Media and publishing organizations use the BlueConic CDP to increase subscription revenue via content metering. You can serve metered paywalls to non-subscribers to give them limited access to premium content and entice them to sign up for a subscription with personalized messaging.
CDP Use Case: Content metering with a subscription paywall
Consider the use case where the content of your subscription website is free to paying subscribers, and you would like to give non-subscribers a taste of what is in there. With BlueConic, you can implement this to keep track of the pages visitors see, how many they have already seen, and in what time frame.
Content Meter listening to the rescue! The BlueConic Content Meter Listener is very flexible in metering visitors and can fire events that will trigger Dialogues, for example, to warn or block visitors when they reach configured limits.
Configuring the Content Meter Listener in BlueConic
Content Meter settings
Target Segment(s)
Select a target segment if you only want metering to apply to profiles in that customer segment. This can come in handy for A/B testing or segmented metering.
Segmented metering will only work when the segments are exposed. You can switch this on by going to BlueConic settings > Privacy and checking the Expose the segments that the visitor is part of checkbox.
Delay metering
Select this option to delay content metering until the "Start Metering" event is published. Review the JavaScript frontend API documentation for more information. For the Content Meter listener, the JavaScript would call the event ID "cm_start_metering" for this listener:
blueConicClient.event.publish('cm_start_metering');
Expire At
Set the "Expire At" number to the number of metered views that should trigger the "views exceeded" dialogue. For example, setting it to 9 will allow the visitor 8 metered views, and the 9th view will trigger a "views exceeded" dialogue.
- Activate Meter unique pages only to increase the view count only for each unique page viewed; viewing the same page twice will not increase the view count.
- Deactivate the option if you want to have the view count increased even when reloading a page already viewed.
Reset after
There are two reset options: "Rolling Window" for the number of days you specify, or "Calendar Month."
Meter unique pages only
Select this option when you don't want to count the same page twice during content metering. This will cause the listener to throw the "Content Meter: Already Viewed Article" event when customers visit a page they've already visited.
Throw events once per meter reset
Select this option to have events thrown only once until the next reset, as opposed to having them thrown each time they occur.
Include rules
Typically, not all content on a website should be metered. The include and exclude rules let you define which content should or shouldn't be increasing the metered view count.
The "Include rules" setting allows you to set the number to be added to the views (typically "1") and the conditions under which this should occur. You can use the information from the URL, from the Referrer page, from the Content Area on the page, or from a JavaScript variable on the page to make your selection.
Exclude rules
Exclude rules define when counting views should be skipped - either for all the following views, or the first X views when the rule is matched. Exclude rules take precedence over include rules.
In the example above, metered views aren't counted for visitors coming from Google or Facebook.
Profile properties
Dialogues can display profile property values. The Content Meter can store view numbers in profile properties so they can be used in the text of a dialogue - for example, in the sentence "You have X free articles left."
Assign the profile properties you want to contain the view metering values.
Extra events
The Content Meter can throw specific events so your dialogues can trigger on them. Three extra events - "Bottom Range," "Middle Range," and "Top Range" - can also be thrown based on the number of views you set.
In the example above, for the Bottom Range Event, if the number of views is 1, 2, or 3, the event will be thrown.
Events on the dialogue When tab
With Content Meter listening active, Dialogues will have lots of Content Meter options available on the "When" tab:
For example, the event activated above will make sure the dialogue appears on the last allowed metered view, just before the "Views Exceeded" event kicks in on the next metered view. Below is an overview of the events:
| Content Meter View Count Events | |
|---|---|
| First View | This event will be thrown on the visitor's first view of a metered article, either for a first visit or after a reset on a repeat visit. |
| View 2, ..., View 9 | This event will be thrown on the second, third, etc. view of a metered article, taking into account whether or not only unique pages should be metered. Note that the last allowed view event will not be thrown as "View X" but as "Last View" described below. |
| Last View | This event will be thrown on the last allowed view (i.e., view count is lower than the "Expire at" setting) of a metered article, taking into account whether or not only unique pages should be metered. |
| Views Exceeded | This event will be thrown when the view count of metered articles is equal to or higher than the "Expire at" setting. |
| Content Meter Status Events | |
| Already Viewed Article | This event is thrown when an article has already been metered and viewed. |
| Excluded Article | This event is thrown when an article is being excluded from metering. |
| Content Meter Extra Events | |
| Bottom Range | This event is thrown when the view count is in the Bottom Range Event numeric range. For example, "Between 1 and 3 views" encompasses view counts of 1, 2, and 3. |
| Middle Range | This event is thrown when the view count is in the Middle Range Event numeric range. For example, "Between 4 and 6 views" encompasses view counts of 4, 5, and 6. |
| Top Range | This event is thrown when the view count is in the Top Range Event numeric range. For example, "Between 7 and 9 views" encompasses view counts of 7, 8, and 9. |
Events can be thrown simultaneously. For example, the events "View 2," "Already Viewed Article," and "Bottom Range" can all be thrown at the same time. For this reason, it's best to keep a consistent strategy across Dialogues, either at the page level or using the range event settings, but probably not both.
Resources
- CDP Use Case documentation: Using content metering to improve conversions
- A Publisher's Guide to Effective Content Metering
Privacy management
Listeners can be added to Objectives, allowing for privacy management of the information that is being picked up. The listener will only update a profile if the visitor consented to at least one of the objectives that it is linked to.