In this week’s Subscription Publishing Briefing:
How engagement drives retention for Washington Post
The Washington Post’s head of lifecycle marketing, Anjali Iyer, shared some details on how engagement is linked to subscriber retention for the Washington Post. Investing in engagement initiatives is now a strategic priority for The Washington Post, Iyer wrote in a post published by INMA, thanks to recent growth in new subscription starts.
Even small increases in engagement drive significant uplift in renewal. Renewal rates for subscribers who took two key “habit actions” per month were significantly more likely to renew subscriptions than those who took one, WaPo’s data suggest. (Habit actions might include engaging with email newsletters or WaPo’s native applications.)
WaPo’s data also highlighted the importance of a thorough subscriber onboarding process, with engagement in the first two weeks of a subscription proving crucial for promoting retention among early-tenure subscribers. Subscribers who interact with WaPo content fewer than four times in the first two weeks of their subscriptions exhibit a retention rate 10 percentage points lowerthan those who have made 15 or more visits, the company found.
Successful subscription-based publishers understand that their efforts to retain subscribers must begin immediately after a purchase is completed and that a critical first step in effective subscriber retention and churn mitigation is a robust and carefully considered onboarding strategy.
New research gauges consumer interest in micropayments
People who are willing to pay for online editorial content say they prefer subscriptions to one-off payments, according to an 18-month study conducted by Aske Kammer, associate professor of journalism at Denmark’s Roskilde University, and Thomas Spejlborg Sejersen from the Danish School of Media and Journalism.
The study collected over 2,720 survey responses and aimed to gauge the viability of micropayment models for digital publishers. For accessing written articles, 67% of respondents said they prefer subscription models while 33% preferred single payment options. Seventy-six percent of respondents said they preferred subscriptions for podcast episodes and 72% for video content.
“I was somewhat surprised because I thought more people would go for the cheaper single payment option,” Kammer told INMA. When it comes to respondents’ previous payments for other kinds of online media, people “who previously paid for gaming and/or streaming of podcasts, radio, and music are more likely to prefer subscriptions. But, Kammer noted, “people who previously paid for online news were more likely to prefer single payments.”
Password-sharing crackdown boosts revenue for Netflix
Netflix’s password-sharing crackdown appears to be paying off. The streaming platform added 5.9 million subscriptions globally during the second quarter, with the U.S. and Canada making up 1.17 million new members. Most of Netflix’s revenue growth this year is going to come from those new paid memberships, the company said, which were “largely driven” by its password-sharing rollout.
Netflix’s password-sharing policy went into effect in the US in late May, and data from analytics company Antenna suggested a dramatic spike in subscribers following the crackdown. In addition to the US, Netflix has rolled out paid sharing in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, and Spain, and will now start to address password sharing across its other global markets.
Netflix says revenue is now “higher” in each of its regions, adding that signups are already outnumbering cancellations. The release noted Netflix is “seeing healthy conversion of borrower households into full paying Netflix memberships” as well as more users adding extra members to their accounts.
As their subscription businesses mature and they increasingly focus on monetization over raw subscriber growth, some publishers say they’re increasingly evaluating whether account-sharing crackdowns could help them to do so. Others say they’re mostly satisfied existing measures are keeping password sharing at an acceptable level, or are simply turning a blind eye and focusing their attention and resources on other priorities instead.
Click-to-cancel: Public comments on FTC proposal highlight subscription frustrations
The public comment period for the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed “click-to-cancel” rule is now closed, and responses to the idea tell a clear story: Consumers are frustrated by the subscription practices employed by many companies, and would support any changes that give them greater control over how and when they’re charged.
The FTC proposed a formal rule in March that would require publishers (and other companies selling subscriptions) to offer straightforward self-service cancellation mechanisms, and asked consumers to submit written comments on the idea.
The proposal has received over 1,000 public comments totaling over 100,000 words, so Toolkits trained an AI chatbot on the responses to help identify the most prevalent themes and sentiments. You can query the chatbot yourself to surface specific information from the submitted comments or read our overview. While consumer frustrations and support for the proposal were clear, companies and trade organizations called for further opportunities to present their perspectives.
Also worth noting:
- Payment failure is the largest single driver of subscriber churn for Gannett, but automated email journeys are helping to mitigate its impact. (See also: our guide to reducing passive subscriber churn.)
- Research conducted by Mediahuis found its subscribers would value access to other news brands as part of their subscriptions, as some consumers gravitate towards bundles and hunt for value for money.
- Publishers’ promotional prices have nearly halved in the past year, but streaming video platforms continue to grow their pricing. Last week, YouTube boosted its price by $2 to reach $13.99 a month in the U.S., while NBCUniversal said the ad-free plan for its Peacock streaming service would increase $2 to $11.99 a month.
- Google is testing a product that uses artificial intelligence technology to produce news stories, pitching it to news organizations including The New York Times, The Washington Post and News Corp. The tool can take in information — details of current events, for example — and generate news content.
- OpenAI said it will give $5 million to venture philanthropy firm American Journalism Project to figure out how artificial intelligence can best be used to support local news. Large tech companies will continue to woo publishers with grants, donations, and other free programs as artificial intelligence continues to gain traction.
- 73% of UK adults polled by YouGov said they were in favor of the Guardian’s global ban on gambling ads.