First best actions by The Atlantic

If a new subscriber takes one of our three first-best actions: signing up for a newsletter, downloading the app, or visiting an article, within the first seven days, we’re good; if they don’t, we have a problem. We want 90 percent of new subscribers to hit at least one of those actions in that first week.

Mariah Craddick, The Atlantic

The product team at The Atlantic analysed a year’s worth of subscriber data and asked a simple question: Which behaviours in a newcomer’s first days most reliably predict that they’ll still be with us 12 months later? The work surfaced three stand-out behaviours:

• Download and open the Atlantic mobile app

• Sign up for at least one editorial newsletter

• Read (or save) an article after the pay-wall moment

Completing any one of these in the first seven days lifts a customer into the “engaged” reader state that strongly correlates with renewal. Internally, the share of fresh subscribers who tick a box above is tracked as the First best action percentage. The target is 90 percent.

First-best actions are the bridge between conversion and habit. They translate a credit-card moment into a journalism habit fast—making the Atlantic’s long-form, low-volume model sustainable without heavy discounting or constant churn-fighting campaigns.

Immediately after checkout, a concise post-checkout onboarding flow on site invites the new subscriber to pick a first-best action. Sign up for a newsletter, download the app, or start a saved-story list, before sending them back to their reading. If they skip it, the same prompts resurface as subtle floating “nudges” on their first few article visits. Off-platform, the automated welcome-email series and occasional writer letters repeat those very calls to action, so newsletters, in-article banners, and the initial paywall experience all work together to steer every new subscriber toward completing at least one first-best action in their first week

Our marketing team has really shifted away from discounting. Instead, most of our effort is engagement marketing. It’s about the journalism, getting people to interact with the stories and return to the site. That journey eventually brings them to the paywall and, if they’re not already subscribers, encourages them to convert.

Mariah Craddick, The Atlantic