Hear from execs at The New York Times, Thomson Reuters, Trusted Media Brands and many others
Digiday+ Research: Publishers go simple for holiday subscription discounts this year
This research is based on unique data collected from our proprietary audience of publisher, agency, brand and tech insiders. It’s available to Digiday+ members. More from the series →
The season for holiday shopping is upon us, which also means the season for holiday discounts is as well. And many publishers have plans to take advantage of this time of year to drive subscription growth.
On Tuesday, we covered how, for some publishers, subscription discounts aren’t tied to the holidays. But for those publishers who do take the opportunity of the holiday shopping season to offer more enticing deals on their subscriptions, how exactly do they plan on accomplishing that this year? Digiday+ Research surveyed about 80 publishers this month and in the fall of last year to find out.
Only one respondent to Digiday’s survey out of 44 publishers who make money from subscriptions said the holiday season is the only time they offer subscription discounts, down from 9% of respondents to last year’s survey. But 21% said this year they’ll offer deeper discounts during the holidays compared with the rest of the year, which is also down from last year, when 32% of publishers said they offer deeper holiday discounts.
Overall, publishers don’t plan to get too fancy when it comes to their holiday subscription discounts. Sixty-one percent of publishers who sell subscriptions plan to offer simple percentage discounts during the holidays, Digiday’s survey found. In fact, publishers will focus mostly on percentage discounts this year, compared with last year when their approach to holiday subscription discounts was more diversified.
The percentage of publishers who said they’ll offer percentage discounts on subscriptions this holiday season hasn’t changed too much from last year (61% this year compared with 67% last year). But gift subscriptions and buy-one-get-one promotions have both seen a big drop-off from last year.
This year, about a third of respondents to Digiday’s survey (37%) said they will offer gift subscriptions, compared with half last year. And the percentage of publishers who plan to offer buy-one-get-one promotions has fallen from 26% last year to just 2% this year.
A handful of respondents to Digiday’s survey also revealed some additional holiday discounting tactics they plan to employ this year. Holiday-specific subscription discounts will also come in the form of referral discounts, limited special offers, trial periods and an additional free month for some publishers this year.
More in Media
Ahead of GTA 6, Rockstar Games is staffing up its creator platform division with an eye toward UGC creators
Grand Theft Auto’s creator platform continues to evolve, with the company making key hires ahead of the release of “Grand Theft Auto 6.”
The coalition of the willing (and unable): publishers rally to wall off AI’s free ride
That coalition is taking shape in the form of a technical framework designed to let publishers control who can access their content, and under what terms.
Creators are standing up IRL events to soak up more of brands’ marketing dollars
For brands, the ability to measure performance is a key motivator to lean into creators’ IRL events. Across the board, brands are more closely scrutinizing the performance of their creator marketing spend, pushing to experiment with channels that have more easily measurable performance metrics in the form of conversions or foot traffic.