• by Ray Schultz , August 1, 2023

News sites can increase traffic and attract new subscribers when they temporarily relax or suspend their paywalls, according to “Paywall Suspensions and Digital News Subscriptions,” a study published in the Marketing Science, an Informs journal, in its July-August 2023 issue.  

For instance sites that provided free access to articles on the Covid-19 pandemic or U.S. presidential election found that those new visitors were likely to become paid subscribers. 

The researchers used clickstream data from a major news organization centered on paywall suspension activity to analyze how paywall suspensions influenced subscription decisions.

“Our analyses revealed that the temporary paywall suspensions not only increased the amount of traffic during the suspension period, but also increased the likelihood that those visitors would become paid subscribers,” the authors write. 

They add that “the variety of content consumed during their period of ‘free’ access increased the likelihood that visitors would actually choose to subscribe.” 

Another factor that may build trust is the public service aspect of the gesture. 

The authors contend that the temporary suspension of paywall restriction is not only good business, “but it also fulfills a societal obligation that news organizations have to keep the public informed.” 

The authors are from Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, and Emory University in Atlanta. K. Sudhir served as senior editor and Dina Mayzlin as associate editor.