At last week’s INMA Media Subscriptions Summit in Stockholm, Alexander Kreybig, Piano’s director of strategic services, called out publishing’s over-prioritization of conversions.
“There has been a big obsession on focusing on conversions and the number of active subscribers and less emphasis on revenue,” Kreybig said. “That is changing now — or at least it seems to change more and more. Publishers are now, when A-testing something, they are more and more taking revenue as importantly as the lifetime-value equation, revenue generated over time.”
Piano data has direct visitors remaining as the most valuable session referral for paid conversions in 2023 Q1 (with 25.6%, followed by Google Search’s 23.6%).
During his workshop, Kreybig also highlighted the importance of annual subscriptions as opposed to monthly.
“The retention rate amongst annual subscriptions is much higher,” he said. “A healthy subscriber core consists of long-time subscribers. From the perspective of how long they are being subscribers, it doesn’t matter if they are paying a monthly fee or an annual fee. They are long-time subscribers, loyal ones. But it is easier to get them if you manage to convince them on an annual subscription, instead of a monthly subscription.”
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