Between January and December 2018, the number of the Wyborcza.pl individual subscribers grew by another 37,000, and increased by 31% YoY, with simultaneous growth of the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) indicator.

The company also reported that Wyborcza.pl users took a total of 430,000 decisions to purchase access to the Gazeta Wyborcza’s services and applications. Due to that, 20% of the daily’s last year income originated from the digital activity.

“Great result of Gazeta Wyborcza in digital subscriptions at the end of 2018 is not only impressive in terms of numbers – it also represents the customers who systematically use our content. Each purchased subscription is very important to us, as not only it allows Gazeta Wyborcza to exist, but it is also a signal that in Poland the number of people attaching importance to public affairs and basic values, such as democracy, freedom of speech and tolerance, is growing each week. In my opinion, the Gazeta Wyborcza’s success is excellent news not only for the entire publishing industry and journalism, but also for all the conscious citizens” comments Jerzy Wójcik, the editor of Gazeta Wyborcza.

In 2018, the Wyborcza.pl team invested in creating and maintaining long-term relationship with customers – thus quarterly, half-year and yearly digital subscription constituted 87% of all active accesses.

In 2019, the team’s priorities will focus on the loyalisation of users; as part of changes in the digital subscription offer, Gazeta Wyborcza encourages users to benefit from auto-renewing subscriptions, known by Netflix or Spotify subscribers, offered in attractive prices. Already in 2018, the number of automatic transactions increased by as much as 79%. The Wyborcza.pl team is intensively working on improving UX and its tools to improve the subscription business performance, including its Harmony project, financed by the Google Digital News Initiative fund. 

In 2018, an average of 6.93 million people visited monthly the Gazeta Wyborcza services (an increase by 0.5 million of visitors), which means that every fourth Internet user in Poland visited one of the Wyborcza.pl sites. The record time for the Wyborcza.pl services was October – the month of local government elections, when the number of visitors amounted to 7.78 million and for the first time last year exceeded 7 million RU. In December 2018, Wyborcza.pl recorded the highest increase in the number of users yoy – the services were visited by 1.18 million users more than a year earlier.More iImportantly, in the 4Q 2018 Gazeta Wyborcza beat subsequent records of sales in digital subscriptions – it acquired several thousand new subscribers in addition to the hitherto subscriptions renewals. 

“The several dozen percent increase in the number of the Wyborcza.pl services page views done by our subscribers is of particular importance to us – we are already recording almost 20 million visits monthly. We care about the involvement and satisfaction of the subscribers both at the editorial and marketing level, completing our offer with new functionalities, e.g. family access introduced in February 2019, the possibility to read “printed” Gazeta Wyborcza version online or sharing unlocked articles, as well as making the Wyborcza.pl application available to all the subscribers” says Danuta Breguła, Gazeta Wyborcza’s Online Strategy and Development Director.

The elements that contributed to last year’s success of Gazeta Wyborcza in the scope of digital subscriptions were mainly: development of Internet competences in the editorial office, including local branches, organisational changes in newsrooms and skillful use of tools and data, including those on keeping the subscribers, in the everyday work. To maintain higher involvement of the users, new promotional projects are launched; for example, several dozen pepole in the editorial office work on special newsletters, such as morning briefing, evening summaries, local newsletters or the popular Booksletter (wyborcza.pl/newslettery). Trying to get the enthusiasts of the Gazeta Wyborcza paper issue acquainted with the simultaneous use of online content – in the Wyborcza.pl service or in the application – selected issues of the daily included a special code, which was used by more than a dozen thousand users in 2018.

“The commitment of the Gazeta Wyborcza’s editorial office to matters important for the society translates itself into digital subscriptions results. The subscribers clearly value those articles that are also the most valuable for us: mainly our investigations, at the level of articles on the scandal related to the Financial Supervision Authority, as well as reportages published in Duży Format Monday supplement or texts written by reporters of 24 local Gazeta Wybocza’s editorial offices. In the first weeks of 2019, we are recording a huge increase of readership and digital subscriptions sales related to the so-called ‘Kaczynski tapes’ covered by Wojciech Czuchnowski, Iwona Szpala and other authors” adds Danuta Breguła.

Not only political texts persuade the readers to purchase the digital subscription of Gazeta Wyborcza– in 2018, the most effective were: the article from Duży Format on adoptions – Adoption, it is very difficult. Marcel left a week ago. The children are relieved. and a text on priest Jankowski – The secret of Saint Bridget. Why did the Church allow priest Jankowski to abuse children for years?

Building of a community allows the editorial office to involve readers in helping others: using proven subscription mechanism, in 2019 Wyborcza.pl and its subscribers collected PLN 150 thousand for the disabled under the “solidarity subscription” during the protests in the Parliament last year or PLN 67 thousand for the Polish animals in threat of extinction – together with WWF. In case of every such campaign, Gazeta Wyborcza transfers the entire income from the digital subscriptions to selected NGO it cooperates with.

Since 28 February this year, Gazeta Wyborcza has been informing on the digital subscriptions results for 2018 in a special promotional campaign. The advertising activities with the slogan ‘We can count on each other’, expressing the gratitude to the readers, are carried out in: television (TVN24 and thematic channels), radio (Agora’s stations), press (Newsweek, Polityka and self-promotion), internet (Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Gazeta Wyborcza’s profiles in social media), Helios cinema network and on outdoor panels in the Warsaw’s municipal means of transport. The campaign, scheduled to last until 14 March, was prepared by the Gazeta Wyborcza’s marketing department.

Agora S.A. was established in 1989; since 1999 the Company has been listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Its biggest undertakings are: Helios S.A. — Poland’s largest cinema network operator, ranked in terms of number of facilities, and the owner of the NEXT FILM distribution and production company, Gazeta Wyborcza — Poland’s most popular opinion-forming newspaper, available in paper and electronic form — at Wyborcza.pl and Wysokieobcasy.pl, and via the application for smartphones, tablets and e-readers, and AMS — Poland’s leading outdoor advertising company. Agora Group owns three brands of local music radio stations: Radio Złote Przeboje, Radio Pogoda, Rock Radio, and the Tuba.FM web radio, in addition to being a majority shareholder in the Radio TOK FM cross-regional radio station. Agora’s web portals are leaders in terms of popularity in their respective categories. Among the Company’s several dozen web-based brands are, i.a., Gazeta.pl, Sport.pl and Tokfm.pl, available online and via mobile applications. The Company is also the publisher of magazines and engages in publishing and distribution of books, music and film publications.

(https://www.agora.pl)