By Kevin Anderson
Der Spiegel’s strategy also demonstrates how they use different engagement products across their subscription funnel to engage, convert and retain subscribers.
Puzzles – With The New York Times and Wordle and even LinkedIn rolling them out, puzzles are a proven engagement product.
• Use is high. On average, 900,000 users play Der Spiegel’s daily news quiz.
• Their morning newsletter is one of the major drivers of puzzle use, and the link to puzzles in the newsletter is the most clicked, which explains why mornings are the most popular time to play amongst users.
•Der Spiegel’s puzzles are free to play, setting it up as a tool to build habits that lead users to buy a subscription.
From comments to debate
Der Spiegel has long had comments on its articles, Dr Badura said. Conversations were fragmented across articles on its previous commenting system. At its peak, they had 1.7 m comments a month, which presented a moderation challenge and led to fragmented conversations for users.
• When trying to decide how to make commenting better, they started with audience research. Did the audience want community? Yes. They liked comments, but only 12% wanted to actively participate by posting a comment. However, 65% wanted to passively take part, by reading comments or listening to events.
• Der Spiegel wanted to reduce the number of comments to make them more manageable.
• When they relaunched the platform a year and a half ago, they had 10,000 registrations in the first seven hours and now have 350,000 registered users.
• Instead of comments on all posts, they have 2-5 debates daily. The debates start with a yes or no question that allows users who want to passively engage. Comments are then added to each position, and comments can be upvoted.
• They have hosted 1350 debates, which have received 5 million votes. The acceptance rate of comments has increased, and they now receive a more manageable 300,000 comments a month.
• Users who use the product have more pageviews, and users who comment have almost 2x the time on site than those who don’t.
• The platform is connected to their subscription journey.
• Unlike puzzles that are free to use, only subscribers can comment.
• Use is much higher for audiences under 40, and 64% debate use is on mobile
Integrating comments into editorial
The comments section is also integrated into the editorial products.
• Journalists participate in the comments.
• Comments from the platform are added to print stories and social media posts.
About the author: Kevin Anderson is the App Strategy and Industry Insights Director for Pugpig.
