Nine Entertainment · SMH, The Age & AFR · Nov–Dec 2023
SMH and The Age were the only publishers not advertising a discounted intro offer, and the AFR's was the most expensive in its market. A three-channel flash-sale programme — paywall, email and landing page — acquired over 2,500 subscriptions and found that different price points win on different paywall types.
subscriptions acquired in the flash-sale window
conversion on the winning metered-paywall offer
AFR conversion from a moderate subscriber-only offer
channels tested independently, then coordinated
Contents
SMH and The Age were the only publishers not widely advertising a discounted introductory offer in market, and the AFR's intro offer was the most expensive in the business and finance market against international competitors. Acquisition pricing was simply not calibrated to the market each masthead was selling into.
The instruction was to stop treating the paywall as a single lever. Pricing, offer placement and the channel carrying the offer are separate variables, tested against named audiences on the Piano platform.
A multi-channel test — paywall, email and landing page — each channel measured independently before the winning combination was coordinated.
Statistical threshold: probability of improvement, with 95%+ required for implementation. Analysis cut by audience segment (anonymous, registered, direct), device, and metered vs subscriber-only paywall variants.
Four offers tested against 20% of the audience, with the winner sent to the remaining 80%:
| Offer | Result |
|---|---|
| $1/week for 6 months | Winner — +12% conversion uplift against the other offers |
| 6 months for the price of 2 | +225% uplift — but the lowest retention (free-trial pattern) |
| $79 for 1 year | +225% uplift on other offers |
Five price points tested across metered and subscriber-only paywalls:
| Price point | Paywall type | Result |
|---|---|---|
| $5/week for 3 months | AFR, subscriber-only | +47% conversion, 100% probability of improvement |
| $1/week for 3 months | Metered | +129% conversion |
| $12 for 3 months | Metered | +15% conversion — best for The Age audience |
Over 2,500 subscriptions acquired in total — 75% of the SMH/The Age target and 83% of the AFR target.
Different price points win on different paywall types. Metered paywalls respond to deep discounting; subscriber-only paywalls respond to moderate offers.
The second finding was organisational rather than statistical: the winning email offer and the paywall offer have to be aligned, or the two channels contradict each other in front of the same reader. In hindsight that should have been a standing rule, not a finding.
Sources: FY24 experimentation programme reporting on the Piano platform — intro-offer email and paywall test sets, Nov–Dec 2023 flash sale. All figures traceable to named test IDs or programme summaries. Revenue, traffic and baseline figures have been generalised; relative changes and test statistics are as measured.