Case Study: Chicago Tribune achieves higher reader engagement and retention with Airship

Chicago Tribune Creates Loyal Readers With Airship’s Customer Engagement Platform

The Chicago Tribune, founded in 1847 and the largest newspaper in the Midwest with roughly 820,000 daily (1.7 million Sunday) readers, faced a digital-era challenge: meet readers where they are and build daily habits on mobile devices. As readership shifted from print to smartphones, tablets and watches, the Tribune needed to proactively engage users, reduce churn, and deliver personally relevant news without overwhelming them.

Using Airship’s customer engagement platform, the Tribune implemented mobile push notifications, personalization tags, rich notifications, A/B testing and performance analytics to segment audiences, optimize messaging and measure impact. The approach cut app uninstalls by 62%, lifted push open rates by 56% through testing, and enabled a 112% increase in send frequency while maintaining steady open rates.

Chicago Tribune

Elizabeth Wolfe

Director of Audience Engagement