Case Study: Highland News & Media drives digital subscriptions with Zephr

How leveraging rapid paywall tests helped Highland News & Media drive digital subscriptions

Highland News & Media, a Scottish news publisher with 18 newspaper titles across the north and north-east of Scotland, needed to shift from an open-access model to a sustainable digital subscription business. Lacking an in-house tech team and limited digital capabilities, they wanted a fast, cost-effective way to monetize content, collect first-party data, and build a subscriber base. They chose Zephr and its paywall platform to help support this transition.

Using Zephr, Highland News & Media implemented a flexible metered paywall across web and app, along with rules-based testing and dynamic offers that could be adjusted in minutes without technical expertise. Zephr also integrated with their CMS, app, Stripe, and Mailchimp. The results were strong: the company went live in six months, broke even on the investment after four months, saw subscriber and registered-user acquisition rates double their best-case projections, and achieved a 400% increase in subscribers during one weekend campaign.

Highland News & Media

Steve Barron

Publishing Director