Case Study
El Mundo Boosts Subscribers by 60% with Piano’s Dynamic Paywall
How a top Spanish publication grew subscriptions and revenue without losing ad engagement.
Case Study
El Mundo Boosts Subscribers by 60% with Piano’s Dynamic Paywall
How a top Spanish publication grew subscriptions and revenue without losing ad engagement.
Case Study
El Mundo Boosts Subscribers by 60% with Piano’s Dynamic Paywall
How a top Spanish publication grew subscriptions and revenue without losing ad engagement.
Key Results
Key Results
Key Results
+60%
Subscribers
Significant year-over-year growth
+60%
Subscribers
Significant year-over-year growth
+60%
Subscribers
Significant year-over-year growth
+51%
Subscription revenue
Dynamic paywall vs. control
+51%
Subscription revenue
Dynamic paywall vs. control
+51%
Subscription revenue
Dynamic paywall vs. control
+13%
Paywall exposures
Minimal impact on pageviews
+13%
Paywall exposures
Minimal impact on pageviews
+13%
Paywall exposures
Minimal impact on pageviews
The client
El Mundo, an affiliate of Unidad Editorial, is a leading media publication in Spain with over 18 million monthly unique users. Known for its high-quality journalism and multimedia content, the platform has a diverse audience engaging with both digital and print channels.
El Mundo, an affiliate of Unidad Editorial, is a leading media publication in Spain with over 18 million monthly unique users. Known for its high-quality journalism and multimedia content, the platform has a diverse audience engaging with both digital and print channels.
The client
The client
El Mundo, an affiliate of Unidad Editorial, is a leading media publication in Spain with over 18 million monthly unique users. Known for its high-quality journalism and multimedia content, the platform has a diverse audience engaging with both digital and print channels.
The challenge
In recent years, subscription revenue has become a critical component of El Mundo's growth strategy. However, the challenge they faced was how to drive subscription revenue without negatively impacting existing advertising revenue. In mid-2023, to boost user registrations, El Mundo experimented with stricter registration walls, reducing free article views from 20 to as few as 3 and testing thresholds of 3, 5, and 7 articles. While these changes showed potential for improving registration growth, they caused a decline in pageviews. This raised concerns among the advertising team about lost revenue, forcing the company to seek a more sophisticated solution.
The team needed to optimize both subscription growth and advertising performance—without compromising the user experience.
In recent years, subscription revenue has become a critical component of El Mundo's growth strategy. However, the challenge they faced was how to drive subscription revenue without negatively impacting existing advertising revenue. In mid-2023, to boost user registrations, El Mundo experimented with stricter registration walls, reducing free article views from 20 to as few as 3 and testing thresholds of 3, 5, and 7 articles. While these changes showed potential for improving registration growth, they caused a decline in pageviews. This raised concerns among the advertising team about lost revenue, forcing the company to seek a more sophisticated solution.
The team needed to optimize both subscription growth and advertising performance—without compromising the user experience.
The challenge
The challenge
In recent years, subscription revenue has become a critical component of El Mundo's growth strategy. However, the challenge they faced was how to drive subscription revenue without negatively impacting existing advertising revenue. In mid-2023, to boost user registrations, El Mundo experimented with stricter registration walls, reducing free article views from 20 to as few as 3 and testing thresholds of 3, 5, and 7 articles. While these changes showed potential for improving registration growth, they caused a decline in pageviews. This raised concerns among the advertising team about lost revenue, forcing the company to seek a more sophisticated solution.
The team needed to optimize both subscription growth and advertising performance—without compromising the user experience.
The solution
To address this challenge, El Mundo partnered with Piano to implement its dynamic paywall solution, supported by Ad Revenue Insights (ARI). This approach leveraged data insights on user behavior, ad revenue potential and subscription likelihood. Working closely with Piano, and the El Mundo advertising team, they segmented its audience into three tailored content experiences:
High Ad Value Users: Were given open access to 30% of pageviews, prioritizing ad revenue potential.
Unknown Users: Encountered a registration wall after scrolling 700 pixels, combining engagement with subtle monetization.
High Subscription Likelihood Users: Faced a paywall after 700 pixels of scrolling, targeting users with the highest subscription potential.
To address this challenge, El Mundo partnered with Piano to implement its dynamic paywall solution, supported by Ad Revenue Insights (ARI). This approach leveraged data insights on user behavior, ad revenue potential and subscription likelihood. Working closely with Piano, and the El Mundo advertising team, they segmented its audience into three tailored content experiences:
High Ad Value Users: Were given open access to 30% of pageviews, prioritizing ad revenue potential.
Unknown Users: Encountered a registration wall after scrolling 700 pixels, combining engagement with subtle monetization.
High Subscription Likelihood Users: Faced a paywall after 700 pixels of scrolling, targeting users with the highest subscription potential.
The solution
The solution
To address this challenge, El Mundo partnered with Piano to implement its dynamic paywall solution, supported by Ad Revenue Insights (ARI). This approach leveraged data insights on user behavior, ad revenue potential and subscription likelihood. Working closely with Piano, and the El Mundo advertising team, they segmented its audience into three tailored content experiences:
High Ad Value Users: Were given open access to 30% of pageviews, prioritizing ad revenue potential.
Unknown Users: Encountered a registration wall after scrolling 700 pixels, combining engagement with subtle monetization.
High Subscription Likelihood Users: Faced a paywall after 700 pixels of scrolling, targeting users with the highest subscription potential.
1
Inputs
Propensity data
Conversion data
Advertising data
2
Unification
Piano Analytics
3
Processing
Real-time segmentation
4
Actions
Hard paywall
High subscription likelihood users
Reg wall or
soft paywall
Unknown users
Keep reading
High ad value users
This collaborative effort showed significant improvements to their conversion, enabling El Mundo to target onsite users with highly tailored offers, maximizing the likelihood of conversion. The approach optimized both ad impressions and subscription growth while preserving a positive user experience. By utilizing Piano’s dynamic segmentation capabilities, El Mundo effectively balanced its revenue streams, driving substantial subscription growth without compromising pageviews.
This collaborative effort showed significant improvements to their conversion, enabling El Mundo to target onsite users with highly tailored offers, maximizing the likelihood of conversion. The approach optimized both ad impressions and subscription growth while preserving a positive user experience. By utilizing Piano’s dynamic segmentation capabilities, El Mundo effectively balanced its revenue streams, driving substantial subscription growth without compromising pageviews.
The solution
The solution
This collaborative effort showed significant improvements to their conversion, enabling El Mundo to target onsite users with highly tailored offers, maximizing the likelihood of conversion. The approach optimized both ad impressions and subscription growth while preserving a positive user experience. By utilizing Piano’s dynamic segmentation capabilities, El Mundo effectively balanced its revenue streams, driving substantial subscription growth without compromising pageviews.
Results
The dynamic paywall strategy delivered transformative outcomes for El Mundo against their control group:
+60% Increase in Subscribers: A remarkable surge compared to the previous year.
+51% Increase in Subscription Revenue: Achieved through precise segmentation and tailored user experiences.
+13% Rise in Paywall Exposures: While maintaining minimal impact on pageviews.
+5x in registrations: increasing known users for ongoing personalization
By seamlessly integrating advertising and subscription efforts across segments of their user base, El Mundo enhanced subscription revenue without sacrificing audience engagement or ad revenue. The test was so successful for El Mundo, the company plans to continue to roll out Piano’s dynamic paywall solution across its full user base, as well as the rest of their brands.
The dynamic paywall strategy delivered transformative outcomes for El Mundo against their control group:
+60% Increase in Subscribers: A remarkable surge compared to the previous year.
+51% Increase in Subscription Revenue: Achieved through precise segmentation and tailored user experiences.
+13% Rise in Paywall Exposures: While maintaining minimal impact on pageviews.
+5x in registrations: increasing known users for ongoing personalization
By seamlessly integrating advertising and subscription efforts across segments of their user base, El Mundo enhanced subscription revenue without sacrificing audience engagement or ad revenue. The test was so successful for El Mundo, the company plans to continue to roll out Piano’s dynamic paywall solution across its full user base, as well as the rest of their brands.
Results
Results
The dynamic paywall strategy delivered transformative outcomes for El Mundo against their control group:
+60% Increase in Subscribers: A remarkable surge compared to the previous year.
+51% Increase in Subscription Revenue: Achieved through precise segmentation and tailored user experiences.
+13% Rise in Paywall Exposures: While maintaining minimal impact on pageviews.
+5x in registrations: increasing known users for ongoing personalization
By seamlessly integrating advertising and subscription efforts across segments of their user base, El Mundo enhanced subscription revenue without sacrificing audience engagement or ad revenue. The test was so successful for El Mundo, the company plans to continue to roll out Piano’s dynamic paywall solution across its full user base, as well as the rest of their brands.
"
As a legacy media company, our biggest challenge was balancing subscription growth with maintaining strong ad revenue performance. Piano’s dynamic paywall solution, supported by Ad Revenue Insights, provided an effective way to achieve this. The ability to tailor user experiences based on real-time data has allowed us to optimize revenue streams without compromising audience engagement. This approach has been crucial to our growth strategy, and we plan to expand its implementation across our other publications."
"
—
Iñigo de Juan, Director of Subscriptions, Unidad Editorial
"
By leveraging Piano's Active Churn Prevention feature, we effectively addressed the increasing churn problem, retaining a higher number of subscribers and maintaining a healthier subscription base."
"
—
Iñigo de Juan, Director of Subscriptions, Unidad Editorial
"
By leveraging Piano's Active Churn Prevention feature, we effectively addressed the increasing churn problem, retaining a higher number of subscribers and maintaining a healthier subscription base."
"
—
Iñigo de Juan, Director of Subscriptions, Unidad Editorial
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Empower every team to understand and influence customer behavior.
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