How to get more paying users with user-friendly paywall. Part II.
If you are a product manager or engineer who is working on a direct monetization system for online content, this post and our previous one may save you months of research. And our code may save you months of user research and engineering.
In our previous post, we discussed important UX features of a paywall to make subscribing as seamless as possible for website visitors. In this post, we discuss some of the paywall features which publishers can use to save time and convert more users into subscribers. These features, such as content and user metrics, group emails and Stripe payments are all part of our open-source paywall project. If you have questions after reading README.md, feel free to send it to me: tima@getdrizzle.com.
Content metrics.
Content metrics essentially indicate which content gets the most views and converts the highest number of users into paying subscribers. Content metrics should be page-specific, so the publisher knows which specific article, video, etc. is responsible for the most conversions. This is a powerful feature, since it allows the publisher identify not just the specific article, but the general type of content that people are willing to pay for. This in turn helps to shape future editorial strategy to attract more paying users.
For each web page with content, the publisher needs to know a few basic parameters: number of views and unique visits, number of signups, and number of times that visitors paid or subscribed. The payments can be broken down based on what payment options the publisher offers (e.g. monthly/annual subscription, daily pass, single payment). Less intuitive metrics are: number of existing subscribers who accessed the page and number of users who came to the page by clicking an article suggested on a different page of the website (learn more about curated lists in my previous post). Column sorting is essential in figuring out the highest and the lowest performing content on the website.
Whereas publishers who rely on advertising are focused on getting as many eyeballs as possible, publishers who rely entirely on payments must focus on getting as many paying users as possible. The challenge is no longer traffic but conversions. Some of the publishers we worked with were surprised that content that receives a high number of views is not necessarily the content that generates the most revenue.
Users metrics.
Publishers must decide on the best sales funnel structure depending on their type of content and audience. In the simplest situation, the user has to sign up and pay to see content, but this is not always the case. For instance, publishers may decide to let visitors preview and ‘taste’ the content by offering a free trial period. In this case, the funnel will be: (1) visitor signs up, (2) adds card info to start a free trial, and (3) automatically becomes a subscriber if he or she does not cancel before the free trial ends. Most people already know this flow from Netflix and Hulu. Publishers may also offer a daily pass or single payments, again depending on the type of the content and audience (we discuss these ‘content preview’ strategies more in the previous post). In general, if a website has a lot of visitors who check content casually, not on regular basis, a daily pass feature may be a good source of income. These casual visitors may hesitate to become regular paying subscribers, but they’re happy to make a single small payment for 1 day.
It’s important for any business that accepts payments to track users within a sales funnel (or user journey). Metrics such as conversion from free trial to subscription or churn are very important. Publishers can segment users based on their position in the sales funnel and test ways to improve their subscription strategy. For instance, the publisher can ask subscribers who churned out why they unsubscribed. Same goes for any other conversion, for example, why a free trial user cancelled and decided not to subscribe.
Group and individual emails.
This brings us to the next key paywall feature for publishers. We realized that publishers should be able to directly engage with customers at any point in the sales funnel. We added a feature to let publishers send an individual email to a user or send an email to a specific group of users. Typical scenario: a subscriber just cancelled → the publisher can send a custom email asking if the customer has specific feedback. Another scenario: the publisher can send a group email to all users who entered the free trial but cancelled it. That email can even contain a discount code which grants 50% off the first month’s payment.
Payments, payouts, refunds.
As mentioned above, a publisher should be able to experiment with different payment options and decide on the best strategy (sales funnel). These decision are made based on the audience composition and type of content. In most cases, a typical monthly or annual subscription is the best way to go, but in some situations, a daily pass and free trial option will be successful and increase overall revenue.
All payments, subscriptions, refunds and payouts of our paywall are implemented via Stripe API. Stripe is a trusted payment processor and we display Stripe’s logo on the user interface.
Stripe helps publisher in many ways. It’s radar algorithm estimates fraud and rejects payments from suspicious cards. Stripe also allows publishers to refund users with one click, helps resolve bank chargebacks (if paying user complained to bank), and finally transfers your revenue to your bank account on a regular basis.
Our paywall product shows daily revenue, monthly revenue, plus a list and graph outlining all payments in a month. They publisher can refund paying user with just one click directly in the paywall dashboard, no need to go to Stripe’s dashboard.
Managing multiple websites and single sign-on.
Some of our clients wanted to share their user base between two similar websites. The idea is simple: for a publisher that has sites A and B, if a visitor creates an account and adds his or her payment information on website A, that visitor does not need to re-register on website B. The visitor can use a single account to login and buy content across all websites owned by a single publisher. This feature can be extremely useful for big publishers who own multiple properties. For example, Time Inc. or Gatehouse Media.
We added this feature so that publishers can add multiple websites into one dashboard while their users only need to create one account. Individual websites can still have unique subscription plans but subscribers don’t have to worry about managing multiple logins, passwords, credit card entries, etc. Having single user accounts is also a great way to upsell subscriptions across multiple sites. Simply use the email function to suggest other subscription plans to current subscribers.
Global and page-specific settings.
Finally, some setting such as Metered paywall, single payment amount or copywriting can be set up globally. Global settings affect all paywalls on the website. But sometimes, publishers may want to experiment with pricing and copywriting or exclude certain pages from the global rule. In that case, publishers can use single paywall settings. These page-specific settings overwrite the global settings on that page and let publishers experiment . One possible scenario: test the call-to-action text on the button. Another scenario: set special access rules for this particular page, for example add an expiration of access or disable metered paywall or completely remove any content hiding.
If you’re looking to build a paywall or improve your current solution, let us know. Kelly Burke and I are cofounders of Drizzle, and we build tools for website owners to monetize their online content in the most user-friendly way. We’ve open-source code for both Adblock detection and a paywall/premium membership.
