Case Study: Hearst Newspapers reduces churn and drives subscriber acquisition with BlueConic

Hearst Newspapers' Retention and Acquisition Win

Hearst Newspapers, part of the global Hearst media family, faced the dual challenge of improving subscriber retention and acquiring new readers in a subscription-driven digital landscape. As a BlueConic customer since 2017, Hearst leveraged the BlueConic customer data platform (including BlueConic Dialogues) topilot an article gifting feature that would let subscribers share paywall-free articles while capturing recipient information.

Using BlueConic, Hearst tested a “Gift this article” flow on HoustonChronicle.com that required anonymous recipients to register an email to redeem the gifted article. The pilot drove measurable impact: a 9% reduction in churn for exposed subscribers, 15% of gift recipients provided emails (over three times the rate of other registration prompts), 80,000 new email addresses acquired Feb–Sep 2023, a 2.1% downstream paid-subscription conversion in the inaugural market, and a promotional read rate above 50%—after which Hearst rolled the feature out across additional premium sites.

Hearst