How to Monetize Media: The Forbes Ukraine Case

About the project

Forbes Ukraine builds business connections in Ukraine. The media outlet covers entrepreneurs, thought leaders, investors, scientists, and creatives who influence the country’s development.

The challenge

Forbes was looking for new automated ways to engage with its audience to sell print magazines and online subscriptions — formats that attract, retain, and build trust between readers and the media.

The solution

Paywall is a product that works with a media platform as a unified system. It is a full-scale marketing tool with built-in payment flows, renewals, updates, recommendations, analytics, and CRM.

Sales automation

Manual sales processes take up the team’s time, increase the risk of data errors, and make scaling more difficult. Any tariff change, renewal, or data update required a separate operational action.

Paywall automates the user journey — from registration to subscription management. The platform stores and updates user data, reuses it for future transactions, and ensures seamless access to repeat purchases.

After a subscription is activated, Paywall automatically tracks its status.

When the subscription expires, the system initiates auto-renewal and ensures uninterrupted access to content. If a payment fails, the user receives a notification to update the payment method or retry the transaction. This reduces lost subscriptions and removes the need for manual intervention.

Managing tariff changes

When subscription plans are updated, the system automatically moves customers to new plans. Users receive a notification, review the new terms, and confirm the switch to the updated tariff.

Plan management

The editorial team has full control over products and can independently create and configure plans without involving developers. The system allows setting the plan name, access level to one or multiple resources, price, billing period, and trial or promotional period.

Readers can change their subscription type in just a few clicks — for example, switching from a monthly to an annual plan. This lets them adjust the subscription to their usage habits, choose a better deal, or save with long-term plans.

Promo codes

The Forbes team received a flexible tool for launching promotional campaigns. Editors can create promo codes with any conditions: a discount on the first month, a gift subscription, a special project promotion, or a partner offer. Codes can be easily distributed through promotional materials, email campaigns, or social media.

For readers, this is a simple way to get better terms. For the editorial team, it’s an opportunity to increase new subscriptions, re-engage inactive users, and test different marketing hypotheses.

Scenario setup

This tool enables personalized interaction with readers based on their behavior and interests. The system reacts to user actions and displays the most relevant offer at the right time.

How does the system “understand” the reader?

Users are automatically grouped by behavior, subscription status, section views, or survey responses. Audiences can also be segmented by interests, professional field, or device type. Based on this data, scenarios of any complexity can be created.

For example, a reader can be given access to 2–3 free articles before receiving a personalized subscription offer. A frequent visitor of the “Leadership” section without a subscription may automatically see an adaptive plan. A reader who indicates interest in IT may receive notifications about new content in that section.

The value lies in setting the logic just once. After that, the system works independently with each segment — analyzing behavior, triggering the right actions, and offering relevant options at the most effective moment.

Email marketing

The module ensures ongoing, personalized communication with readers. The editorial team can set up welcome emails, subscription expiration reminders, informational messages, or tariff updates — and the system sends them automatically to the right users.

In addition to service emails, the team can create regular newsletters: weekly digests, thematic selections, or professional industry updates. This helps maintain connection with the audience even when they are not actively visiting the website.

Print magazine integration

A key feature of the Forbes Paywall platform is combining digital subscriptions with print magazine sales. The system tracks:

- subscription status
- active and past orders
- products
- gift certificates
- transactions
- email history
- personal data and plan changes

Paywall became the central sales hub of the media ecosystem. In the reader’s personal account, users can access order history, completed transactions, plan changes, delivery details, and certificate instructions.

Accounting system integration

Paywall automatically transfers all orders, payments, and subscription updates into the accounting system. The editorial team no longer needs to manually move data from the website to accounting — each transaction appears instantly.

As a result, operational time is reduced, and financial reporting remains up to date.

Analytics

Subscription data is collected automatically. Editors can view detailed information about each subscriber:

purchase of print and digital versions
flexible rules for subscription-based product access
gift certificate purchases

This allows the media to see what works, how the audience behaves, what factors influence sales and engagement, and how readers interact with the publication.

Result

The subscription system evolved from a static landing page into a full-scale marketing platform that automates processes, retains audiences, increases sales, and reduces operational costs.

Paywall became a growth tool for the online publication and part of the user experience, strengthening loyalty through the value of content.