Get Past the Paywall: Make The Right Offer The Right Way

Capturing the attention of your onsite visitors is only part of the journey towards converting them into full-time subscribers. They’re never going to go beyond the paywall unless they receive an actual offer to do so.

Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as you might think to create those offers and promote them to the right users. Technology works in many different ways — some of which benefit publishers and some that benefit the end users. You may have the technology to promote an offer, but do you know if it was actually received? Do you know if the offer was blocked by technology?

This is a challenge faced by many publishers. People don’t actively visit a publication and think to themselves ‘I’m going to give this website my personal information and subscribe to their content.’ It’s a long journey to get people to cross that threshold, and it’s only by leveraging data and technology in the right ways that you can create the offers that boost subscription rates.  

Only 7.7% of people are ever exposed to an offer

This is the reason why it’s so difficult to get the right offers to the right people. Piano benchmark data shows that only a single digit percentage of all of your website visitors will ever be exposed to an offer to subscribe to your content, no matter how personalized you tailor the offer.

Why is that, you might ask? The reason is ad block software. According to Statista, by 2021, approximately 27% of all internet users in the United States will have some form of ad block software installed on their device(s).

One of the most common reasons for ad block software, as cited by Statista, is that internet users don’t want to be bogged down with irrelevant or unnecessary display ads. Their reasons are understandable; ads slow down page loading times and, in an era where attention spans are at all-time lows, people don’t have the patience to wait for slow pages. There’s also the belief that exposing oneself to banner or display ads allows unscrupulous monitoring of their web browsing behavior, threatening their privacy.  

Use built-in ad block detectors and adjust accordingly

For publishers, these user behaviors limit their abilities to promote subscription offers to audiences. If ad blockers prevent that pop-up from rendering on the device, the offer is useless. When fewer than 10% of all website visitors actually view the offers that you’ve created, the success rate in using display or pop-up ads is marginal, at best.

What if you had the ability to detect ad blockers as users arrive on your website and browse your content? If you know that your ads are being blocked, you can deploy alternative methods to engage with those users — such as emails, a newsletter, or some other off-site marketing campaign.

To know when is the optimal time to change your strategy, you need technology that detects when a user has ad block software built into their browsing experience. Investing in this type of solution ensures you don’t lose out on revenue-generating opportunities from countless numbers of potential subscribers.  

Truly dynamic pricing models are a must

Now that you have figured out a way to reduce a common barrier to presenting offers, you must decide on the right price for users. Obviously, every user has a different price threshold for subscriptions, but providing the appropriate price points and terms can solve a monumental challenge for most.

The combination of propensity modeling, a statistically-based scoring method, and Machine Learning segmentation can deliver the truly dynamic paywall necessary to acquire new subscribers. Testing, learning, and optimizing these models and segments will help you quickly and intelligently define prices and terms that work best for the various groups of users you work with.

That’s why a solution like Piano’s end-to-end subscription commerce platform is optimal for publishers wary of relying on ads to get their messages out. Piano has built-in ad blocking detectors and industry-only LTs (Likelihood to Subscribe) segments; based on user interests, targets, and lifecycle actions, LTs will help you deliver the right pricing to the right users.

Publishers use Piano to proactively and predictively respond to user behavior, in real-time, and adjust experiences to boost overall user satisfaction and conversions. Detecting if and when engagement tactics will fail to deliver results ahead of deployment makes it easier for publishers to acquire budget for other marketing programs that will expand reach and boost engagement. If you have the data that shows one tactic will not prove successful, it’s much easier to make the case to invest in other programs that will deliver results.

To get started with Piano and the easy-to-use experience that helps turn every action into a stroke of genius, contact your Account Manager or request a demo today.