#SwrveThisWay is a blog series that showcases how global teams solve everyday issues with Swrve. Every blog post covers a new topic in a new industry, and common issues that were solved in real life using our industry-leading mobile-first customer engagement platform. 

This Week’s Issue: Streaming Media Apps - Converting Freemium Users into Paid Subscribers 

There’s no shortage of options for media and entertainment. So, how do you convince app users that your service is worth a paid subscription? For many streaming media apps, acquisition is only half the battle—the true challenge lies in generating recurring value in the form of paid subscriptions, premium content upgrades, add-ons, and paid activity.  

When new installs were increasing and his bottom line didn’t budge, Mark, a Growth Marketing Manager at a popular video streaming on-demand app, used Swrve’s acquisition reporting and behavioral analytics to confirm his worst fear: users across all segments were failing to subscribe to paid subscriptions after installing the app. 

How Swrve Solves This Issue

Swrve’s A/B and multivariate testing allows teams to experiment with several aspects of their user experience (UX), creative content, and logistical delivery of campaigns to determine best-performing variants and user flows. This feature is perfect for identifying which aspects of a user journey carry the greatest impact towards earning a paid subscription. This is how Mark used A/B testing in Swrve to increase paid subscriptions for his team:

The Test: Determining the Best Paywall Timing 

Mark’s existing freemium user journey only allowed users five minutes of free access to premium content prior to displaying a subscription paywall. His team suspected that five minutes was not enough time for viewers to become fully immersed in the content to understand the true value of a premium subscription. With Swrve, Mark tested many different paywall timing scenarios, from no access to premium content upon install, to three hours of premium content free to every new user. They also tested the paywall’s hero image and text copy. 

Following these tests, Mark was able to conclude with full confidence that his team’s hypothesis was correct. 22 minutes of free access generated the highest amount of conversions from free user to paid subscription—right around the climax of a typical 30 minute piece of episodic content. This finding resulted in major increases in paid activity, giving Mark and his team a 51% increase in subscription revenue in a single business quarter. 

Have questions? Email me anytime at swrvethisway@swrve.com, or learn more about Swrve and how we help marketers solve common issues in media and entertainment by requesting a demo today.