Newly subscribed! Effects of e-mail newsletters on news-reading habit and subscriber retention during onboarding: evidence from clickstream and subscription data

Despite the increasing popularity of e-mail newsletters, there have been few studies that examine the effects of signing up for e-mail newsletters among news subscribers, especially its role in enhancing news reading behaviors and subscriber retention for new subscribers. This study investigates how e-mail newsletter sign-ups influence news-reading habits and subscriber retention during onboarding. Using single-source data that combine clickstream data from news sites, e-mail newsletter sign-up records, and payment histories of 16,284 new digital news subscribers across four major markets in the U.S. this study finds that signing up for e-mail newsletters improves news reading habits and digital news subscription duration, with an additive effect of the number of e-mail newsletters signed up for. Regarding the retention mechanism, signing up for e-mail newsletters contributes to retention by helping new subscribers read more frequently and intensely (measures of reading habit), which in turn positively affects subscriber retention.