Paywalls are a hot topic online at the moment. In the UK The Times has recently put their whole site behind a pay wall and in early 2011 the New York Times is set to also go behind a pay wall. Both of these sites will join sites such as the Wall Street Journal which has been behind a paywall for some time already. For those who aren't familiar with how paywalls work this image might clear things up:
There has been an awful lot written online about paywalls so I'm going to try and cover new ground in this post and focus exclusively on the conversion rate issues which are unique to paywalls and how news sites might seek to overcome them. Although that's a pretty niche focus for this post hopefully the lessons and techniques can be applied to many different websites. Firstly, I'm going to look at the difficulties:
Objections To Overcome
In my eyes newspapers struggle with 3 unique problems which sets them slightly apart from other conversion funnels:
- Micropayments - People are unfamiliar with making small payments online. Much as you and I (being internet savvy hopefully!) are comfortable shelling out small payments and going through the hassle of remembering our verified by visa password, the average joe still isn't familiar with this.
- Subscriptions - Again, this is related to the above point but there's an objection which needs to be overcome which is paying for something regularly. We're all a lot more comfortable paying once for a single product, paying regularly for access to something is a concept we're a lot less familiar with.
- News is free right? - The last, but perhaps most obvious of the objections and the one people vocalise a lot is "surely I can just get my news from a free source?". We've been living in a news-free world now for about as long as the internet has been around and certainly the younger generations simply assume news should be free.
So if you're going to launch a paywall I think you have to consider these 3 factors very carefully. How are you going to overcome them?
Countering These Objections
Since there are 3 objections, I'm going to present 3 solutions!
- Smooth The Funnel - As one client mentioned to me recently, "we try to smooth the sides of our funnel as much as possible". This approach to conversion rate optimisation I think overcomes the first objection. The idea being that if you're going to make a micropayment (and certainly if you're going to make more than one micropayment) then the process should be very quick and very painless.
- Educate Your Users - Whenever you try and sell something it's important to answer the question "Why do I get if I buy this?". For ecommerce websites this often results in making sure delivery options are very clear, or ensuring it's clear which version of a product you're selling. For paywalls I think it's crucial to educate very strongly about what exactly the product is that you're offering. Which sections of the site do you get access to, how long for, what's in those sections etc. Even though it's a micropayment, it doesn't mean that you don't need long sales pages and a lot of persuasion to get people to buy. Long sales copy is useful not only to persuade people to purchase but also to educate people on what exactly it is they're buying.
- Sell The Benefits - To overcome the "news is free" objection it's crucial to sell the benefits of the content you have. Likely this needs to be something above and beyond "just" news. Consider what else you get, opinion, rich media etc.
Pay Walls In Action
Now, let's look at some real life examples of paywalls in action and see what we can pick out from them considering the above objections and counter objections:
The New Scientist
One thing I hate about paywalls, is the idea that they are in fact a wall. I think there should be a psychological shift to think of them not as walls but instead as desirable products. I feel the New Scientist does this really well - take a look at the below call to action which appears at the top of an article which you can't read in full online:
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This isn't saying "you can't read this article unless you pay", this is saying "look how great it would be if you subscribed to New Scientist!". There are really nice visual calls to action and there's even a 20% discount in there! Sweet.
Looking further at the actual conversion funnel we see they've greased the sides of the funnel nicely since it only takes a matter of seconds to whiz through the clear and simple checkout process.
The Times
The Times is a fascinating case study for conversion - they've been doing some things well, some things not so well but it's a really interesting case study. Firstly, as above the thing I hate most of all about the times website is that you run into the paywall. It's a wall. A barrier. There's no way (no easy way) of signing up to The Times unless you try and click on one of the headlines on the homepage. This doesn't make any sense to me - the only way into the funnel for a user is to click on a headline that interests them, only to be denied access to that article. I think it would be immensely valuable to have a call to action on the homepage to actually subscribe - this means that people looking to subscribe can do so easily and by clicking on something which has the desired outcome.
Once you've clicked a news story you're presented with a pop-up overlay like this:
Now, what I can't show you with this screenshot is the painstakingly long time it takes for this pop-up to load. This will likely be their biggest source of lost conversions - the popup is so slow that often the page will re-load and nothing will happen for a few seconds before the popup starts to render and even when it does render it takes at least 7-8 seconds for the "already registered?" box to even appear. For a website trying to persuade me to buy a subscription to an online product slow loading technology like this really matters and will put many people off.
Ok, I don't mean to be too negative about The Times but there's another very weird conversion killer. When you actually click to subscribe to the site the first page you're presented with is this single function page:
I find this page very odd. Talking about greasing the sides of the funnel, this is like sandpaper on the walls coated with glue. Why should I enter my email address? What purpose does it serve? There's not even any security or trust given that my email address won't be sold to 3rd parties. There's a reason that websites give those assurances, it's because users are worried about it! Once you've entered your email address the next step of the funnel prompts you to re-enter your email address anyway so this page is more or less totally redundant for me.
Ok, enough negativity - time for some positives! The first thing I really like about The Times is the development of Times+. This website is an entire micro-site dedicated to educating users about the benefits of signing up, along with example pieces of content including videos and articles. This really plays well into point 2 above.
Another aspect I find really intriguing about The Times is that they have the opportunity here to create a worthwhile online community with intelligent comments on their articles. This would genuinely set them apart from other newspaper sites where the comments quickly descend into madness or idiocy or both! The very fact that you're within a walled garden and the fact that The Times prides itself on intelligent debate should offer them an opportunity set themselves apart. I can see the beginnings of this as a marketing tactic and I can only assume this will grow as the website matures but this is a perfect example of point 3 - overcoming the "news is free" concept.
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal gets quite a nice thumbs up for one specific page they have which is this one:
There are two things I love about this page. Firstly, this type of feature comparison table works very well at driving conversions. It's clear for users and has nice strong calls to action throughout. The second reason I love this is because of the more subtle perceived value proposition that's included alongside the Print + Online + Mobile option where there is included a free £20 Amazon voucher. This instantly makes your perceived value of the item shoot up which I think is really clever!
Conclusion
In conclusion, I don't mind the idea of charging for content online. This has to happen I think as the web evolves. But I really hope we can stop thinking of them as paywalls. I dislike the idea of running into a wall or barrier which prevents a user from getting what they want. Instead I hope that we can start treating this more as a membership service with benefits, bonuses and bells and whistles. Also, I couldn't write this article without linking to this very ironic page on The Economist...
Note: CRO, is not an exact science. That's why you run testing. Almost certainly some of the advice I've given here will NOT convert better than the current sites. That's the reality of CRO and it's why testing is key. Testing testing testing. However, the analysis of the conversion path I think throws up interesting debate so hopefully I've at the very least given some of these sites some ideas of what they might be able to test.
Also - final note, thanks to Ed Fry who has been in the Distilled offices the past two weeks on work experience and helped me gather some data and put this post together!
I think the author would do well to help transform the notion of a paywall by suggesting a new term for it that implies something beyond the money. When you use the term paywall, what you are doing is emphasizing the point that there we are being blocked out from the content because we aren't paying. And, this sucks. No one wants to pay there way through web searching.
To make it all seem more acceptable to me somehow the site has to offer something I can't get elsewhere. Or, at least that it would take too long to gather elsewhere. I think SEOmoz is an great example of this. I never feel denied in reading an article. Rather, I feel limited by my access. It feels totally different from when a newspaper denies me access.
So, at the core, what is the difference? When I have a vested interest in getting solid information, like professional information, and when I feel that a source can offer me this information for a price, I view the buying like attending trainings or workshops, or even buying a book- for professional enrichment. When I am just skimming along looking for general information that can be gathered by a "common journalist" (sorry to put it like that) instead of by an industry expert, then paying makes no sense to me.
So, the question for the newspapers is how to make their potential customers feel like they are really getting something of deeper value. This only would happen for me when the depth of their reporting is so stellar that no newspaper that just picks things off the AP wire can compare. Then, I am buying access to the brilliance of their staff writers and not just to the free commodity of news. If I were in the news business, I'd pay for and hype up my journalists. I'd try to get exclusives from industry insiders. I'd try to raise the bar so high that anyone who discerns quality would want to read my paper's words.
This seems the opposite of the old newspaper approach of dumbing things done for the masses. Online papers need to take their writing up many notches in order to be considered worthy of being paid for. And, possibly, online news sources would have to choose a world-view to take far, rather than try to address all. They can write with financial, self-reliant, right-wing attitude, or with the sharing, caring left-wing attitude. But, the middle ground prevents them from going too deep, and thus they have nothing to offer.
charging for online contents make sense only when you sell expertise. I don't think many people would like to buy general news which can be easily obtained from million of other sources for free.Objection number 3 can't be overcomed by by simply creating intelligent online community and is a objection powerful enough not to buy. Unless and until all the newspaper sites worldwide switch to paywall and news can't be obtained for free from anywhere, this business model is doomed just like paid email services.
I think you are spot on here. In the UK there are enough rival newspapers of a similiar ilk to The Times, and they are all free. I for one was an avid reader of The Times prior to the paywall, yet i have only been on the site once since the paywall was installed (and that was only out of curiosity).
I understand that newspapers have struggled to find a workable business model on the internet, but i don't believe that a paywall is the answer. They don't offer enough added value, they don't have a unique enough offering and they have made a leap of faith long before the market is ready for it.
Great post Tom!
I definitely dislike running into walls when I'm trying to find content and you're right! The ones I typically run into rarely provide any benefit as to why I should pay.
I've been reading "How To Win Friends And Influence People" by Dale Carnegie and people arn't going to subscribe if the "wall" is all about the company making money off of someone. I agree with you...It has to be about the user and why subscribing will benefit them.
Thumbs up for "How To Win Friends And Influence People" by Dale Carnegie Shaylee. Really old yet still really good.
Hi Tom,
Interesting post, however I think you've missed a couple of things.
The FT.com paywall - seeing as this is the classic "how the paywall works" example, I'd of loved to see some thought around how this worked and what would be different with the Times etc paywalls.
Micropayments - I'm actually thinking we are used to them, with things like the Oyster card (prepay metro card in London), iTunes, pre-pay mobiles, I'm more of the opinion that we are used to these micropayments, just they dont get as much publicitiy!
Thumbs up tho - good monday post :)
I did look around the FT Rob but they were doing OK. Not great but I thought the things I highlighted elsewhere illustrated my points a bit more closely.
As for micropayments, I disagree. The oyster isn't micropayments, I put money on my oyster card in a big lump sum. As for itunes, that's kind of a micropayment but it's all within a walled garden and you have to shop there often enough to make it work. The only reason you are willing to put your credit card details into itunes is because it then stores them, you're effectively not buying one thing but the ability to buy lots of things. When I talk about micropayments I'm talking about having to go through the entire payment funnel on a new site for something that is only a small amount of money...
We can agree to disagree though :-)
Agreed Tom :)
Its not about the paywall, its about looking at their business in a different way.
If you frame your problem as a single problem "wall", then you preselect your possible solutions.
The news and music industries have to get away from this notion of a "wall". It doesnt actually exist.
They are looking for a solution in all the wrong places.
Ive been there, with journalists having meeting after meeting to "save the press" and all i want to do is smash their stupid heads together because they refuse to see that the world has changed.
They decision makers in press just dont understand ecommerce and online user behaviour. They, and much of your advice above, Tom, are just about making a better dinosaur.
I think that the incursion of electronic media has affected many industries (newspapers, academic journals, magazines, music, etc.) and those industries are rightfully feeling threatened.
They are scrambling to recoup revenues that continue to decline and are probably terrified of the future.
I agree with you Stephen that they should be looking outside the box for the solution instead of trying to make the old square way "fit" into the new round hole.
As an aside, did you have a different user name recently or am I imagining things?
When I joined ages ago, I used my old computer gaming nickname ;)
I thought it was about time to change it (and put in a picture where I have hair again)
I am getting tired of online names and thought it would be nice to use my real name.
Thanks for noticing :)
The two avitars look so radically different, that I wasn't sure. May firegolem rest in peace. :-p
Anyway you look at this, these sites all halt the flow of reading in a really abrupt and seemingly obnoxious manner. They're anti the way people read online, mainly because they interrupt readers with information and activities they don't have time to read and do.
The only way 'paywall' (or whatever) sites can work is if the publication resigns itself to the fact that they will become 'niche'. The most commonly used sources of news and information will always be the free and the insanely cheap. These 'paywall' sites will always be undercut but if their very specific little audiences are making enough money to cover the costs and stop them haemorrhaging money then their job is done.
What makes me a little sad is that their will be become less variation of opinions overall on the world wide web if the main sources of news and information becomes a select few 'mega-news' sites whilst the rest of the news media sit behind their paywalls, contributing vey little to the online 'hivemind'.
paywalls are interesting - but they miss the point
newspapers have never been a subscription-based model - circulation revenue has rarely exceeded 15% of total net revenue for daily papers
mass media is an ad supported model - proven by the rarity of such notable exceptions as Consumer Reports
the advent of the internet didn't make content free - the big 3 networks had been giving it away for years already - but it did destroy the local marketplace monopolies that had driven newspaper profits
autos, homes and jobs - once the birthright of the local daily - are now sliced and diced by dozens of free and low coast sites online
the answer here is more innovation and more technology - but not in making it easier to charge for content of dubious absolute value - but in accelerating the adoption of low cost revenue models for old line media
Firstly, I think it's very annoying to have a paywall the way that Times Online have implemented their's, I think their conversion rate will only be high because it almost lulls their users into a false sense of security. I'm sure they'll streamline the funnel in the coming months but it's poor execution from the start.
The puppy dog sale (The Wall Street Journal's method) is a pretty good one. As a user I want to be able to see what it is that I'm going to get, feel as though it's something I couldn't live without, something that is important to me and then have it taken away after 7 days, knowing that they've given me something. It makes me want to buy it after the seven days. I've been suckered into this a lot of times, it works great for subscription services like Xbox Live and FreeAgent because we see that the service is well worth the money.
The New Scientist subscription to me seems like something that Wired magazine would do. Absolutely love it. I think it would work really well and makes me feel the need to subscribe without even having tried it out.
PS. The Economist link really made me laugh!!
I know that this here is just a list of why I (dis)like the methods but I think that's just as valuable as giving a reason why they work.
PEACE! Brap.
Yeah trax, that Economist link was priceless. It should go in some hall of fame somewhere.
Talk about paywalls all you like, but the fact remains - visitor traffic absolutely plummets when you force people to pay for news when they can easily get it elsewhere.
I also find it odd that an SEO site is seriously boosting the idea of a paywall when, the only people who are willing to pay for news are those who are already loyal to the brand. That is, the opposite of a news SEO audience.
Old post, but having a bit of a catch up. Pay walls are inevitable and in some respects neccessary, I know that content is great, from a source I believe in and read (New Scientist subscriber here) and I know it is not some hackneyed article put together to rank.
Once you view the web through the eyes of an SEO, it's kinda nice to get access to content that has not been SEO'd!
Paywalls are never going to be the best strategy, I think their will be always some one out their willing to offer quality free content with the driver of onsite display advertising, CPC, CPM and affiliate. I think the top end of the market which reads these business articles will pay yet the typical mum and dad internet users will not be willing to fork over money for something they can get for free on another website.
A very insightful article, I am still not sure if I agree on these "Pay Walls" “Gated Communities” Fence Terraces” or whatever else you want to call it ;) They are all basicly target the same thing, “pay the money or you ain't getting in etc...”, We are in tough financial times, it would be sad to see big news co-operations charging you to have an everyday understanding of what's going on this world. I mean it's a scary fact that Rupert Murdock own yet more news outlets... :|
There are far to many who don't watch the news, let alone pay for the privilege. If I am paying for a service like this, I think I shall stick to my paper and the expenditure that costs me, which I prefer to be honest even in this digital age. There is something very relaxing about my morning commute catching up the previous days events, and not being connected to any sort of technology for that hour or so – It so changes when I reach the office ;)
Great points though and appreciated.
I'm always turned away by subcription bait... I guess I'm of the "younger" generation that thinks news should be free. Heaven knows I paid enough for college! Usually if I come up against an article that's blocked for subscription, I can find free info on the subject elsewhere with a little bit more finger-walking (if I want to read it that badly).
That being said... love the clarification diagram and paywall irony page. It's the humor in SEOmoz that keeps this technically-challenged geekette coming back!
Some good points here, but New York Times readers would be alarmed to learn that their newspaper is now owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
It's owned by the New York Times Company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times_Company
Eek - good catch, sorry for getting that wrong! I've fixed it now. Shows why I should stick to the CRO/SEO talk rather than wider speculation about paywalls :-)
By the way, staff at the Times were asked not to call it a "paywall" but a "value fence".
How about ... "flanged surcharge" or "profitable hump" or "capitalist ledge" ..?
Micro payments always caught my attention. It's understandable that journalistic publications might recoup some revenue but it seems that micro payments favor the powerful.
Those transaction fees could really add up.
"flanged surcharge" or "profitable hump" or "capitalist ledge"
LOL! Those are great Mike. I think "flanged surcharge" is what I'll go with.
I was going for some verbal representation of that wall 3 match boxes high from Monty Python's Twit Olympics sketch. Couldn't quite get there, but I'll return when I have a clever response to "value fence".
I think there is a greater context missing in this disucssion. As many of you have pointed out, there is plenty of free news out there, so why should people pay for it? The answer is because so much of that news is found on News Aggregation sites like Yahoo, Google News, Huffington Post, Drudge Report, etc.
Right now, if you offer your news for free, and you attempt to attract new readers by putting your content out into free RSS feeds directly into Google News, you don't have much to say when the Huffington Post picks up your story (and you want it picked up in a free model, you just want the revenue too and are hoping for click through to your site from your logo).
If News Corp, and NYT and Tribune, and The Washington Post Company, etc were to all go paid, you would find that a lot more people would start paying for good content, because there would not be a whole lot left of real journalism left.
I truly believe the majority of people online will still go for free over paid no matter what the quality is. Look at print media in the U.K. (cause that's all these news media guys seem to do). The biggest selling newspaper is The Sun, but wouldn anyone really trust The Sun to tell them what's happening in the world? Still people buy it cause it's cheap and in your face. The same logic will be applied to online news media.
Paywalls simply lock newspaper's opinions out of the commonly held mindset.
Tom -
Great post. Your points are well taken and I think that the user experience cost of encountering a paywall is something that publishers need to consider much more carefully when thinking about instituting one. In many cases, especially with a micropayment model, it's not the monetary cost that presents the biggest barrier to conversion but the time/annoyance factor.
I recently tried out the paywall experience just implemented on some of the Gannet family of publications, and the experience was close to impossible. A detailed account can be found here: https://blog.pinyadda.com/2010/07/06/gannets-paywall-wont-work/.
No matter which model publishers decide to undertake, or what the actual cost of the content, the user experience problem will continue to hinder the adoption of paid content until someone gets it really right.