A Case of Addressing the Wrong Problem – Incognito vs. Bouncing Organic Traffic

By: Elizabeth Coffey, Marketing G2 Digital Marketing Specialist

There have been many articles published of late detailing the ‘great’ success publishers have had tightening their paywall and killing people’s ability to access their content through incognito mode in their browser.

While this strategy has offered news publishers some measure of growth, it is but a drop in the bucket compared with what they’d experience if they addressed their real problem.

92% or More of Organic Traffic Bounces Off of News Sites

You and your news organization are not capitalizing on your organic traffic. 92% of people that come to your news website organically are bouncing off as soon as they hit your paywall.

Instead of getting no money from those bouncing off your paywall, why not capture those potential readers and generate revenue in the process? Wouldn’t you rather have 25 cents for an article and a valuable e-mail address for remarketing and retargeting purposes over nothing at all at the end of the day?

You aren’t driving them away from your subscriptions, those readers were never going to buy them anyway. Instead, you’re making money off of the curiosity that sparked your reader’s Google search and their immediate need to know about a certain topic, a topic that all their friends are talking about on social media which led to the sharing of your news article.

Capitalize on people’s curiosity with a mini-subscription/micropayment platform like Flittz. Instead of frightening them away with a long-term, high-price subscription commitment, invite them in and keep them coming back for more content with a one-time pay. Don’t miss the money and first-person data that you could be getting from your organic traffic.

Need to know more about the news industry, micropayments, and Flittz? Don’t forget to check out the other articles in our news series.

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