Dynamic paywalls add another layer of opportunity to subscription funnels PLUS Google's 3 algorithm changes hit the commerce content strategies of some publishers hard

October 28, 2022

A decade ago as subscription strategies started to take hold in media, the conversation often came down to free and ad-supported models that were based on high volumes versus two relatively binary paid options: a hard or metered paywall. Fast forward to now, and the options for media are expanding dramatically, with registration walls and newsletters helping to capture first-party data to convert anonymous users to known ones and now dynamic paywalls, which can offer up offers that are uniquely suited to an individual audience member. What's New in Publishing summarises a report from Sovrn about the opportunities that dynamic paywalls offer.

Plus Some publishers are getting hit hard by Google's three algorithm changes this autumn, and the Reuters Institute has lessons from publishers in the Global South about how they engage with these platforms. Defector discusses its results over the past year and finds that members are paying for almost all of their expenses. Blogger and digital media strategist and lecturer Adam Tinworth highlights the "quiet renaissance" of RSS.

This article is an excerpt from our special insight report, Paywalls for Publishers. This free-to-download report aims to help you formulate an effective paywall strategy via insights and examples that have worked well for other publishers. The guide also examines how you can leverage your first-party data and build a supportive organizational culture to boost …

It seems clear that with increased digital experimentation across media that we're seeing increasing sophistication and complexity of revenue models. The current state of the art is using artificial intelligence and machine learning to adapt subscription offerings to the behaviour of individual audience members. Suddenly, the conversation shifts from a hard or metered paywall to a much more complex conversation about providing the right subscription offering to the right person on a basis that maximises revenue while also hiding a lot of complexity from the individual user.

Google launched three new algorithm updates in Q3 that directly impacted many publishers' commerce content.

Digiday speaks to publishers on how Google's three algorithm updates this autumn have affected publishers. For those engaged in commerce content - particularly product reviews - the changes have had varying effects. Some like CNET have hardly noticed, but other sites have been hit hard.

The worker-owned sports website released an admirably transparent annual report on Thursday. The report showed Defector brought in $3.8 million in its second year and that nearly every dollar came from readers.

Once you get past the headline, you find out what has worked for Defector as revealed in its annual report.

What we can learn from how digital publishers in the Global South approach platforms

"We summarise the interviewees’ different approaches as platform bricolage, where digital publishers with necessarily limited resources – both in terms of money and access to developers – pick and choose which platform products and services it is worth integrating into the stack of other tools and technologies, whether off-the-shelf or bespoke, that they rely on to do their job."

After a quiet decade, we’re finally seeing some innovation in the RSS space, and the old school blogger in me is delighted.

I share an affection for RSS with my friend Adam Tinworth. I use the excellent Feedly service to monitor the sites and topics that inform this newsletter. RSS has always been one of the key facilitating technologies that most people don't consume directly, but they use in a lot of their media consumption such as podcasts.

Industry news

Athan Stephanopoulos takes over site with 144 million users

The former president of social video shop NowThis moves over to CNN.

Undaunted by bleak media forecasts, Jimmy Finkelstein has raised major money and is preparing to launch a news outlet called the New Statement.

There is a part of me that wants to avert my gaze from a mashup of the Daily Mail and the Washington Post. What even would it be? An investigative shop that appeals to the xenophobic right wing?

YouTube's 1st YoY Ad Revenue Dip Underscores Tech Giants' Slump - 10/26/2022

More pain for ad-driven tech platforms.

The news sites, backed by partisan donors, are spending millions of dollars on the ads in battleground states, NewsGuard found.

Meta has been stepping back from news, but NewsGuard found that Facebook isn't above running ads from partisan sites that masquerade as local news outlets, also know as pink slime sites.