Subscription sites with hard paywalls are usually pretty good at capturing prospects email — either through a trial funnel (with save attempts) or through required registration with an email address.However, freemium and metered sites are less diligent. In fact, our 2013 Online Subscription Benchmark Report found that only 27% of 202 observed subscription sites require free users to login with an email address to view free content:

The reason for this low compliance with a best practice may be because freemium and metered sites are concerned that email registration will confuse users or overly confident in the use of cookies. But the growing decline of cookies, plus more stringent European laws dictating cookie use, means that freemium and metered sites should reconsider their policy.We recommend that all freemium and metered sites require an email registration in order to view free content. News-heavy sites may want to adopt this to require an email registration after viewing three articles, as the Financial Times does:

Doing so allows publications to rely on first-party data instead of third-party cookies and metrics. In addition, sites with a logged-in user base will have a competitive advantage, not just for selling subscriptions, but for behavioral advertising and ad sales as well (i.e., sites with highly identifiable and paying audiences can charge more for display ad rates).And while using social media platforms to login can be advantageous in some instances, a personal email is always preferred. Check out our Best Practice Tip Sheet below on Subscription Site Insider to find out why!