How to design smarter retention journeys with audiences and experiments

Sustainable retention comes from understanding who your subscribers are, how they behave, and which interventions can shift their decisions at the right time. Audiences and structured experiments known as journeys, are the building blocks that turn this understanding into smarter, adaptive retention journeys.

What are audiences and journeys?

Audiences are behavior-based segments that group subscribers by their actions, engagement levels, and lifecycle stages. Instead of broad lists like “all monthly subscribers”, retention teams focus on precise behavioral cohorts, such as:

• Trial users who have not completed a core action by day five
• Premium subscribers skipping sessions for more than ten days
• Monthly subscribers whose login frequency has dropped by half over the past two weeks

Journeys are the automated retention experiements these audiences are placed into. Each journey defines the sequence of actions, messages, and timing that move a subscriber from risk to retention. When audiences and journeys are designed to work together, retention becomes proactive and targeted rather than reactive.

How AI helps identify the right audiences

Manually defining audiences can be slow and based on assumptions. AI accelerates this by continuously analyzing behavioral signals, including:

• Login frequency, session depth, and feature usage
• Payment behaviors like pauses, step-up pricing, or turning auto-renewal off
• Content breadth narrowing, which signals declining perceived value

These signals update in real time, placing subscribers into the right flows as soon as risk patterns emerge. Instead of waiting for end-of-month churn reports, teams can intervene when there is still time to change the outcome with AI-powered A/B tests.

Triggering the right journeys based on behavior

Once audiences are defined, the next step is to assign the right retention journeys to each behavioral signal. A well-orchestrated system considers:

• What message to send (content recommendation, pricing incentive, or a gentle reminder)
• When to send it (mid-trial, after an engagement drop, or post-upgrade)
• Which channel to use (email for depth, push notification for urgency, in-app for real-time reinforcement)

When journeys are tied to live behavioral data, campaigns feel more relevant because their timing and delivery align with each subscriber’s journey.

Key audiences that drive retention

For subscription businesses, most audiences follow predictable lifecycle patterns. Commercial teams should prioritize the following audiences:

• Dormant trials: users who signed up but never activated
• Healthy trials: active users who are likely to convert with the right incentive
• Monthly subscribers losing interest: engagement drops steadily week over week
• Step-up pricing soon: subscribers approaching a higher pricing tier
• New full-price subscribers: recently upgraded and need reinforcement
• Active monthly subscribers: highly engaged and ready for upsell offers
• Recent upgrades: premium users who need value reinforced early to avoid regret
  

Retention journeys that deliver

Identifying the right audience is only half the equation. Structured experiments determine which interventions work. After running 100+ journeys, we have found the following to be the ones that result in the highest lift in retention:

• Price tests: adjusting pricing tiers to improve conversion at critical transitions
• Upgrade offers: targeted incentives for healthy trial users or active monthly subscribers
• Feature wrap-ups: highlighting premium features to strengthen perceived value
• Trial rescue: extending expiring trials to re-engage at-risk users
• Smart downgrade: offering lower-tier options with perks to retain users likely to cancel
• Re-activate auto-renew: incentivizing users who turned off auto-renew to opt back in
• Split test onboarding: testing different onboarding flows to improve early activation

Check out the INMA subscriber retention master class with Martin Johnsen, CEO at Subsets, on “What we learned from 100+ retention experiments”.   

Matching the right test to the right audience

The real impact comes from pairing audiences and journeys with precision. Dormant users respond better to onboarding experiments than discounts, while healthy trial users are more likely to upgrade when nudged at the peak of their engagement.

Monthly subscribers showing signs of disengagement need experiments designed to reignite their interest. These include trial rescue offers, extended access, or feature highlights that showcase what they are missing. For subscribers approaching a pricing change, phased price increases or early renewal discounts can ease transitions and reduce cancellations.

New full-price subscribers need reassurance early. Feature wrap-up experiments that showcase premium value increase the likelihood of long-term retention. Active monthly subscribers who consistently engage are prime candidates for upsell experiments, such as annual plan offers or VIP perks. Finally, for users who exhibit early signs of buyer’s remorse after upgrading, smart downgrade paths can help keep them from canceling altogether.

When audiences are segmented thoughtfully and mapped to the right experiments, interventions stop feeling generic and begin to drive measurable results.

Turning audiences and journeys into a live system

Most retention teams already have strong messaging and creative assets in place. What often limits results is the lack of infrastructure to deploy them in a coordinated, behavior-driven way.

With Subsets, teams can:

• Build AI-powered behavioral audiences
• Automatically adjust channel and message mix based on live engagement signals
• Test timing, sequence, and channel combinations to learn faster
  

When experiments are matched with the right audiences, retention stops being trial and error and becomes a structured, scalable practice.

Book a walkthrough to see how Subsets helps teams create smart and always-on retention strategies.