“Subscribers that are only or primarily on the app are 37% less likely to cancel than non-app users,” said the Financial Times’ Muj Ali at the MediaVoices ‘Publisher App Summit’, held in June. Here’s how the FT has turned its app into a vital retention channel
Apps are increasingly being recognised by publishers as essential habit-builders and a platform to strengthen direct relationships with readers. At the Publisher App Summit, Muj Ali, Group Product Manager of Acquisition, Retention and Apps for the Financial Times gave a talk on where the app fits into the FT’s subscriber strategy, how they encourage their audience to use it, and what makes it such a powerful retention tool.
You can listen to audio of the full session here, or search for The Publisher Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.
Ali began with a reminder that mobile is no longer a secondary platform: it’s a primary one people start and end their day with. He has seen demand for and usage of mobile apps grow significantly since Covid, with people curating their digital environments more intentionally. Now, whatever they have on their homescreens is the competition for publishers. “If you’re not in that curated space, you’re pretty much out-of-mind,” Ali pointed out.
The FT saw a spike in demand for its news app during the pandemic, as people looked to trusted publishers for information. Ali outlined that the growth levelled off by 2022, but that the subscribers gained during this period were very sticky, with the app being credited as a key part of retention. “At the FT, over 70% of our subscriber traffic comes via the mobile app,” he shared. “It’s the most engaged channel that we have, but also the most underutilised…But in general, it’s a place that we want to continue to grow.”
Understanding reader habits
For the FT, one of the key reasons their app has been so successful when it comes to subscriber retention is the team’s focus on creating a valuable mobile app experience.
Ali explained that a few years ago, they wanted to be more intentional about using the app for longer-term retention. This started with understanding when people came to the app and why, and then tailoring content creation to those pockets of time.
For the FT, a business-focused daily news brand, there was a consistent traffic spike each weekday between 6-7am. This time slot is about efficiency: subscribers want a scan of the headlines to start their day, and usually don’t spend too long on articles. But the second spike, between 7-8pm, sees readers spend longer and go deeper with sessions and stories.
“Customers are coming in to firstly skim, so the level that they’re coming in to read at is much higher in terms of the context they need, which is just a headline,” said Ali of that morning audience. He advises other publishers with similar patterns to make that journey really easy for them. “Give them the means to be able to pull that information very, very easily with the way that you present titles and headers, the way that you’re able to push that content via newsletters and briefings.”
Interestingly, Ali noted that while web traffic drops over the weekend, the app traffic stays relatively stable as subscribers seek more depth to what they’ve read. “We see the web as a vehicle for getting users to consider and be aware of the FT, and then ultimately subscribe. The app is then a vehicle for the FT to engage and retain,” he explained. “The app users are more frequent. Registered app users are four times more engaged when they’re on the app versus when they’re not on the app.”
Building habits from the start
Ali’s biggest tip for other publishers with apps is to encourage and enable early adoption. He recommends making the app front-and-centre of a subscriber onboarding journey as a priority for the first week, and once the app has been downloaded, using push notifications.
“A key strategy of ours is really to double down again as soon as customers get into the app.,” Ali said, highlighting the role of push notifications and app onboarding strategies. “How are they finding the things that they would love to follow, and following those things?”
New subscribers are invited to follow topics and briefings to create personalised ‘bundles’ of content. This also helps the team send notifications that subscribers will find timely, relevant, and crucially, valuable.
“Your app is your retention engine,” Ali emphasised. “Encourage and enable that early adoption, and build experiences that match those mobile needs.”
Publishers should also think carefully about the purchase and renewal journey in their apps. Ali explained that the FT has doubled down on native in-app subscriptions with Apple and Google, despite commissions to the tech giants ranging from 15-30%. He sees it as an investment in a smoother user journey. “Since we implemented in-app purchases, conversion rates have almost doubled, and retention is also higher,” he explained.
Pugpig’s newly-released Media App Report 2025 offers some helpful benchmarking for publishers wanting to look at their 30-day retention rates. Across their publisher data set, day 1 retention sits at 71% – nearly three times the global average. Day 30 retention is over six times higher at 46%.
Thinking beyond the article
Ali’s final tip for turning apps into a powerful retention tool is to ensure that opportunities are being taken to bring in multimedia and wider functionality. After all, people expect to consume video and audio across other apps, not just articles.
According to the FT’s data, this also aids retention. “All the people who are listening to audio, they listen to an average of 4.5 articles per day,” Ali shared. “So encouraging our teams internally to really push audio features and functionality…has been really important to engage customers more deeply.”
They have also focused on offline reading and listening capabilities as this is seen as a perk of using an app versus simply browsing on the web. This also serves their core business commuter audience, who may well suffer spotty Wifi and signal on public transport during those crucial early browsing hours.
Perhaps surprisingly, the FT encourages both on- and off-platform habits from their audience. “We’ve found at the FT that those who use the FT [app] as well as follow us on social media, they’re 3.7 times more engaged,” Ali pointed out, using data from their social media tracking. Now, the publisher puts active effort into encouraging app users to also follow them on TikTok, YouTube, and other social platforms.
These strategies are all first and foremost about building habits. “The app is the most powerful retention tool that we have to create long-term subscribers at the FT, and that is because of the high usage that people have, a continuous frequency,” Ali concluded.
Getting onto someone’s homescreen is just the first part of the journey. Investing in an experience that will keep them coming back will embed the app – and the publisher – as a valuable part of a consumption habit.
Thanks to the sponsors of the MediaVoices ‘Publisher App Summit’ – Pugpig, and Syno. Find out more about them and how they help publishers take their apps to the next level at publishersummits.com.
MediaVoices is part of Flashes & Flames Media Ltd.
