A/B Test Two Paywalls

Overview

Small changes to a paywall, such as which plan is highlighted or how many paragraphs readers see, can change how many readers subscribe. This on-page journey splits readers at random between two Access Wall designs from their third article of the week, so you can compare them side by side.

Views a page, from the 3rd article this week → Random Split 50% / 50%
                                                ├─ A → Show Experience: Paywall, monthly highlighted
                                                └─ B → Show Experience: Paywall, yearly highlighted

Before you start

Create two Access Wall experiences that differ in one thing only, for example Paywall A with the monthly plan highlighted and Paywall B with the yearly plan highlighted. See Set up a paywall.

Build the journey

1. Go to Audience Operation → Journey → New Journey. Name it Paywall test, pick your project and choose On the page.
2. Click the first step: Start when a visitor Views a page, How often From a count on, from the 3rd Articles viewed per Week.
3. Add a Random Split with Path A gets 50 %.
4. On path A, add Show Experience with Paywall A. On path B, add Show Experience with Paywall B.
5. Click Publish.

Each reader always gets the same path, so they see the same wall on every article. Subscribers never see either wall.

Read the results

Open the journey. The split shows how many readers took each path, and each Show Experience step shows its visitors, impressions and click rate. The Conversions section of the Audience Overview shows the subscriptions each wall led to.

Give the test enough readers on both paths before you decide. Then archive the journey, and show the winning wall to everyone with an Orchestration.

Ideas

• Test Paragraphs shown, the headline, or a metered wall against a hard one.
• Use a 90% / 10% split to try a riskier design on a small share of readers first.