When publishers start thinking about acquisition, there are important factors to keep in mind. Patrick Appel, director of research at Piano, spoke at the INMA Media Subscriptions Week in February about what he considers the most important of these.

“What are the strategies that we know have more positive than negative impact? Where is the conversion lift highest, with the lowest hit to retention?”

Sometimes, Appel said, acquisition strategies have an acceptable hit to retention: “If I do a promotion, I get more people in the door. As long as I’m keeping enough of them for it to make sense, and I’m not cannibalising higher-value customers, then that can still be important.”

On the retention side, Appel said the strategies publishers talk about most frequently are important. What was the marketing message when they converted? What is the onboarding campaign? What is the overall offer portfolio — not just optimising for an individual offer, but for all of the offers.

“I can have really high-priced offers that not that many people purchase, but they make any middle-tier offer more attractive — and that can actually increase the lifetime value,” he concluded.

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