Stop Showing Subscription Offers to Your Subscribers

Few things annoy a paying subscriber more than a banner asking them to subscribe. They already did. Seeing the offer again tells them you don't recognise them, and it raises the question of whether they are paying for anything special at all.

It is also a waste. The placement that shows a subscription offer to an existing subscriber could have shown them something that makes them stay: a benefit, a newsletter, a feature they haven't tried.

Most experiences are meant for everyone, subscribers included: content recommendations, polls, comments and live blogs make the site better for every reader. The problem is only the experiences that ask subscribers for something they have already done: subscription offers, paywalls, registration walls and sign-up prompts.

It happens more often than most publishers think. Subscribers read on several devices, not always logged in, and offers are often set up per page rather than per reader. This guide shows how to find these offers and fix them.

Why It Happens

• Offers target pages, not people. A subscription offer set to show on every article shows to everyone, including subscribers.
• Subscribers are logged out on some devices. A subscriber logged in on their laptop but not on their phone looks anonymous on the phone.
• Registration and subscription offers overlap. A registration prompt shown to a subscriber is just as out of place as a subscription offer.

Step 1: Find the Offers

List the orchestrations that show a subscription offer, paywall, registration wall, sign-up prompt or support-us request. For each one, check whether its targeting excludes paying subscribers.

Leave the others alone. Recommendations, polls, comments and other engagement experiences are useful to subscribers too.

Step 2: Create a Subscriber Segment

Create a segment of active subscribers:

• Subscription Status equals active

Registered users are recognised on every device they have logged in on, and their devices are combined into one profile. The more subscribers log in, the more reliably the segment recognises them. Make logging in easy with single sign-on and long sessions.

Step 3: Exclude Subscribers from Offers

In the Experience Orchestration Engine, exclude the subscriber segment from:

• subscription offers and paywalls
• registration walls and sign-up prompts
• donation or support-us requests aimed at non-paying readers

Most publishers find a handful of orchestrations to change. Check them all, including those on landing pages and in newsletters.

Step 4: Show Member Benefits Instead

Use the placements you freed up for experiences that make subscribers stay:

• Welcome back messages with the stories they missed
• Benefits they haven't used: newsletters, apps, events, archives, gift articles
• Preference questions: which topics they want more of
• Referral offers: subscribers who value your content are your best advocates

Subscribers who feel recognised are less likely to cancel. Combine this with a renewal campaign for subscribers whose renewal is coming up, see How to Win Back Lapsing Readers and Subscribers.

Step 5: Measure the Result

After the change, subscribers should no longer see offers for what they already have, and the member experiences you added should get clicks. Watch cancellations over the following months, and compare with the months before.

Common Mistakes

Forgetting logged-out devices. Encourage subscribers to log in on every device, and keep sessions long.

Excluding and forgetting. An empty placement is a missed chance. Replace the offer with something useful.

Treating cancelled subscribers as subscribers. Cancelled subscribers need their own message, not the member experience and not the generic offer.

Getting Started

1. List the orchestrations that show subscription and registration offers.
2. Create a segment of active subscribers.
3. Exclude it from subscription and registration experiences.
4. Show member benefits instead, and measure the result.

Read more about Payments and the other use cases, or contact us to get started.