Tuesday 25th October: Half of US readers are paywall-dodgers

October 25, 2022

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Okay, hands up who's ever opened an article in incognito mode to get around a metered paywall? Or who has given up on a website entirely rather than give over details to a pay or registration wall? Over half of U.S. consumers have done the same, according to a survey of consumers conducted by Toolkits and National Research Group.

That's a high number, but probably not a surprise. What did shock me was that 69% of people said they avoid clicking links to websites that use paywalls or registration walls.

Will these people have ever subscribed anyway? How do you start convincing them the content is worth it if they start avoiding you? The decisions publishers have to make around paywalled content are incredibly complex, and this piece does a great job of setting out some of those factors which have to be balanced.

AD: Overcome the complexities on the road to the US midterms and highlight what’s at stake through a range of interactive graphics, including candidate headshots. Reuters award-winning graphics wire can integrate directly into your website for seamless access, with data sourced directly from the NEP (ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC) and Edison Research.

Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner is Europe’s leading media mogul; the most influential man you’ve never heard of. In 2020 Axel Springer had revenues of €2.75 billion, a colossal amount for a media company. Döpfner has huge private equity resources behind him, and in recent years has bought Insider and POLITICO. But he is raising the alarm too.

SEO initiatives have helped The NYT increase subscriptions by 33% in six years. These efforts have also shifted subscriber acquisition trends for the publisher. SEO now accounts for 35% of memberships, where social media delivers just 12% of new subscriptions.

We sadly couldn't make FIPP's latest Insider event as we were wiped out after the run-up to the Summit, but this is a great round-up of the key insights from Burda International, ACNR, InsurAds, PressReader and more.

This week's podcast:

One of the oldest digital delivery systems of all has continued to dominate industry headlines in 2022 as publishers rethink the way they work with email newsletters. This week we're joined by Adweek's Senior Media Reporter Mark Stenberg to explore newsletter trends, from worldwide readership to how creators are driving publisher strategies.

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