WDH #1 - 46% of users never catch sight of your paywall ??

Helloooo you!

I'm Max, the CEO of Poool & The Audiencers .

Welcome to my (new) newsletter: Weekly D*se of Hacks, by Max.

The pitch is simple: Having worked with over 150 digital publishers to launch & grow their subscription business, this weekly ‘d*se’ of inspiration and innovation is here to share our experience developed at Poool. Tried and tested tips and hacks used with Poool clients to help you engage, convert and retain your audience. In a 5 min weekly digest. Without the bullsh*t.

In short: practical ideas to test today that will help you scale your business.

Today, not tomorrow.

I hope you’ll find it instructive, useful, and kind.

Let's dive in! ??

PS: This is a conversation, so if you don't agree with me, or if you have any ideas on how we can move forward, I'd love to hear from you!

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46%.

That's the proportion of users who, when browsing a premium article, never encounter the paywall

??????

It's astonishing, yet it's the reality. 46% of users don't see:

• Your paywall;
• Your value proposition;
• Your offers & prices;
• Your CTAs.

In other words, 46% of users won't go any further ?

→ Source: The Audiencers - Q2 2023 Media Conversion Funnel (Note: ?? the full report is reserved for Poool clients ??).

To truly grasp what we're talking about, let's take an example with lesoir.be .

??? Here's the user journey: I arrive on a subscriber-only article, and I don't see the paywall right away:

• I have to scroll once to glimpse it on the screen;
• Then again to see a bit more;
• And a third time to see it (almost ??) entirely on the screen.

But why is this statistic so crucial when it comes to conversion?

There are two main reasons:

1 - The more users who see the paywall, the more likely they are to click and convert.

It's logical but vital to mention:

• The more visible the paywall, the more clicks there will be;
• More clicks mean more users in the subscription funnel;
• And the more users in the subscription funnel, the more subscribers at the end.

→ This is something we almost always observe with our clients. (Note: These are dummy statistics you see in this image, for illustration)

2 - The more users are exposed to the paywall, the higher the probability of conversion:

A study by Mather Economics explores the relationship between the number of times the user encounters the paywall and the conversion rate. Here's an excerpt:

"Seeing the paywall increases a reader's propensity to subscribe, but after a certain point, this propensity declines. For many publishers, propensity begins to decline after 10 to 15 views of the paywall, underscoring the need for more aggressive conversion strategies at some point.”

Now, it's time for action!

To optimise your wall's visibility, there are several techniques you can employ:

• The most effective: display a full-page wall covering the entire content, similar to the New York Times or The Athletic. In this case, the reader only needs to scroll a tiny bit (or not at all) to see the paywall, ensuring a visibility of 95 to 100%.

• The safest: move the paywall higher up in the article. In most cases, paywalls are displayed after 20% of the content or after the second paragraph. Try reducing the amount of text to be read before encountering the paywall. One of our clients tested this strategy by increasing the percentage of blocked text by 10% (from 80% to 90% blocked text), resulting in a **% increase in paywall visibility in just 5 weeks?? PS: I can't tell you the results because I am bound by professional secrecy ??, buuuutt I can tell you that it's significant for a small change

• The most adaptable: let your journalists choose where the wall will be blocked! This allows them to integrate the paywall into their storytelling, adding the wall just before a cliffhanger to better encourage conversions. This is what Eric Le Braz calls the hourglass technique.
• The important thing: ensure your paywall's loading time is fast, and the script is called early on, especially in relation to your ad scripts. Preload and optimize the font and image weights.

Other ideas can also be tested:

• Have a shorter wall on mobile to optimize visibility and click-through rate;
• Have a small, permanent banner at the bottom of the page that's always visible on the article (to counteract the phenomenon). Like on AOC & Challenges

?? Again, small changes, but really nice results (It's a 2 digit improvement)

?? Disclaimer: None of these use cases guarantee success. Each idea has its pros and cons, which is why it's crucial to test them. For example: displaying a full-screen wall like the NYT does will undoubtedly have excellent results on the wall's visibility rate (we'll reach 99.9%)

BUT it will present some disadvantages:

• It will hide some ad formats (if the publisher has a significant portion of traffic on these paid contents, it can have a significant impact on monetization);
• With this method, the publisher is somewhat aggressive with the user, which can impact frustration, site exit rates, and audience engagement levels.

As I explained above, the best thing to do is to test: test different use cases and keep the one that give you the best ratio between SEO/advertising/engagement and visibility/subscription.

Then test it.

The only piece of advice that I can share, is the more dependant you are from advertising, the most progressive you need to be in your tests.

?? KPI: I recommend monitoring the following 3 indicators to determine if your test is a success or not:

• Wall visibility (of course). To calculate: visible impressions / impressions
• Wall click-through rate. To calculate: clicks / impressions
• Site exit rate. To calculate: bounce rate on paid articles

If there's an advertising issue, I also recommend monitoring the RPM (revenue per thousand impressions) of premium articles over the study period.

Everything I'm telling you is true on the web, but also in your mobile applications**, where I imagine you have your largest pool of future subscribers.

???**Speaking of which, we've just released a new iOS SDK for our iOS solution : You can now create your walls, A/B test, track results, iterate, and take advantage of Access' flexibility to flesh out your conversion strategy directly on your iOS apps too.

It's probably a good way of optimising your performance, especially your visibility rate... (I'm just saying that ??)

??To find out all you need to know on this subject, read the full article on our blog

?? Finally, here are 3 useful reads to get the week off to a good start:

• Paywalled content: Rethink Your Premium Icons
• 36 paywalls from the most popular paid subscription news websites in the world
• Benchmarking digital publisher’s paywall on app

That's all from me for today. Looking forward to hearing about your results.

Wishing you an excellent week! ??

Max

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