Month: December 2022

The new paywall, which was built in-house and tested on The Atlantic’s site since the summer, will hit readers based on how likely they are to subscribe, determined by their behavior on the site. The variable pricing model means different cohorts of readers will see different prices, ranging from $60-$100. It’s an effort by The Atlantic to see if they can make more revenue per reader. Its regular rate is $60 for a digital subscription, $70 for a print and digital subscription and $100 for a premium subscription (which includes ad-free access and a gift subscription).

Thompson said the tests have gained subscribers and increased The Atlantic’s ARPU, though he declined to give exact figures. In The Atlantic’s tests, these efforts have not impacted churn or bounce rates, he said. Thompson declined to share the conversion rate at The Atlantic.

Getting to 1 million subscribers in the next two years for The Atlantic is “certainly achievable,” said Matt Lindsay, president of subscription management and customer data analytics firm Mather Economics which works with publishers, though he declined to say which ones. Mather Economics has worked with The Atlantic in the past, but is not currently a client of theirs.

The ‘dance’ of the ‘smart meter‘

The Atlantic’s dynamic paywall signals a maturation of its digital subscription business and metered paywall, which launched in September 2019, at which point The Atlantic had roughly 400,000 print subscribers, Thompson said.

Even three years ago was a different era for digital subscriptions — publishers have locked down too much of their coverage and potentially missed out on advertising revenue, conceded Lindsay.

“The pendulum had swung too far towards subscriptions, and I think now people are taking a more balanced look at this,” he added.

If The Atlantic has a period of time with “good [direct-sold] ad inventory,” a dynamic paywall gives them the flexibility to loosen that meter so more readers can move around the site, Thompson said. For example, if The Atlantic sold ads on 30 million impressions, it can lower the meter until they are “confident” they will get those impressions that month, and then tighten up the meter again.

“It’s almost like a dance” between balancing out advertising and consumer revenue, said The Atlantic’s chief growth officer Megha Garibaldi.

The Atlantic’s model also means the paywall can be shown to readers who are more likely to subscribe (and not so often for those unlikely to open their wallets), as opposed to its previous metered paywall which readers hit after a few articles, regardless of who they are. Many factors go into that calculation, such as referral source, time of day, reader history, what type of content (and how much content) they’re consuming and ad inventory sold at that time. The Atlantic has found that people who read across verticals are more likely to subscribe, for example, Thompson said.

Different prices for different readers

The Atlantic’s dynamic paywall has also built in variable pricing options, meaning different prices can be offered to different cohorts of readers to “figure out what the optimal price is for the publication” and to find the “cap,” Thompson said.

“Targeted pricing enables companies to better match their customers’ value perception with their relationship,” Lindsay said. “If you have a one size fits all price, you’re going to undercharge some people and unfortunately you’ll probably overcharge other people and they’re going to churn. Ideally, you’d like to come up with some equitable price for different segments of the market.”

There are two price buckets The Atlantic is testing: its entry-level price for a subscription and its renewal price.

“You don’t want there to be huge variability in pricing,” Thompson said. “It’s a little unfair.”

When asked about the issue of potential discriminatory practices around variable pricing, Thompson was quick to say the model is based on actions on the site and not on other data such as demographics or zip code. The team manually analyzes cohorts to see if “any biases have slipped in” and to check if “demographics of readership have changed because of this meter.”

Another challenge is if readers return to the site and a new price is offered. However, The Atlantic has received “no complaints” from readers in its dynamic paywall tests, said Garibaldi.

The Atlantic also hopes the wall can help with renewal rates by targeting readers with different prices based on their likelihood to churn. If the data shows a reader is more likely to churn, the publisher can offer the reader a renewal rate close to their introductory offer. If there’s a lower likelihood, they can raise the renewal price to a higher tier. (The Atlantic does not offer discounts or sales for its subscription, other than to teachers and students.)

Piano, one of the largest paywall tech companies in media, is beta testing a similar dynamic pricing feature with five clients that will allow publishers to “create more complex subscription pricing models,” said Michael Silberman, Piano’s evp of strategy and social. [Editor’s note: Piano is a contracted vendor with Digiday.] He argued it’s not that different from a “classic magazine or newspaper strategy of step-up pricing” where readers start at a lower introductory price and then the price increases over time. 

Piano data shows “different users are willing to pay different prices,” Silberman said. “By making it possible to take price sensitivity into account and to have different prices for different users with more complex rule sets, you’re going to maximize revenue over time.”

But it seems that one cannot survive without the other, so in the spirit of the holiday season, Digiday asked publishers what they’d wish to see from their platform partners in the new year to help feel more stable, supported or simply just make their jobs as content creators easier.

1. One big ask

“I would like for a big platform to come and buy us.” — Anonymous media executive

“[I would like to see more] funding of original content, mediating and matching between publishers/brands and an expansion of interactive programs. Also more platforms leaning into a similar model that Snapchat Discover has built for publishers.” — Joe Caporoso, president of Team Whistle

“Where’s Twitter going? What’s the long term, six-month view? I think most publishers have to be thinking about that. That’s top of mind. We get a lot of people coming to our journalism that way. [If] someone had a crystal ball [showing] what happens to Twitter in six months, that would be my [wish].” — Anonymous media executive

“[I want] the ability to edit and publish via desktop.” — Wesley Bonner, head of social and audience development at BDG

2. More respect as a partner

“Meta is frustrated with the news business and focused on TikTok and VR. Google faces a massive threat from Chat.gpt, a service that absorbs journalism but doesn’t direct readers to it. Twitter has concerns of its own. All three platforms will have temptations to cut media off. Given all this, what we need is transparency as well as fortitude from the people inside these companies who know how important the media, and journalism is to the Open Web. They have to build, or maintain, systems that direct readers to the things they want to read and to publishers that created that content. It’s a tangled, but long mutually beneficial, relationship that I hope stays strong.” — Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic

“We publish quite heavily on Facebook and Instagram, both the Meta platforms, with various content types — everything from link posts [to] images [to] videos. Mid-year [they] drastically changed their algorithms to promote video first. Being a publisher that’s dividing our resources and creating a lot of different types of content, that would have been a very important heads up that I don’t think we got. The shift was so drastic, we weren’t as prepared as we could have been for the volume of video that we needed to maintain the same reach and engagement from our platforms. We’ve pretty much quadrupled our [short form, vertical] video output on the platforms. ” — Bonner

“Publishers are the right people to give that heads up to because we’re creating every type of content for the platform.” — Bonner

“I [want platforms] to continue to appreciate that they’re not content creators [and] they don’t have studios like we do.” — Anonymous media executive

“I think that they should embrace our content and what we do, both editorially and for advertisers more.” — Anonymous media executive

“[I would like to see more ways to] alpha and beta test new solutions and products, realizing that we all share this ecosystem together and we all have our respective lanes.” — Anonymous media executive

“The Google outage that happened a couple of days ago obviously hurt some publishers. That wasn’t ideal, but I do think they fixed it quickly and they were communicative about it.” — Anonymous media executive

3. Make it easier to make content

“As a social media manager, I am having to [edit and post videos] five or six times [in a day]. It’s quite cumbersome to be able to do that at scale when you need such a high volume of video. I’m speaking on behalf of all social media managers in the world, the ability to do that on your computer would be a huge help to someone like a publisher who’s trying to do as much content as possible on as many platforms as possible.” — Bonner

“All the tools for publishing and editing should be equally accessible across both mobile and desktop versions of social apps to give as much flexibility to social programmers and producers as possible. Also a continued investment in built-in cameras and editing features on mobile for social producers on set would be welcome.” — Caporoso

“[Twitter] wasn’t a priority advertising platform for us to begin with, to be completely honest, so for us right now, it’s just really still communicating with our audiences. We were very successful with Twitter Moments … our strategy on Twitter is to be a part of culture and drive cultural moments on the platform. Twitter Moments have gone away in the last few weeks and so that’s something we are very passionate about [and] hoping comes back because I think the audience is too.” — Bonner

“I think Instagram has a five account limit, which seems like a lot, but we have 11 brands in our portfolio and each of them have five to 10 social profiles. So in that sense, having to log out of one account to log in another to then do a two factor verification to get in … that part is cumbersome and it’s all happening on your phone.” — Bonner

4. Make ads cheaper

“We’ve seen the cost tick up on [Meta’s platforms], not ticked down, which obviously from a publisher standpoint affects the way that we price our products to our advertisers. I don’t think the prices have gone down because of the influx and viewability of ads on [Instagram].” — Bonner.

“[I really want] some more cost effective ad placements for publishers.” — Bonner 

“CPM volatility is a perpetual (and mostly unavoidable) challenge for publishers and platforms. Transparency on quarter to quarter outlook would be helpful for planning and supplementing CPM slumps with paid programs to infuse new content and talent on the platforms would be a good way to limit the peaks and valleys somewhat.” — Caporoso

“[I would like for them to] provide more affordable or cost efficient outlets on their platforms to distribute content that we create, [as well as] more innovation to bring publishers in under the tent.” — Anonymous media executive

“We have a very large audience on Snapchat and, while we work closely with them, I’d love to see more ad innovation and [work] with them on the publisher side [about] how we can take that out into the market to our clients. The number of ad types is more limited, comparing it to Meta.” — Bonner

5. More benefits 

“Any programs that offer paid support to invest resources into testing new products will be taken seriously by publishers. It would be encouraging to see an influx of these programs that also come with a higher volume of two-way communication between the platforms and publishers to help optimize performance as the testing is rolled out.” — Caporoso

“We want to be first to everything, whether it’s an emerging product or an emerging content type, we want to be the first to try it out, especially if something is designed to benefit a publisher to drive traffic to back to our site, or to build up a large audience or following on on a particular space. We want to try it and so when we’re able to leverage credits or incentives to participate, we’re pretty much always down to experiment and see if it’s something that is viable, long term or scalable for us.” — Bonner

“A boost in algorithm placement via new tool utilization is a strong value addition to publishers.” — Caporoso

Similar to Google and Samsung’s ’90s nostalgia campaign featuring TikTok personality Addison Rae, the brands are targeting young millennials and Gen Z consumers through their partnership with Ludacris. The new ad spot encourages this target demographic to be creative and use the Samsung phone to capture more of their authentic selves, with the goal of sparking conversation about what people should expect from their smartphones in both physical function and utility.

“While our primary target demographic is Gen Z and younger millennials, we know we’ll reach beyond these groups to consumers who want more out of their most personal devices,” said Adrienne Lofton, Google’s global vice president of platforms and ecosystems marketing.

It is unclear how much of Google’s advertising budget is allocated to this specific campaign, as Lofton declined to share overall budget specifics. According to Kantar data, the company spent a little over $215 million so far on advertising efforts in 2022. 

When developing this campaign, Google wanted to find a way to demonstrate voice-enabled, hands-free selfies on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4. To do this, the company researched several different media and formats, Lofton said. “One that really stuck out to the team was a high-impact, specially designed 3D anamorphic digital billboard in Times Square,” Lofton added.

Digital displays are going up in more strategic locations across the country, which means marketers have to find the most compelling strategies for these digital OOH campaigns to successfully attract consumer attention. Several brands, such as women’s health care brand Tia, productivity app Notion and baby care brand Coterie, have also contributed to this trend in 2022, making OOH a bigger part of their media mix going forward.

According to Allen Adamson, co-founder of marketing collective Metaforce, Times Square is the world’s most crowded and competitive marketing arena where every ad tries to be as loud as the next.

“First, the breakthrough in large-scale high-definition screens allowed some advertisers to be bigger, brighter, more realistic and bolder than others and Google’s new 3D anamorphic billboard is changing the Times Square outdoor advertising game again,” said Adamson. “3D is more attention-grabbing than HD and in Times Square’s cluttered and competitive environment, the advertisers that get your attention win.”

Brandon Brown, CEO at creator management platform GRIN, agreed that Google and Samsung’s strategy for this campaign is in a good spot for winning attention, with the billboard in one of the most heavily trafficked parts of New York City.

“The new, first-ever 3D anamorphic billboard in Times Square featuring an avatar of Ludacris is a clever stunt and a very strategic way to use advanced technology to keep the marketing use of a popular celebrity evolving,” Brown said.

In addition to the 3D billboard, Google collaborated closely with Samsung and Universal Music Group’s teams to develop an integrated amplification strategy for the new campaign that includes social media behind-the-scenes content about the billboard development posted on Google Android, Samsung and Ludacris’s TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts. “We wanted to show that Samsung and Google are opening up new content creation opportunities through this functionality,” said Lofton.

In the memo, Spanfeller told the Deadspin team that Barrow oversaw the site “during what has arguably been the most tumultuous period in recent sports history,” citing the pandemic, racial reckonings, policy changes and other notable moments in the sports world.

“We wish Eric the best of luck on his next endeavor. While turning the page is always hard, I’m excited about the next chapter in Deadspin’s story. It is, as they say, a whole new ballgame,” Spanfeller wrote.

Barrow was previously the sports editor of the New York Daily News, but was let go in January 2019 after a 15-year career at the publication. The Daily News restructured the leadership of its sports coverage and named Kyle Wagner (a former Deadspin writer) director of sports content.

Deadspin has seen its fair share of dramatic changes over the past few years. Barrow joined G/O Media in February 2020, when then Deadspin editor Jim Rich became G/O Media’s editorial director. (Rich was formerly the editor of the Daily News.)

Rich relaunched Deadspin in January 2020 after its entire staff of around 20 writers and editors resigned the previous fall when G/O Media execs told Deadspin’s editorial team to stick to sports coverage.