User Engagement Platform For Martech: From Acquisition to Retention

Increase customer engagement across digital marketing assets and campaigns, throughout customer lifecycles

A user engagement platform built for a content-oriented business with a paywall, designed to maximise retention and engagement across multiple channels and lifecycle stages. Specific modules were created to support vital lifecycle stages such as initial conversions and subscriber management, overseen by a central business management module.

Building an engaged audience

A user engagement tool used by some of the world’s most famous media companies, focusing on making using clients’ sites immediately rewarding and facilitating multiple modes of interaction with clients’ content.

Delivered to the client as a user engagement tool, designed to be integrated into any infrastructure and to share data with subscription management, user analysis, payments, support and other modular elements of a comprehensive user engagement software platform.

A key component of a comprehensive user engagement platform

The user engagement platform is adaptable and can be sold and used either as a standalone module, or as a component in more comprehensive user engagement systems that address payments, subscriptions and user management. Designed to support digital transformation in publishing and media companies, the tool provides the functionality required to build a highly-engaged audience for a digital publishing business, including:

Flexible communication

The module provides the opportunity for flexible, rapid, two-way communication with subscribers and site users, driving customer satisfaction and conversions.

Integration and branding

Deep client site integrations put the user engagement tool at the heart of the business, while branding makes using it seamless for visitors and subscribers.

User behavior analytics and predictions

Our user behavior software tool allows to track and used to compile reports and drive predictions, allowing a data-driven approach to content creation and distribution.

Integrations with third-party content hosts

Hassle-free integration with major third-party content providers such as Google and Facebook.

Used by:

Managing over 1.1 million new subscribers annually

HTTPS throughout for security

GDPR, CCPA, and PCI compliant

Digital publishing challenges: data, customers, advertising, targeting

The nascent digital publishing industry faces key challenges related to interactions with customers and with advertisers, its two sources of revenue, as well as with managing data and targeting content.

Data management and analysis

Most publishers aren’t set up to handle the quantities of data a modern digital business produces. And they don’t have the tools to analyse it and extract meaningful, actionable insights from it.

User engagement

Beyond the newsstand, publishers lack experience, skills and tools for effective user engagement. Knowing which content and marketing is effective requires complex data analytics.

Conversion optimization

Turning casual readers into lifelong subscribers is the goal of content businesses. But with complex multi-touch user journeys, publishers struggle to encourage, incentivize, track and optimize their content for these conversions.

Content targeting

Which content do readers want? What is sticky? What generates traffic, subscriptions, revenue, advertising impressions, and ROI? It’s difficult to know without effective user and advertising data analytics.

There’s a clear market need for a solution that links customer behavior and identity across the customer lifecycle, providing insights to power organization, department and campaign-level decisions.

Creating a user engagement software system

We created a user behavior analytics software tool that addresses the major problems faced by key players in the space, resulting in enthusiastic uptake from some of the largest players in the US market as we supplied an out-of-the-box, customizable and compliant solution to success in the digital marketplace.

Key features of the system

The system we built solved major problems in the space, utilizing these key modules:

User behavior software module

User behavior analytics and data management

Paywall management module

Ability to identify anonymous users after browser cache clearance or within social network In-app browsers to ensure correct data collection from every pageview

Key features include:

For clients:

Conversion optimization and flows
User behavior analytics software that allows measuring content views, prediction likelihood to subscribe and unsubscribe, and more
Personalized content recommendations
Marketing campaign design and targeting
Content management
Newspaper information storage
Retention and acquisition campaigns, customizable for company strategy
Deep client site integration
Branding
Integration with Facebook Articles, Google AMP

For consumers:

Registration
User recommendations based on users’ interests
Single Sign-On integration
Integration with subscription access tools

Platform features include:

Permissioned access to resources both inside and beyond the system
Data processing powered by Machine Learning
Performance monitoring of the user engagement module
Multiple integrations across industry-standard tools
Contemporary technology stack
Intruder detection and blocking system
Subscription activity monitoring

Lightpoint built the system with:

1 Data Science Expert, 4 Developers, 1 Automation QA, 3 QA

Tech stack:

Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6

JavaScript / TypeScript

HTML

CSS

Python

Node.js

Microsoft Azure

Google Cloud

Results: predictable revenue and subscription growth

The user engagement system was delivered to the client as a solution to the key challenges faced by publishers engaged in digital transition, digitally native or building out digital arms of an extant offline business.

Its success was far greater than forecast, such that our initial client was promptly acquired by a major player in the space, largely on the basis of the competitive advantages and ease of use offered by this system. Customers reported 30% increases in new subscriber numbers, and significant growth in predictable, repeating revenue as permanent subscriptions increased