In the summer of 2012, Liz Cadman knew she had a problem. She was addicted to subscription boxes, and she wanted more. She couldn't find the information she wanted online, however, to make smart buying decisions, so she started a blog to talk about subscription boxes. The blog grew into My Subscription Addiction, a full-fledged website dedicated to the discussion of subscription boxes. In four years, the site has exploded in popularity, and she has added additional features including swaps, a discussion forum and more. Learn how My Subscription Addiction started and grew into what it is today.

How can you combine a wholesale book business and a passion for children's literacy to get more books in the hands of kids? With the subscription box model. That's how founder Eric Shmuely made his dream become a reality -- by creating a subscription book service for children.

Last year the publishing industry was abuzz with the news that the Winnipeg Free Press was experimenting with a Read Now Pay Later micropayment platform, where readers pay $0.27 (Canadian) per article they have read. Dana Neuts explores how well the first seven months of the strategy has gone.

At just three years old, Readly has experienced rapid growth and is defining success in the digital magazine publishing space. Now offering nearly 1,100 magazines and more than 17,000 issues in 49 countries, learn more about Readly in this exclusive INSIDER Case Study.

In this week’s Five on Friday, PYMNTS explores how the mission of meal kits – and their business model – is changing, Media Play News think an SVOD shakeout is in the works, Marketing Profs offers advice on marketing a subscription business, LinkedIn shares top subscription jobs, and IAB reports the latest podcast advertising revenue numbers.

In this week’s Five on Friday, a study shows spending in the App Store has doubled to $42.5 billion, Adweek says GDPR is an opportunity to build trust with customers, Search Data Backup offers best practices for backing up SaaS data, financial experts share opposing opinions about Pandora’s future, and Forbes explore the growing subscription box industry.

You can’t be a successful data publisher unless you’re selling high-quality data. It’s not just because customers want value for their money, it’s because they increasingly depend on third-party data for their own business success, so it's a high-stakes decision. Russell Perkins, Managing Director of the InfoCommerce Group and Insider Guide to Data Publishing explains the challenges of evaluating data quality.

If you are tired of hearing about Roseanne Barr and Kim Kardashian, we’ve got a reprieve for you with Five on Friday. In this week’s edition, media outlets report data losses to big brands due to GDPR, Poynter talks about The New York Times new standalone product, ZDNet says ad fraud is out of control, Fast Company predicts that email is the next big platform, and Digiday shares how publishers are using obnoxious ads to lure in subscribers.

Credit cards are a blessing and a curse for subscription publishers and monthly box merchants. Yes, auto-pay on a regular basis is sweet indeed, but it comes with the peril of card default. Cards expire or max out, customers dispute charges, and more ... but there are ways to minimize the detrimental effects of credit card declines and chargebacks on your subscription business.

Credit card transactions have topped three and a third TRILLION dollars. With that volume, even a tiny percent of misfires create problems on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars. Companies that depend on card transactions, especially those who depend on recurring payments, need to be proactive in preparing for pitfalls.

Understanding how payments work is a key foundation to selecting the right vendors for your subscription or membership business. This guide will help you understand the mechanics of a payment, key terms, and the key players involved from the moment your customer submits a payment to your business, to when the money for that customer’s subscription gets into your bank account.

The idea of influencers is not a new one. In fact, they’ve been around for decades, often times in the form of a celebrities as company spokespeople. Remember Brooke Shields and her Calvins? O.J. Simpson for Hertz? William Shatner for Priceline.com? Joe Dimaggio and his Mr. Coffee? Those are all examples of influencers. The marketing world has evolved since then, but instead of having spokespeople, brands, including subscription companies, are now using (paid) influencers to promote and share their products and services. It is a subtler, but more meaningful approach. Let’s take a closer look.

Last week Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) reported record revenue of $2.20 billion, representing a 24 percent increase year-over-year, for the second quarter of fiscal year 2018 ended June 1, 2018. Subscription revenue represented $1.92 billion in revenue, compared to Product revenue of $151.0 million and Services and Support revenue of $121.2 million. Net income for the quarter was $663.2 million, or $1.33 diluted net income per share (GAAP).

In this week’s subscription headlines, Google reverses its earlier decision to cap a vendor limit, bowing under the pressure of publishers, Michael Ferro interferes with the sale of the L.A. Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune, and GateHouse Media launches a new consumer marketing agency. Also this week, the LA County District Attorney warns of an online streaming-service scam, Volvo launches a nationwide car subscription service, and BuzzFeed is laying off and hiring.

This was a big week for AT&T (NYSE: T) Time Warner. They got the OK from a federal judge to proceed with their massive merger, a $85.4 billion deal, says The New York Times. The Justice Department had tried to block the merger, but Judge Richard J. Leon of U.S. District Court in Washington said the Justice Department had not proven its case that the merger would create unfair competitive advantages for the combined company.

Last week SiriusXM Radio Inc. agreed to pay $150 million in unpaid royalties to SoundExchange, Inc., settling all outstanding claims and lawsuits for the period from January 1, 2007 through December 31, 2017. According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Sirius XM will pay SoundExchange in a lump sum on or before July 7, 2018, one month after coming to the agreement. SoundExchange is a nonprofit that manages sound recording and music works, including collecting and distributing royalties.

Do you know how to achieve the "Retention Point" in your business, that moment when your members fall in love with you and become Lifers? In this on-demand seminar, we'll show you why that happens and the exact steps to make it happen more often, on purpose. With one-half of subscription revenue growth coming from retention, understanding how to achieve your own Retention Point can make a big difference in your renewals.

If you operate a subscription or membership business – regardless of subscription vertical, industry, consumer focus, or transaction volume – your revenue is impacted by payment trends and market dynamics happening right now. This on-demand online seminar will help you understand payment trends that will impact your business in 2018. it will also walk through the tactics and best-practices subscription merchants should employ to mitigate the negative impact on your profitability from these trends.

One mistake that many SaaS businesses make is thinking that once a subscription management system is in place, they are all set. In this on-demand seminar, we will outline the strategies and tactics that SaaS companies should employ to grow revenue, by keeping customers engaged.

When it comes to choosing a subscription management platform for your company, there are many options. Choosing the right technology can be a daunting task. Make the right decision and you are a hero. Make the wrong decision and you are faced with higher costs, mismatched features, or worse. Did you know that when buying technology for your business, 35-50% of the sales go to the vendor who responds first? Crazy? For companies that bought in this manner, they typically experience a 50% greater rate of REGRET about their purchase than companies who used a more thoughtful process

In this on-demand seminar, learn the key questions to ask potential vendors, and your team, when selecting the best subscription platform for your business. Kevin Novak, CEO of 2040 Digital and subscription technology expert and Kathy Greenler Sexton, Publisher of Subscription Insider will discuss: The subscription technology landscape, how to self-assess what your company needs, understanding budget and total cost of ownership, and mapping your budget and team to the best platform for your company.

LinkedIn, Slack, DropBox, Pandora, Spotify, and just about every mobile video game are generating revenue despite a business model that includes most of their customers using their services for free. Clever developers and content producers have learned that attracting A LOT OF customers can be as important as attracting PAYING customers. And the most clever are finding innovative ways to derive real value from the users who pay nothing at all.

Ad revenue for newspapers has been falling for years, but the migration of ad dollars, especially to Facebook and Google, are pushing news orgs away from ad-based revenue models.

Credit cards are a blessing and a curse for subscription publishers and monthly box merchants. Yes, auto-pay on a regular basis is sweet indeed, but it comes with the peril of card default. Cards expire or max out, customers dispute charges, and more ... but there are ways to minimize the detrimental effects of credit card declines and chargebacks on your subscription business.

Several trends are colliding in the business of funding political campaigns. Increasingly polarized voters are expressing their opinions not just with votes but also with individual donations. Candidates are enabling this level of participation with invitations to make affordable, easy donations monthly, or even weekly. And organizations and businesses are making it easy for would-be politicians to make this happen.

Are you receiving more alerts notifying you of expiring cards? We have and frankly, it’s no surprise with the increase in the volume of payment cards that been reissued. Without that updated payment information, subscribers and members will not get renewed successfully. In this sample, we show you real examples of payment card update notices from three separate companies, with three very different approaches to getting their subscribers to update their payment information. Plus, a bonus, Subscription Insider’s own notice!

ABC Mouse Early Learning Academy is an award-winning, subscription-based site/mobile app that uses email promotions to acquire subscribers. In this Sample, we walk through their promotional email campaign and offers. Are they sending too many promotions? Are they effective? You be the judge.

You may not be a sports fan, per se, but everyone plays games, whether it's chess, checkers or Thursday nights down at the local bridge club. We took a look at three sports-themed businesses offering subscriptions to see how well (or not) they are converting visitors into subscribers.

Many subscription sites are using some lighthearted copy that borders on passive-aggression. Is this an effective tactic? What do you think?

Understanding the difference between your most valuable customers and those that will not renew, is like separating out the wheat seeds from all the wheat chaff at harvest time. It will take the right tools and tactics to maximize renewal rates. Subscription Insider's Retention Workbook (Excel) will help you track the retention performance by key drivers in your business, turning your data into both a summary and a detailed retention report that you can use to manage your retention.

Does your subscription management or billing platform connect you to Account Updater — a service offered by Visa, MasterCard, Discover and more recently, American Express — that provides updated payment card information to help merchants manage involuntary churn issues? With this directory of 25 subscription management and billing platforms that support account updater services, you'll be able to create a short list of vendor contenders for your subscription business based on applicable industry experience, existing customers, payment gateways and processors supported, as well as pricing.

This extremely detailed subscription & membership financial model was developed as a tool for would-be subscription businesses who either are planning a new launch or an acquisition. It may also be useful for current publishers who are doing a minimum of marketing and who want to see how their cash flow might change if they ramp up marketing and/or ancillary product offers. Its purpose is educational and inspirational rather than strictly predictive . Everyone's business is slightly different, so it was impossible for us to create an easy-to-use model that would work with enormous accuracy for all. However, if you've not modelled this type of business extensively before, you'll learn a great deal from it!

Effective monitoring of subscriber retention is the result of understanding retention opportunities and trends, tracking attrition patterns, developing a tracking methodology, and applying those metrics in order to manage your retention business more effectively. Use this excel workbook to track and manage your subscribers and members.