Case Study: The Guardian achieves a 46% increase in subscriptions with Optimizely

The Guardian sees 46% increase in subscriptions

The Guardian’s Soulmates dating service, part of a digital‑first newsroom with over 6 million weekly readers, faced a conversion problem: high click‑throughs from ads didn’t translate into paid subscriptions. Product manager Kerstin Exner set out to use qualitative user research and A/B testing to discover which site changes would turn more visitors into subscribers.

Using Optimizely, Soulmates tested a “people first” landing page that added similar profiles, search and testimonials (+46% subscriptions), changed its navigation label to “Newly joined members” (+137% profile click‑throughs), and experimented with homepage profile details (which decreased subscriptions and yielded no significant click change). Winners were rolled out via traffic allocation, while the negative test still informed future experiments—demonstrating a data‑driven, iterative approach to growth.

The Guardian

Kerstin Exner

Product Manager