The Daily Needs to Fix its Paywall Offer Screen: Two Suggestions

The viability of The Daily, Rupert Murdoch’s high-profile iPad magazine, was the subject of debate this week when Nieman Lab released a report suggesting

The viability of The Daily, Rupert Murdoch’s high-profile iPad magazine, was the subject of debate this week when Nieman Lab released a report suggesting the app is struggling to attract and retain readers.While there may be plenty of other reasons for the decline, we noticed one way The Daily could boost its subscriber base: Improving their paywall offer screen.

Daily Paywall

Although the marketers at The Daily haven’t done an awful job with the page, it’s not remotely optimized to convert people into paying customers. According to Subscription Site Insider’s paywall optimization research – based on hundreds of paywall case studies, A/B testing results, pricing psychology research and more – they are breaking at least two major paywall rules:#1. There’s no benefit in the headline, or even in the body copyThe headline tells you what to do – “subscribe” – and the copy beneath provides only a generic list of content you receive. But nowhere does that copy tell prospects WHY they should choose The Daily over the thousands of other sources for that same kind of content. What’s the benefit of being a Daily subscriber?Often we see marketers making this mistake because they have no clear sense of why their brand is compelling or why anyone would subscribe. So they stick in generic copy about features like “news” and “gossip” instead.#2. They don’t highlight the savings offered by an annual subscriptionThe Daily’s annual subscription is about 20% less expensive than buying by the week, so why on earth aren’t they telling us about those savings? Right now, a prospect must choose between two equally weighted options – except one is asking $0.99 and the other for $39.99. Upsells don’t work unless you really make them shine and convince people that they’re not paying more, they’re saving more.Note: To see the rest of our paywall research and rules, visit to our sister site, Subscription Site Insider.

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