Subscriptions
Showing the value of a story
Redesigning El Confidencial's paywalls and running a multivariate test to find which design most improved click-through and subscription conversion. The answer was not the one we designed for.
Context and design problem
El Confidencial had accumulated multiple paywall variants over the years, many built by the subscriptions team rather than design. This led to inconsistencies across paywalls and with the broader design system.
Research Process
Audit of existing paywalls
The audit surfaced how many paywall variants were live, many of them built outside the design team.
Benchmarking
Benchmark of paywalls from US, European and other newspapers, grouped into modal, inline and banner.
Behavioral Design Principles
Behavioural principles mapped to concrete paywall decisions.
Key Questions
Modal, inline, or banner?
Each format had trade-offs in placement flexibility and how much information it could communicate to the user.
Which value proposition converts best?
Should we highlight features and benefits, showcase the subscriber experience, or make an emotional appeal like supporting independent journalism?
Direct payment or landing page?
Routing users to a landing page allowed us to show more detail, but added friction by increasing the number of steps to convert.
How much content to show first?
Should the paywall appear immediately, or after a portion of the article? If so, what's the optimal amount of visible content?
Personalized paywalls?
Should users from Google Discover with low subscription propensity see a different paywall than loyal, high-intent readers?
Microsubscriptions?
Could we offer single-article access via micropayment or as a registration reward, and what were the technical and financial implications?
Brainstorming and designing options
We designed options across desktop, tablet, mobile, and app to explore edge cases for each concept. Stakeholder reviews and user feedback helped narrow down the variants for our multivariate test.
Final designs selected for testing
Transactional Paywall
Our simplest option. It stripped the wall down in the hope that readers would go straight to the subscription landing page.
Simple Value Proposition Paywall
This paywall featured a straightforward value proposition, emphasizing the number of articles available under the paywall each week.
Social Proof Paywall
This paywall nudged readers toward subscribing with the behavioural design principle of social proof, showing how many other people were reading the article.
Subscription benefits paywall
This paywall emphasized the benefits of subscribing, including unlocking unlimited access, exclusive articles, newsletters, and the ability to comment on content.
Multivariate Test Results
The control, a plain price comparison between monthly and annual plans, outperformed every variant on conversion. We tested four concepts (transactional, social proof, benefits and a benefits carousel) across inline, banner and modal placements from May 2024. The research was sound; the readers disagreed. It was the clearest argument I've had for testing before shipping.
