barely blink at paying hundreds of dollars a year for news access.

The challenge for publishers looking to attract a wider audience to quality journalism is pricing for access. This is where paid products like apps or even newsletters can be a good way of building a relationship with readers without asking them to pay premium prices. 

The longevity of Espresso and the initial success of FT Edit also demonstrate that audiences respond well to content with a start and a finish point. Aside from the obvious parallels to print newspapers, a carefully curated, high-quality set of stories is now seen as a refreshing antidote to the endless scrolling, misinformation, and frantic news cycle. In other words, for a tiny fraction of the cost, you get a tiny fraction of the news: just what you need to know, concisely offered and expertly crafted and delivered.

Now, limited is in demand. A small bundle of stories well-packaged for mobile could be the key for other publishers to unlocking their vast untapped audiences who haven’t yet opened their wallets.

Perspectives

Publishers need user login to maximize the value of cross-device tracking

Most marketers today recognize the importance of understanding the subscriber journey and personalizing user experiences. But to fully understand a customer, digital publishers must look beyond the content a person has consumed and start building a bigger picture. Doing so will not only meet ever-advancing customer expectations, but it will also help turn regular subscribers into raving fans.

To do that, it’s crucial to not only track what content a user reads, but also the devices on which they consume that content. Without this, your customer view is incomplete.

Device tracking becomes especially important with today’s increasingly complex subscriber journeys. It’s possible for users to access your content on a desktop, smartphone, and tablet, on any given day. Understanding how to connect all of these occurrences to the same user to map out accurate preferences and behaviors is crucial to ensuring the success of personalization.

This is where cross device tracking comes in.

What is cross-device tracking?

Cross-device tracking is the ability to track a user through all their interactions with your content. If a user logs in on multiple devices, cross-device tracking enables you to analyze their activity across those devices and gain a complete picture of where they are and what they’re looking at. 

Doing so enables you to then serve specific, relevant and targeted content (or offers) to them across their different devices, creating truly personalized experiences at all touchpoints. Cross-device tracking helps identify behavior data you would otherwise miss out on, as well as tell you which channels are most successful in converting registered readers into paid subscribers.

For example, behavior data might suggest that a user reads sports content via your mobile app on their daily commute. With this knowledge, marketing efforts can be made to recommend new sports articles at this time, or show short, mobile-friendly content to fit the commute and keep the reader coming back for more. The more real-time the data and insights are, the more agile your business can be in focusing marketing efforts.

Why is cross-device tracking so important?

An overwhelming 84% of U.S. households own at least one smartphone. And, with more than half of all web traffic coming from mobile sources, it is essential to see how your readers interact with your content when not on a desktop. By doing so, digital publishers will create more customer satisfaction in the process by providing readers with tailored content and experiences, like greeting customers by name or presenting them with relevant advertisements as they switch from one device to the next.

According to Salesforce, 66% of customers now expect this level of personalization, and 52% expect offers to always be personalized. 

Deterministic tracking

In June 2020, Apple announced a significant shift in the way the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) may be used and obtained for tracking users on other devices, sending the whole mobile ecosystem into a frenzy. The new App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework, which went into effect in 2021, requires app publishers to obtain an explicit opt-in from consumers before using their data to track their activity. As of February 2022, opt-in rates were just 25% globally — and even lower in the U.S. This leaves publishers with limited tracking options moving forward.

Tom Phillips, President at Section4, says there are now two routes to cross-device tracking — “deterministic” and “probabilistic.” While ATT made deterministic tracking tougher, it is still possible when publishers and platforms ask their users to sign in to their websites and apps on every device they use. This allows for easy and exact tracking.

Probabilistic tracking

On the other hand, probabilistic cross-device tracking is an inexact science in which third-party companies collect data and employ statistical models to predict who is using which device. The problem with probabilistic tracking is that the accuracy can vary from around 60% to 90%.

Therefore, the best route to follow is deterministic tracking. The easiest way to implement it on content sites is to push readers to register for an account they can then use across multiple devices. To optimize it, you’ll need to encourage readers to login every time they interact with your content. As a result, you can attribute the right actions to the right user profile without relying on any guesswork. Getting people to log-in means you can track their in-app behavior, even in the absence of device IDs.

To make this easier on your readers, it helps to include something like a “Remember me” option in your login form, or the ability to sign in with a face ID to remove friction and help users stay logged in without frustration.

Thinking long term

Many digital publishers opt for metered or dynamic paywalls and registration walls to encourage user login creation. Registration walls like these work by limiting the amount of free content available to anonymous readers and encouraging them to sign up if they want to read on.

Subscription experience platforms offer a quick and effective way to set up these registration walls and paywalls across all of your sites and collate customer data with ease. However, it’s important to remember that if you choose to go down the route of selecting a technology provider like this, one size won’t fit all. 

More devices are likely to have access to the internet in the future, and the introduction of 5G could make these new devices the preferred medium for readers. For that reason, when looking at solutions to help with cross-device tracking, it’s essential to think long term about what tech you’ll need to integrate with and how that may change in the future. 

Today’s customers expect personalization of content and ad experiences across devices. Therefore, it is essential to use platforms that allow you to future proof your content. These solutions must prioritize cross-device tracking to allow you to provide an optimal experience for your audiences and marketing partners. 

Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

How publishers can combat active and passive subscriber churn

The subscription journey doesn’t end at conversion — it’s really just getting started. No matter how successful your subscription program is, you’ll always have customers on the edge of churning, or those you have to win back.

When trying to improve subscription retention rates, it’s important to understand that there are two sources of churn, passive (payment failures) and active (cancellations). Each of these require dedicated tactics to target the users that may be susceptible to churn and keep them as subscribers. By intelligently and intentionally harnessing subscriber data, publishers can proactively combat churn.

Active churn

Active churn is when users are consciously choosing to cancel their subscription or membership with your publication. To keep these users around, you likely need to better engage them with the product and showcase the value they’re receiving.

Communicate value with impactful onboarding experiences

When a new user converts to become a subscriber, an onboarding experience is the best way to get them acclimated with their new subscriber benefits and immediately engage them in the offering. This could include messages welcoming subscribers, encouraging app installs and newsletter sign-ups, and highlighting various subscription benefits. These tactics help to foster the habit of engagement with your content.

As monthly subscribers use the site heavily in their first 30 days, offering a holistic onboarding experience can be more effective than an email campaign alone. On-site messaging can add much more influence in this critical time period. It’s all about communicating the value of the offering.

Use content recommendations to increase usage

Higher content consumption is generally linked to lower churn. By using personalized content recommendations to surface the right content to the right users, publishers can double both pageviews and active time on site.

While content recommendations are most often thought of from an advertising context in relation to increasing pageviews, those additional pageviews also help show users the type of content they’re most interested in and tangibly demonstrate the value of your content, reinforcing the messaging of your onboarding campaign. The more relevant content the user sees, the more they will value their subscription.

Leverage machine learning to identify users most likely to churn

By understanding the users most likely to churn and the biggest drivers of cancellation, you can target messaging or campaigns separately to high- and low-risk subscribers. Machine learning can help you segment these groups based on hundreds of metrics. These can include everything from the referrer at the moment of conversion to whether a subscriber paid with Visa or American Express. With a better understanding of what behaviors are driving cancellation and retention, you can work with your editorial team to encourage the positive behaviors and suppress the negative ones.

Passive churn

Unlike active churn that results from action by the subscriber, passive churn is most often caused by credit card failures or other technical failures.

Extend grace period to try charging cards more than once

A simple but high-impact change that publishers can make is shifting the grace period for retrying credit cards that had a failed payment. Although many marketers never envisioned overseeing the intricacies of payment processing, this has become an integral part of subscription strategy to optimize revenue.

By spacing card retries out five days apart, many reasons for payment failure (such as a maxed-out card) can resolve themselves. The first retry is almost always the most effective, successfully charging an average of 25% of monthly subscriptions that enter grace periods and an average of 18% of annual subscriptions entering grace periods. The second attempt, 10 days after an initial payment failure, also often can have a double-digit success rate. Later attempts tend to get progressively less successful, with only a couple percent of subscriptions successfully charged during later attempts. But even low additional success rates on later attempts can add up to real money for large subscription bases.

Communicate billing updates directly with users

Visitors with expiring credit cards soon to expire are often customers who are satisfied with the product and simply need to be prompted to update payment details. Reaching out to users in advance of card expiration dates, or with billing failures when they happen, gives them every opportunity to update the payment method.

Think of this communication as a service message, rather than a marketing message: “Your payment details are expiring. Please update them here for uninterrupted service.” If the payment method isn’t updated, you may consider increasing the urgency of your messaging in a sequence as the expiration date gets closer.

Initiate a win-back campaign to re-engage former subscribers

The first step in running a successful win-back campaign is understanding which former subscribers are most likely to be won back. While only about a third of churn is passive, a Piano analysis found 55% of subscribers who had a subscription lapse and later re-subscribed were passive churners. This makes sense. It’s much easier to win back a customer who did not intentionally end their subscription than one who did. Former subscribers with a payment failure may not even realize their subscription is no longer active.

Onsite messages targeting this specific user group can be used to prompt former subscribers to resubscribe onsite. Emails sent based on a subscription or access ending event can also be used to run win-back campaigns. Similar to credit card expiration messaging, win-back campaigns can start out simply as service messages: “Your subscription has expired. Please update your payment details to resume service.”

Taking a two-pronged approach can help you address both passive churn and active churn of your subscribers. By prioritizing retention as much as acquisition, you can ensure you don’t lose a single hard-won customer you don’t have to.

Featured Post | Revenue

How a one dollar offer drives The Boston Globe’s subscription success story

It took The Boston Globe seven years to reach the first 100,000 subscribers. It only took a year to add the next 100,000. They’ve found that the key to accelerating growth is an introductory subscription offer so low, they’re practically giving the news away. 

Head to bostonglobe.com and non-subscribers are given the option to read all the content they want for a bargain $1 for the first six months. While the Globe’s generous offer comes with an expiration date, a surprising number of subscribers decide that it’s worth paying more to stick around. 

“We’re at the point where 90% of growth and revenue comes from subscriptions,” Tom Brown, vice president of consumer revenue for Boston Globe Media, said of the company’s digital operations. 

How The Globe got here 

With subscription growth slowing, The Boston Globe decided to try an experiment in 2018. The Globe, which has long believed its product was worth $1 a day, began charging that rate in 2015. It also decided it would try to accelerate subscriber growth with a bargain introductory offer. 

In the first few days after making the one dollar introductory offer, Brown said they got thousands of new subscriptions “which was far higher than the 150 or so subscriptions that came in on a normal day.”

Beyond that, though, a higher number of those one dollar introductory offers converted into full-rate subscriptions. The Globe’s 2018 experiment alone led to a tenfold increase in subscriber conversions. “You’re stepping more people to the full rate every week than you ever would have with another other strategy,” Brown said.

“We felt good right away that we had not mortgaged our future in any way to do this test.” In fact, more than 80% of subscribers kept their subscriptions in the first month after prices reset. That fell over time but remained above 60% by the time a subscriber hit their three-month anniversary. And more than 30% of people continue to subscribe to bostonglobe.com after two years. 

Attracting young audiences

There’s one almost surefire way to get a new customer to try a product — a discount so good it can’t be refused. That is especially true with younger audiences, which are accustomed to getting news from places like Instagram and TikTok. 

“New and younger audiences were willing to give us a shot because it’s almost like a free trial,” Brown said. However, while a free trial might seem an obvious choice, research has found that charging any amount increases the odds audiences will convert from trial to subscriber at the end of the introductory period. 

The paper also tried offering a four-week subscription for 99 cents but ultimately found the details of the offer didn’t make a meaningful difference in conversion rates. Audiences are required to enter a credit card to pay their $1 balance and are told their subscription will eventually renew at the weekly rate of $6.93.

Full funnel options

Brown notes that many younger subscribers didn’t grow up with a newspaper subscription so they were unaware of the breadth of the local paper’s offerings. “We’re a general interest news site that has so much and I’m not sure how much everyone knows all that we have,” he said.  

Most visitors to bostonglobe.com get at least one free article. This classic move is designed to keep the top of the customer acquisition funnel open and signaling to Google and other platforms that audiences are engaging with the site. 

Because an estimated 80% of Boston Globe readers don’t hit a paywall right away, readership – and ad views – don’t suffer because of a strategy aimed at driving long-term revenue growth, according to Brown.

Long-term customer value 

It is wise to invest in the lifetime value of a customer. While an offer like this may take cash out of your pocket today, it offers the promise of exponential returns if audiences are happy with their experience. 

“We’re making lots of decisions that we know may hurt or may not pay off this year, but will pay off over the long term,” Brown said. “The more subscribers you can acquire now, the better off you’ll be in the future.” 

Nowadays, Brown and his team focus on making revenue-maximizing decisions without getting hung up on the small sacrifices it might take to get there. “This strategy is the right one for us,” he said. “The pandemic crystallized that in the sense that we became even more relevant to our readers as advertising became extremely volatile.” Being reader-supported makes the brand less vulnerable to the whims of advertisers. 

And while the first few months after a price reset triggers some cancellations, those who stick around tend to be loyal customers. The volume of new subscribers can also make it easier to stomach the churn. “Our model is as tight as it’s ever been, and our audiences are larger,” Brown said. 

The pandemic is just the latest thing to show subscription revenue can be much more dependable than ad revenue, Brown said. “It’s certainly not recession proof, but news is very relevant to people in times of crisis.”

Featured Post | Innovation | Revenue

How NYMag, NYT and Atlantic are leveling-up their game strategy

Last month’s Wordle acquisition by The New York Times hit headlines inside and outside the media world. It serves as a useful reminder of the value of simplicity in creating a successful game. However, it also reinforced the NYT’s ambition to be the destination for people spending time online.

The subscription behemoth isn’t the only publisher looking to level up in games. As the pressure to gain and retain subscribers grows, publishers are using puzzles not just to build habit, but to open a two-way relationship with readers – and their friends. 

A move to daily games

Jonathan Knight, The New York Times’ General Manager of Games, sees a correlation between daily engagement with the games and long term retention. “We see it as a great diversion from the news, when the news can often be quite rough,” he said. “We have a lot of people who are coming to read the news, and then the games are the ‘dessert’ at the end of the meal.”

Sensing an opportunity with a new wave of daily puzzle enthusiasts, New York Magazine announced a new crossword in January – with a twist. The 10×10 puzzle, housed under the Vulture brand, is entirely focused on entertainment and pop-culture. 

“We explored a few different avenues. But eventually we realized that what made the most sense was to start with something we already had,”said Vulture Editor Neil Janowitz. The 10×10 format is a relatively digestible puzzle that can typically be solved in under six minutes. But it also sits comfortably alongside the flagship New York crossword.

As the biggest site in the magazine’s network, Vulture made the most sense to house the new puzzle. “There’s a clarity and simplicity to making it a pop culture puzzle that everybody can immediately understand,” Janowitz added.  “You can put 10 crosswords side by side, and you can clearly pick out the one that Vulture published, because it feels like us.”

The Atlantic launched its mini daily crossword puzzle in October 2018, ahead of the publisher’s wider digital subscription drive. This one gets a little bigger and more challenging as the week goes on. “In addition to all the journalism we provide, we were drawn to the idea of giving people a moment of whimsy,” explained Executive Editor Adrienne LaFrance.

A gateway to subscriptions

The New York Times has taken a layered approach to its puzzles in order to entice players. Their ‘The Mini’ crossword is free to play for everyone. But if a user wants to be a part of the leaderboard and compete with friends, that’s a subscriber benefit. “That’s a great example of how we’ve managed to build a huge audience with daily engagement on a game that has a couple of layers to it,” Knight explained. Similarly the Spelling Bee word game has higher ranks of the game that are only accessible to subscribers.

The hope is that newly-acquired Wordle will introduce even more people to the NYT’s stable of games. “We want more people spending more time with the New York Times, and [the Wordle acquisition] plays a key role in that,” Knight commented.

Knight is committed to keeping the popular word game free on the site. They have no plans worked out for any other layers to it yet. But looking at where the subscriber walls fall on other NYT games, it is not inconceivable  that leaderboards or additional levels could be added to Wordle as a subscriber-only perk.

The Atlantic’s crossword is also free to play. LaFrance sees this approach as habit-building. “If people are developing a regular relationship through the puzzle, meaning they’re coming back every day, these puzzles become a ritual,” she said. “It’s useful because people are going from the puzzle to reading. So it means developing a deeper relationship, not just with the puzzle, but with The Atlantic as a whole.”

Both the Vulture 10×10 and New York Magazine’s other puzzles sit outside the paywall. Readers can play as many as they want, and will only hit the metered paywall when they try to read an article. It’s an experiment for now, with the purpose of pulling new readers in by building habits.

Beyond puzzles: merch and newsletters

Puzzles may be an excellent way to keep people coming back to publisher sites on a regular basis. But the gap between a habitual puzzler and a reader still remains. For some publishers like the NYT, this isn’t a problem. Their separate games subscription means that they still monetize that audience, even if some of them never interact with the news product. 

“We think of the news as the sun in our solar system,” explained Knight. “But increasingly—with cooking, with games, with Wirecutter, with audio—there are these planets that rotate around that sun, and that is an essential part of our strategy.”

However, for other publishers who haven’t put a price on the puzzles, attention is turning to ways to bring regular gamers more fully into the fold.

The Atlantic is trying a different approach to bridge the gap between player and reader. Two months ago, the publisher launched The Good Word. Crossword Editor Caleb Madison does a weekly deep dive into a favorite word or phrase from that week’s crossword; what it means, where it comes from, and what led him to “enshrine this bit of language in the grid”.

“We love the idea of creating a closer and more direct connection between Caleb and the people who are fans of the puzzle,” LaFrance said. As well as being able to collect details, the newsletter serves as a useful tool to expose puzzlers to The Atlantic’s journalism. The bottom of each edition is carefully utilized to promote popular stories and events.  

For these reasons, The Good Word is one of the newsletters The Atlantic is keeping free. “It’s a useful entry point into The Atlantic,” LaFrance explained. “There may be people who play the puzzle and aren’t deeply familiar with The Atlantic and start reading. In fact, we’ve seen that the puzzle is a real portal to the rest of our journalism.”

The NYT spotted a further monetization opportunity from its puzzles: merchandise. Fans can buy ‘Mini’ crossword baby onesies or Spelling Bee tote bags. The Spelling Bee merchandise, which was released late last year, immediately sold out, according to Knight. 

Humanizing the games

For all three publishers, centering the puzzle’s creators is a key part of their strategies. The Atlantic’s Madison fronts both the crossword and the associated newsletter. Both New York Magazine and the New York Times have bylines on their various crosswords.

“I think the idea that there’s a human behind the game is really important,” said Knight. “You really sense you’re trying to solve a puzzle that some other human has put out there for you to solve versus just playing against the machine.” 

New York Magazine has seen puzzle creators become “puzzle influencers” in the audiences they build. “There are a ton of constructors out there who have personalities. If you are a devoted puzzler, you have your favorite constructors,” Director of Editorial Operations Mariam Aldhahi explained. New York Crossword author Matt Gaffney has an established audience, and Stella Zawistowski and Malaika Handa who work on the Vulture 10×10 are now building a following.

“For us, it was about finding constructors that we think brought the right voice and tone to our puzzles,” said Aldhahi. “There is an audience around specific [puzzle creators], and people will go where their favorite constructors are.” 

The power of sharing

During the pandemic, The Atlantic introduced a social “Play Together” feature to its crossword. This allowed puzzlers to invite friends to help solve the crossword together each day. But it is more than just a nice bonding opportunity for friends in lockdown. Being exposed to The Atlantic’s work by collaborating on a puzzle is the ultimate in referral by stealth.

LaFrance noted that social play was something the team were keen on introducing, even without the pandemic. “In print, you have the puzzle on the kitchen counter and someone else wanders in and works at it for a bit… so I think people are familiar with this experience of collaboratively doing puzzles,” she said. 

Collaboration is a feature the Vulture 10×10 has also built into its gameplay. The team were inspired by the social nature of Wordle, and how many people share their results online. “I have a group chat with friends and we text each other our Wordles in the morning,” said Janowitz. “Clearly there is some amount of interest in comparing, and the bet being maybe collaborating and doing these things together.”

Time to level up

The race to reader revenue shows no signs of slowing. It is evident from each of these publishers that attention is now turning to more sophisticated ways of engagement and habit-building. 

But simple games are no longer enough. Offering games is not a strategy in itself. To fully maximize the gaming investment, publishers need to find ways to bring regular puzzlers into a deeper relationship, whether that be through newsletters, social features, or additional layers to the games themselves.

Featured Post | Perspectives | Policy

Magic wand meets crystal ball: My digital media predictions

It’s the start of a new year. So, two of the most popular questions I get are: 

“If publishers could wave their magic wand, what would they change about media?”  

“If you look into your crystal ball, what do you see for the future of publishers?”  

You may be surprised to hear this, but I don’t own a magic wand or a crystal ball, although I’d find either quite satisfying.  Despite my lack of magic tools, I do have predictions about the future: Publishers have never been closer to having many of their key needs being addressed in the market. I see a steady march towards meaningful change. And now, publishers only need to maintain the drive to follow through on what they’ve wished for.

All Posts

Market power of the “gatekeepers”  

On both sides of the Atlantic, legislation is emerging that limits the potential for, and real abuse of, market power. This will specifically impact “gatekeepers” like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple. The EU’s Digital Markets Act, which is expected to pass by summer, will put heightened obligations and constraints on gatekeepers. Meanwhile in DC, antitrust reform legislation has gained serious bipartisan momentum. 

In particular, two bills are front and center: the American Innovation and Choice Online Act and the Open App Markets Act. These seek to limit platforms “preferencing” – highlighting or promoting – their own products and services, whether in advertising or content discovery and limit app stores in their ability to capture unfair profits. For many years, DCN has played a leading role in documenting the clear imbalance in market power. And now, for the first time, DCN has chosen to endorse legislation in our support of these two bills.  

Prediction #1: By the end of 2022, we will have the first laws passed that limit gatekeepers from abusing their market power.  

The emperor has no clothes  

Years ago, Facebook taught the market that it couldn’t be trusted as a business partner. And it has reinforced this fact again and again and again and yet again.

These days, most publishers treat Facebook as any other marketing channel in which the business value needs to be proved – it’s no longer the new, sexy test bed for marketing ideas. Of late, we see this in the lackluster performance of long-form video on IGTV, causing Facebook to once again pivot to short-form video with Reels. Long gone are the days in which Facebook would say “jump at this shiny new object” and publishers would respond “Yes! How high?”  

Through various lawsuits, Google finds itself in a similar situation. Publishers are finding out that the promises made by Google’s external ambassadors often differ wildly from the company’s internal ambitions. We see this in many ways, from how it conducts advertising auctions to its abuse of consumer data or the way it positioned Accelerate Mobile Pages (AMP). DCN recently surveyed our members to understand their thoughts on AMP and learned that more than half were re-evaluating their use and expect to stop participating because it significantly under-delivered on the revenue and promised value by Google.  

Prediction #2: Google and Facebook feel significant pressure for the first time to truly appease publishers through their commercial deals.   

Value of direct relationships with consumers and advertisers      

Facebook’s record one-quarter-of-a-trillion-dollar stock drop last week should signal optimism for publishers. There is significant movement in technology and public policy to align the value of data and attention with the sites and apps we trust — and actually choose to use. The downturn in Facebook’s fortunes is a sign that their core surveillance advertising business model no longer passes muster. 

Apple has played a leading role by cutting out much of the tracking done by companies with which consumers aren’t even interacting. This move led to a reduction in Facebook’s revenue expectations by $10 billion, a whopping number that represents more than half of our membership’s annual advertising revenues.  

Counter to the sky-is-falling-rhetoric posited by Facebook and Google’s trade bodies, this advertising investment won’t just “vanish into thin air.” Expect further market realignment as regulators flex in the EU and as California’s new law comes into enforcement in January 2023.  

Prediction #3: By 2023, the tracking of consumers and the use of third-party data to target them will have changed significantly under the pressure of legislation, lawsuits, and consumer preferences. 

Premium means premium  

We’ve long established that brands are proxies for trust and, in turn, value for both consumers and advertisers. As the advertising market continues to accelerate away from the 2020 slowdown, there is a noticeable shift appearing – validated in our DCN Benchmark Report – towards premium environments where advertisers can create desire and demand for their products. Often this entails instructing their agencies to be more focused on where their ads appear, a strong advantage for professional media over user-generated content.  

Additionally, consumers are speaking with their wallets louder than ever. DCN members are setting new highs for subscriptions across the board – from streaming services to news brands and from local to international. And as our Gen Z research showed, the kids are alright and more likely to put their money behind services that speak to their own values.   

Prediction #4: Although 2020-21 was an atypical growth period for subscriptions, expect steady growth in 2022 and beyond.  

The future we deserve 

If I did indeed wield a magic wand, I would curb data collection and limit it to the services people actually choose to use. I would also wave away the fear of giant gatekeepers, triggered by the sense that we can’t avoid them. They are not unassailable. What we see in terms of policy and public sentiment suggests exactly the opposite. 

Right now, the battle for a competitive, thriving, and plural publisher ecosystem sits at the integration of data and competition policy. For media brands to retain value and ensure that their news and entertainment isn’t seen as an interchangeable commodity, we must continue to push against unscrupulous data collection. 

Predictions and pressure prevail over magic. I see the power of the progress that has been made from the growing alignment of concerns globally and the education of those charged with regulating and policy making and maybe more importantly consumers and advertisers seeking out the trusted brands of the future.  

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