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Drive conversions with gated content

Put content behind a wall to incentivize subscriptions

Updated this week

Focus Area

Ideal For

Difficulty

Key Success Metrics

Customer Acquisition

  • Organizations trying to reach a new audience and want to encourage them to explore their content without high commitment.

  • Prioritizing building visitor trust and engagement before requesting personal information

  • Generating leads from visitors who are interested in your content.

Intermediate

  • Increase in marketing conversion rates.

  • Increase in customer recognition.

Skills Required

Before beginning, ensure you can:

  • Create and modify:

    • Profile properties

    • Listeners

    • Segments

    • Connections

    • Dialogues

    • The Simulator

  • Identify and involve your internal marketing teams/decision makers

  • Track KPIs and metrics using Insights and external systems.


Before you begin: Determine your business rules

  • Audience

    • Who should receive subscription-related messaging?

    • What are the characteristics of this audience?

  • Experience

    • Hard gate vs soft gate: How many articles will readers be allowed to view?

    • How long does someone have to consume their allotted articles? (calendar month or rolling window)

    • Should any pages be excluded from “free" views?

    • Are there tiers for subscribing? e.g., free tiers and paid tiers?

    • At some point in the future, you may wish to grant readers additional free articles per month if they perform a desired action. What ‘action’ is this (e.g., sign up for a newsletter)?

  • Messaging

    • At which points in the metering experience should readers receive messages? (e.g., article view 3, article view 6, etc.)

    • What should the messaging copy and design be?


Create Profile Properties

You will need four profile properties for this use case. You can use existing properties so long as the settings are configured as needed/outlined below. Otherwise, create the following profile properties to store data.

  • Number of views when the meter will expire

    • Name: Expire At (number) Views

    • ID: Enter a custom ID if needed, or use the generated ID

    • Type: Number

    • Segmentation: Available for segmentation

    • Merge strategy:

    • Unique Identifier: Do not check for "is"

  • Current number of views

    • Name: Number of views

    • ID: Enter a custom ID if needed, or use the generated ID

    • Type: Number

    • Segmentation: Available for segmentation

    • Merge strategy:

    • Unique Identifier: Do not check for "is"

  • Number of views left

    • Name: Number of views left

    • ID: Enter a custom ID if needed, or use the generated ID

    • Type: Number

    • Segmentation: Available for segmentation

    • Merge strategy:

    • Unique Identifier: Do not check for "is"

  • Is Subscriber

    • Name: Enter a name that follows your company's naming conventions. For example: Paid Newsletter Subscriber

    • ID: Enter a custom ID if needed, or use the generated ID

    • Type: Text

    • Segmentation: Available for segmentation

    • Merge strategy: Value of current profile

    • Unique Identifier: Do not check for "is"

  • If you are planning to add additional tiers, like a free tier, you will need to add a profile property to gather that data as well.


Create Segments

While determining your business rules, you will identify the target audience for your gated content. Create (or, if already created, identify) segments of subscribers and non-subscribers.

This will depend on your business rules, but will need to include:

  1. Create a segment for paid subscribers

    1. Select Segments > Create a new segment.

    2. Name it: Paid Subscribers

    3. Select the Is Subscriber Profile property and set it to: Yes

    4. Save.

  2. Repeat the process for any additional tiers.

  3. Create a segment for non-subscribers

    1. Select Segments > Create a new segment.

    2. Name it: Non-Subscribers

    3. Select the Is Subscriber Profile property and set to: Profile property ‘is empty’

    4. Save

  4. Add your segments to any applicable objectives.


Gather Data with BlueConic Listeners

BlueConic collects data based on visitors’ page views via Content Meter Listener 2.0.

Add the plugin

The Content Meter Listener 2.0 is a plugin that requires an extra step before setting up the listener. To add the plugin to your tenant:

  1. Select BlueConic Settings> Plugins

  2. Click Add Plugin

  3. Search for the Content Meter plugin with the calendar icon> Add plugin. The plugin will be automatically installed.

Configure the listener

Follow the steps below to configure the listener. For extra guidance, refer to the Content Meter Listener 2.0 documentation.

  1. Select Listeners > Add Listener > Content Meter 2.0

  2. Step 1: Select which channel(s) where the listener is active.

  3. Step 2: Select the segment Non-Subscribers

  4. Step 3: Click Add Page Counter and name it.

    1. Next to Rules, select Add Include rule or Add exclude rule to define inclusion and/or Exclusion rules based on URLs, meta tags, or other criteria.

    2. Next to 'Profile properties', link profile fields to store metering values:

      • Nr Number of views: Current number of views profile property

      • Nr of views left: Number of views left

      • Limit: Expire At (number) Views

    3. Select Count unique pages only.

  5. Step 4: Click Add a segment to target.

    1. Select the Non-Subscribers segment and define how many views users in that segment should receive in the field to the right.

    2. If there are additional tiers, add additional segments and the views allotted.

  6. Step 5: (optional): Offer extra content view based on certian profile properties (for example: known visitors, visitors coming to the site via email link)

  7. Step 6: Next to Schedule, choose:

    • Use rolling window of X days – e.g., 30 days.

      or

    • Use calendar month.

    1. Next to Start metering, choose:

      • When the page is loaded – starts metering on load.

      • When the "contentMeterStartMetering" event is thrown – for custom metering logic.

  8. Step 7: (optional), Track Amp Metering. For additional instructions on how to set up amp metering, reference the knowledge base article.

  9. Add the listener to any applicable objectives.

  10. Turn the listener On and click Save.


Create your Dialogues

Add the following Lightbox Dialogues to your site to prompt visitors to subscribe and capture their information. (Instructions are for using an example dialogue. If using your HTML, in step 6, edit the dialogue to add your HTML).

X number of Views Left

Create a dialogue to warn users that they have a specific number of views left.

  1. Select Dialogues > Add dialogue > Lightbox dialogue.

  2. Name the dialogue: e.g., Gated Content X number of views left

  3. Who tab: No adjustment needed

  4. When tab:

    1. Priority: 1- Highest

    2. Add rule > Show on Event > Content Meter: View X (calculate the number of views that will trigger the X views left. e.g., if there is a five-view limit, and you want to warn when there are two views left, choose View 3)

  5. Where tab: add your channel

  6. What tab: on the right side menu, click Load examples and select the ‘Act now’ example dialogue.

    1. Edit the text to let visitors know that they are out of free articles.

    2. Click the Learn More button to add the target URL for the subscription sign-up page.

  7. Optimization settings: For this use case, set the control group to 0% if you want to target all visitors within the segment.

  8. Why tab: Add Conversion Moment > Web: URL > Add in the url for the "thank you for your purchase" or "subscription confirmed" page.

  9. Add Dialogue to any required Objectives.

  10. Turn the dialogue On and Save your settings.

Repeat the process for additional dialogues for the events: First View, Last View, or other numbers of views as needed.

No Views Left

Create a dialogue to warn users that they are out of views.

  1. Select Dialogues > Add dialogue > Lightbox dialogue.

  2. Name the dialogue: e.g., Gated Content No more free articles

  3. Who tab: No adjustment needed

  4. When tab:

    1. Priority: 1- Highest

    2. Add rule > Show on Event > Content Meter: reached limit

  5. Where tab: add your channel

  6. What tab: on the right side menu, click Load examples and select the ‘Act now’ example dialogue.

    1. Edit the text to let visitors know that they are out of free articles.

    2. Click the Learn More button to add the target URL for the subscription sign-up page.

    3. On the right side menu, select Close Settings> uncheck close via close icon and close via ESC/ outside click.

  7. Why tab: Add Conversion Moment > Web: URL > Add in the url for the "thank you for your purchase" or "subscription confirmed" page.

  8. Add Dialogue to any required Objectives.

  9. Turn the dialogue On and Save your settings.

Measure Your Success

Success for this experience hinges on generating leads and acquiring new subscribers. You can start by leveraging built-in metrics and expand your measurement approach.

Create an Insights Dashboard to Measure Success

Report on use case success with Dashboard Insights of your campaign by tracking key performance indicators.

  1. Select Insights> Add dashboard

  2. Name the dashboard: e.g., Gated Content Dashboard.

  3. Click Add insight and choose the Dialogues Table Insight.

  4. Use the Text filter (e.g., "Gated Content") to display relevant dialogues.

  5. Add the dashboard to any required objectives.

The Insight table will show views, clicks, and conversions for your dialogue.

Level-up: Track engagement and ROI with external tools and other Insights:

  • Number of new subscribers added per month (use Segment Size Over Time Insight).

  • Engagement of subscribers: Measure if they have higher email open and CTR, higher site visits, page views, and time on site.

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