Building a Corporate-Wide Authentication Strategy: Thinking Beyond the Login Wall

As publishers, the core of your business is to bring consumers to your content and build the bridges that encourage those consumers to engage. The more traffic, readership, and viewership you have, the easier it is to monetize your content. That said, keep in mind that each time you ask a consumer to enter their information, this is an exchange, and consumers are constantly weighing their options. A consumer who can get access to content 80% as good as your elsewhere, but with less hurdles, is more likely to go to a competitor instead, regardless of your brand value. Meanwhile publishers are hearing mixed messages around authentication and how to leverage cookies in this environment – so what should publishers believe?

Addressing the Mixed Messages

Despite recent news, whether you’re planning to work in Chrome or Safari, most consumers will soon not be reachable via cookie. Yet marketers still need a way to target, and far more importantly, to attribute the results of marketing campaigns, and this means they need an identifier. Identifiers can be used by buyers and sellers to recognize, target, and most importantly to publishers, transact, in a durable, privacy-conscious manner.

Login Walls are Not the Only Option

Login walls are often considered measurable quick wins. However, publishers should constantly be weighing the exchange with consumers, and if login walls are providing the needed performance: CPM lift for authenticated consumers should outweigh any lost ad revenue from decreases in traffic from people bouncing instead of logging in. Publishers should also keep in mind macro pressures, including AI and changing search experiences, that also affect traffic similar to walls.

There Are Other (Better) Solutions

Login walls are not the only way. There are other tried and true methods to dramatically increasing your registered user base.

  • Communication: Give users something they’re eager to receive.
  • Community: Foster spaces where users can share opinions or connect with other consumers.
  • Interactivity: Offer interactive experiences or tools that reward users for logging in.

Why This Pushes Us Past Login Walls

It’s time to move beyond simply focusing just on walls that capture logins, and start thinking about creating experiences that encourage users. To do this a corporate-wide authentication strategy is needed. This means everyone across an organization, from editorial to sales, aligning on a shared vision for how and why you engage your audience in a way that captures emails.

The Need for a Corporate-Wide Authentication Strategy

The mismatches that typically used to happen between editorial, product, and revenue cannot happen anymore. For authentication to work, it needs to be a corporate-wide priority, with every department aligned on the end goal: incentivizing consumer interaction that includes emails. Shifting the mindset from “getting more logins” to “how do we create more experiences that people find valuable above and beyond just reading or viewing content?” is where communication, community, and interactivity come into play.

Related Resources

In the next few articles, we’ll dive deeper into communication, community, and interactivity, and offer guidance on how to build a sustainable authentication strategy that works.