The results

The multi-platform media customer was able to run +25 lifecycle experiments simultaneously on subscribers in different stages of their lifecycle through Subsets. These experiments formed the foundation for 11 always-on lifecycle automations, now reaching more than 1 million subscribers across the subscription journey.

Impact 

• ‍+7.8% retention lift from new subscribers‍
• +163% increase in app engagement among high-risk subscribers‍
• +5.6% retention improvement from disengagement automation‍
• +5.9% retention lift from upgrade campaigns‍
• +5.1% retention improvement from low-engagement automation

The challenge

The team needed continuous experimentation to optimize subscriber retention across the whole lifecycle. However, the lack of infrastructure was proving to be a bottleneck for the team in rapidly launching and measuring multiple concurrent lifecycle campaigns.

Without a sophisticated and reliable lifecycle experimentation platform, each experiment took months to launch due to engineering tickets, manual audience segmentation, and complex campaign setup across multiple tools.

The solution

Subsets enabled the retention team to launch experiments across 1 million subscribers. The platform gave the team the ability to identify and predict audiences based on their behavior and launch experiments across multiple cohorts.

Using explainable AI, Subsets continuously analyzed subscriber behavior to identify the right users at the right moment in the lifecycle. These audiences were automatically enrolled into targeted lifecycle flows delivered through their customer engagement platforms across email and in-app messaging, removing the need for manual list pulls or ongoing campaign management.

The lifecycle campaigns included:

• Engagement campaigns: driving content and feature adoption for content categories such as Books, Games, and Culture, and features such as Podcasts and App usage. 
• Upgrade campaigns: converting non-premium users to paid subscriptions.
• Re-engagement sequences: targeting dormant subscribers and those losing interest.
• Renewal optimization campaigns: focused on subscribers approaching their renewal date.

Because experiments could be launched quickly and measured against control groups, the team was able to test multiple lifecycle strategies simultaneously. Successful experiments were then converted into always-on automation programs.

Over time, this created a continuous lifecycle optimization engine that systematically improves retention, engagement, and subscriber value across the entire subscription journey.