Below are answers to common publisher questions about Newspack’s Audience Management features.

What is Audience Management? 

Newspack’s Audience Management solution, previously called “RAS”, is a set of features created to help publishers deepen reader engagement, increase loyalty, and drive revenue. This suite of tools, plugins, and presets provides a way to capture website visitors with a user experience and calls to action that drive conversion. 

The system’s key components include: 

  • Reader registration: Readers will be prompted to register an account with their email address. This unlocks opportunities to target readers in order to drive engagement and conversions. 
  • Reader Activation campaign: This default set of Newspack Campaign segments and prompts guides readers to register, sign up for newsletters, donate, and become a subscriber and/or member. This campaign is already optimized for conversions, so you only need to update the copy.
  • Newsletter sign-up through ESPs: Registered readers will be synced to the email service provider that’s connected via Newspack Newsletters. 
  • Interface with preset configuration for basic setup: A single interface unifies features from multiple Newspack plugins and tools, helping publishers quickly begin converting casual readers to loyal subscribers.

Who should use Audience Management, and why? 

Audience Management is a great option for publishers that: 

  • Have at least one newsletter
  • Have a donation, subscription, or membership program
  • Are eager to drive reader engagement and revenue without a lot of extra setup

The system is designed to get Newspack publishers set up to activate their audiences, without requiring a lot of time, resources, or knowledge of consumer marketing. To enable it, just complete the steps in our interface in your Newspack dashboard, with assistance from the Newspack support team if needed. Once it’s activated, you should quickly begin to see results: reader registrations, newsletter sign-ups, and ultimately, financial contributions. 

The system is intentionally limited in its flexibility, a unified solution that provides a competitive advantage for Newspack publishers. If you are a publisher with your own fully developed consumer marketing strategy, Audience Management might not be for you. 

This is still a new suite of features, though, and we continue to iterate on the basis of qualitative and quantitative data gathered in cycles of real-world testing and implementation. As we make updates, we plan to continue to gather insights from Newspack publishers to optimize the system for readers and publications. 

How can my publication get started? 

If you are interested in using Audience Management in Newspack, you can get started on your site at Newspack > Audience.

How do I use the settings panel to set up RAS?

Read our setup instructions.

What features are only available to publishers using Audience Management? 

Enabling Audience Management gives you immediate exclusive access to the following features:

Newspack registration block/modal

This block provides: 

  • Ability for a reader to create an account with their email address or Google single sign-on
  • Ability for a reader to optionally sign up for one or more newsletters when they register
  • Options for a publisher to customize the copy and add a featured image
  • Spam prevention via reCAPTCHA

Newspack sign-in modal

This feature provides: 

  • Ability for a reader to sign in to their account with a username and password
  • Ability for a reader to sign in with a magic link, a one-time passcode sent to their email
  • Ability for a reader to sign in with Google SSO

“My Account” page and functionality

This feature provides: 

  • Sign-in/My Account button automatically added to site header
  • Ability for a reader to manage their newsletter subscriptions
  • Ability for a reader to set and reset their password

Customizable transactional emails

This feature provides:

  • Ability to customize text and design of all transactional emails using the block editor
  • Email templates for verification, log-in link, password set/reset, and account deletion, found under Newspack > Engagement > Reader Activation > Advanced Settings

What features are available to all Newspack sites?

As we’ve developed new features with publishers using Audience Management, a number of major features have been made available to all Newspack sites.

The following functionality has been made available to all Newspack sites through our testing.

  • Newsletter Subscription Form block
  • reCAPTCHA for newsletter sign-ups and donations
  • Newspack Campaigns segment management
  • Newspack Campaigns prompt frequency options
  • Streamlined payments
  • Support for Apple Pay and Google Pay donations
  • Updated donation settings
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