The death of the paywall

A failed experiment? From 30 November Sun+ will be free to access

After the Sun’s U-turn on its paywall policy, is it time for other publishers to be more open-minded about current monetisation strategies, asks Tim Greatrex, founder of Rezonence.

It’s not hard to see why publishers are increasingly having to reassess their strategic plans to monetise their content.

The sands are constantly shifting; take, for example, the issue of ad blocking and the recent iOS9 update allowing ads on the Apple devices to be blocked.

This has affected publishers who have gone with the ad-funded open access model. However, publishers who have erected paywalls have also had to contend with a rapidly changing reality.

The Sun’s decision to completely remove their paywall is a watershed moment for the publishing industry; being one of the first big publishers to set a paywall and then reject it.

So why has The Sun taken this decision?

The directors of The Sun have realised that consumers have systematically rejected paywalls over the years for all but the most exclusive content. Just look at the number of paying subscribers The Sun has, 225,000, compared with the MailOnline, which is free, and has 218 million unique browsers.

The Sun has been the pre-eminent media in the UK since the 1970s and they realise they are in danger of freezing themselves out of the market. And it’s not just in the UK; many media brands in the digital age are going global, as evidenced by the success of MailOnline in the USA.

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Secondly, behind paywalls there are limited partnership and social sharing opportunities – a vital way for publishers to attract new readers. Paywalls restrict social sharing, and also work against third-party news apps, like Apple News, for which The Sun is a UK launch partner.

Attracting journalist talent is an issue for media behind paywalls. Publishers must remember the best journalists want to work at media organisations that will provide the broadest platform for their work. This is not usually behind a paywall.

Also paywalls don’t only hinder audience growth, they ultimately contribute to the demise of an open web. This is partly why more innovative publishers haven’t settled for paywalls, instead adopting new solutions that monetise their content in more efficient ways than the industry norm thanks to evolving technology in the ad tech space.

The Holy Grail for publishers is a monetisation strategy that delivers large audiences, yet keeps content free, while maintaining the high revenue per user that paywalls generate. This was an impossible dream in the past but modern technology means that users can effectively “pay” for quality content with a second or two of their time and attention; just one click.

Such an ad-funded model monetises the value exchange proposition between the publisher, advertiser and consumer much more effectively than the wasteful buying of banners on a CPM basis. It puts human interaction and attention at the core and uses this “engagement” as the currency.

An engagement based payments strategy has the additional benefit that everybody has the means of payment, which means that content remains free and the web open.

Furthermore, the audience is only likely to “pay” for quality content which will drive publishers to produce greater quantities of highly engaging content as opposed to the current trend of click bait headlines and short, quick and easy to produce articles which is primarily driven by the need to generate a large number of page hits. This is ultimately driven by CPM based buying and selling of inventory.

The advantages are not simply publisher specific; agencies and advertisers gain substantially when they know that they’re buying human attention and not just dumb impressions.

Gone are the problems of viewability, ad-blindness and fraud. These are significant benefits and will ultimately derive a better ROI for them. For an ad-funded model to be superior it will ultimately need to deliver superior returns for the brands doing the spending.

This value exchange that drives effective engagement with consumers has been validated by cognitive and neurological research to help deliver greater understanding and memorability of campaigns.

Because of the interactive nature of this model, consumers only need only be contacted as often as required to ensure understanding; which is when cost per engagement (CPE) becomes cost per human (CPH). Once you have successfully engaged with a consumer with one message you don’t need to keep up a constant stream of the same messaging.

Publishers like Trinity Mirror are exploring these alternate models, and continuing to do so is the best way to guarantee a sustainable business model for publishers while communicating the real purpose of advertising – to fund the content that audiences like, at a realistic cost to them.

It’s time for publishers to be open-minded and start to look beyond the paywall and CPM route. They need to look at emerging technology that’s set to encourage the industry to embrace a new form of digital advertising that allows them to monetise effectively and benefit all parties, themselves, media agencies, brands and consumers.