Digital media subscriptions are predicted to continue strong growth of 20 per cent year over year, with digital news subscriptions specifically reaching twenty million subscribers, according to research by Deloitte Global. Additionally, consumers are expected to move from an average of two digital subscriptions in 2018 to four by the end of 2020.
There have been a number of enabling factors for this growth, including phone screen size and resolution, easier sign-up processes at the subscription paywall, and overall improvements in broadband speeds. For news publisher subscriptions, there is further momentum driven by the challenges to ad revenue models, due to privacy concerns, tracking blockers, and ad blocking software.
Reliable benchmarks for growing digital subscriptions and managing metered paywalls is critical, as publishers seek to map an optimal visitor journey towards purchasing a digital subscription.
FTI consulting and the Local Media Association partnered with the Google News Initiative (GNI) to analyze the critical factors to develop a sustainable digital subscription model for across 10 news organizations in the US and Canada.
Over nine months, they worked with publishers to run optimization experiments and develop roadmaps for success. The participants included a mix of corporate-owned and independent community and metro publishers, such as The Baltimore Sun, Houston Chronicle, the Toronto Star, and Idaho Press.
The end result was the GNI Subscriptions Lab Critical Publisher Benchmarks Report. Below are highlights of the top benchmarks and recommendations. The full report is 18 pages, containing the background, methodology, and greater detail of each finding.
1) Visit Frequency Goals
- Visits per Unique Visitor Goal: 2+
Visitor traffic has been determined as the most critical factor in driving “stickiness” (the probability that a subscriber will remain a customer), according to research by the Northwestern Local News Initiative. Increasing the number of visits per unique visitor increases the likelihood of subscribing. There's a direct inverse correlation between the number of days in a month a person visits a news website, and their likelihood to cancel.
- % of Unique Visitors that are Known Goal: 5%+
Increasing the number of known visitors via registration or subscription amplifies visit frequency and conversion.
2) Subscriber Engagement Goals
- Digital Activation of Print Subscribers Goal: 75%+
Drive print subscribers to create digital accounts linked to their print subscriptions. This is a critical first step to leading them to a digital subscription only or digital+plus Sunday print option. The second step is to turn those engaged print news subscribers into recurring digital visitors.
3) Conversion Goals
- Meter Stop Rate (MSR) Goal: 5%-7%
It is important to present the subscription offer to the optimal number of recurring readers via the paywall. Many news publishers have set the paywall stop rate too high, missing opportunities to convert their most active readers.
- Paid Stop Conversion Rate (PSCR) Goal: .5%+
It is critical to monitor the conversion page effectiveness once visitors hit the paywall. A/B and multivariate testing of layout and text, offer testing, and a frictionless checkout and payment process, should be leveraged to maximize the subscription page conversion rate.
4) Email Newsletter Goals
- Unique Newsletter Emails per Unique Visitor Goal: 10%
This metric measures the effectiveness at capturing emails. In order to hit goals for known users, and ultimately round out the approaches to drive subscription conversions, a robust email database and offers are a successful approach. At a recent LMA summit, all of the publisher panelists emphasized the critical need for pubs to continuously collect reader emails.
- Newsletter Unique Open Rate and CTR Goal: Open 40%, click 10%
Newsletters that are not opened or clicked upon, are not driving readers toward a paid subscription conversion. Monitoring of newsletter effectiveness goals is important for both sub conversions and retention of existing content subscribers.
5) Financial Goals
- Average Revenue per Users (ARPU) Goal: $10-$15+
The ARPU metric helps publishers understand the revenue driven from paid digital subscribers, and is important in setting strategies for discounting, and balancing premium pricing vs digital subscriber growth goals.
- Digital Revenue per Unique Visitor (Ad + Consumer) Goal: Market dependent
This metric helps publishers understand the overall visitor monetization results and the relative value between ad revenue and paid subscriptions. This is a key metric when considering product changes or offering ad-lite options.
6) User Experience (UX) Goals
- Desktop/mobile Page Speed Goal: 50+ Desktop, 25+ Mobile
This metric is based on the Google Pagespeed Insights Tool, and is a critical UX (user experience) factor affecting multiple outcomes. Page load speed affects ad viewability, deeper site visits, visitor satisfaction, and bounce rates. Page speed is also a critical factor in Google search engine rankings, increasing exposure for publisher content to reach more visitors.
The report closes with an emphasis on the importance of understanding the key KPIs that measure visitor monetization, funnel conversions, and subscriber retention. The authors note that the process of benchmarking itself led to growth for all participants, regardless of their maturity level at the onset.
Admiral’s digital subscription solution can help publishers drive subscriptions based on the critical factors outlined above. In fact, Admiral's digital subscription software experts can provide playbooks for driving each Publisher Benchmark in the FTI report with a Visitor Relationships Management (VRM) approach.
VRM helps publishers to not only quickly set up a metered paywall and offer paid subscriptions, but to maximize conversions and ARPU via a multi-touch approach. The robust solution helps to grow email signups and social follows to increase known users, test digital offers for monthly, yearly, and introductory subscriptions, and address user segments by a preference for ad-free, ad-lite, or ad-supported content.
Find out what VRM can do to maximize your revenue today.
