As described in step 11, the suggested manual offer setup:
Title: Update Payment Now
Rate: Please update your payment to avoid losing access
Limits: It’s easy and quick
Image (optional): We added an 'alert' icon
Button text: Update Payment
As described in step 12, the manual offer Targeting setup.
The finished rule will look like this if you've followed our suggestions.
Setting up Payment Update Alerts
BLOX Audience+ helps you at every stage of the customer lifecycle, including subscribers whose payment has lapsed. Now you can prevent subscriber churn with payment update alerts or “Grace Nags.”
This new feature set prompts subscribers to update their credit card information, preventing lapses in their subscriptions. This powerful tool dynamically identifies users whose subscriptions are at risk due to expired or declined payments and serves a targeted message prompting them to update their payment details.
Subscribers in Grace are those who continue to have access after their subscription expires, giving them time to update their payment information. Give grace, gain revenue.
Several key improvements make this possible:
Streamlined UX: With the Premium Credit Card Management upgrade, subscribers in Grace status will now see an Update button on their dashboard, accompanied by a short form to add a new card.
Visibility Fix: Resolved an issue where purchase buttons were hidden for subscribers in Grace status, ensuring that these buttons are now visible for renewal or payment updates.
Targeting Capabilities: Subscriber Status access criteria allow you to effectively target and serve messages to subscribers in Grace, Former subscribers and even active subscribers.
These powerful retention and lifecycle advancements are exclusively available to BLOX Audience+ partners, and are most effective with Premium Credit Card Management. For more information, reach out to your sales rep or put in a ticket
Setting up Payment Update Alerts (Grace Nags)
Note: Grace status only applies to BLOX Subscription-type services. 3rd party circulation systems do not pass grace information to BLOX, so this feature will not work for them. You can use Former and Active statuses with 3rd parties. For more information,click here.
Before setting up your Grace nag in Access Control, confirm your Grace settings.
In BLOX Subscription, click the gear on the upper right
Open the Services panel
Open each of your Subscription services and click on the Configure tab. For Grace Period, you should select the maximum of 1 month. This is our best practice as it yields the best results.
Make sure to click Save after your edits.
To setup your Grace nag in Access Control, follow the directions below.
In Access Control, click the gear to open application settings
Click Access criteria
Click New
Select Subscriber Status from the dropdown menu NOTE: If your Access criteria dropdown is short and you do not see Subscriber Status in the list, you will need to upgrade from Blox Audience to Audience+. Blox Audience is a basic version of Access Control with limited features, but Audience+ includes dozens of dynamic, real time audiences to take your paywall to the next level. Contact your sales rep or put in a ticket for more information.
In the dialog box, give the criteria a name, then select all the Services it should apply to. We have called it “Status = Grace - All Services”
Under “Service must be in a status of” select Grace.
Leave the Maximum Age field blank. The subscriber will automatically move into Canceled status after their grace period ends.
Before we create the new dynamic rule for Subscribers in Grace, let's review our recommended BEST PRACTICES for this feature to work properly:
Use the highest display priority. This new rule should be above all others except an emergency takedown rule.
Create a new access method to make sure subscribers can dismiss it instead of blocking content.
Create a new offer group to customize the paywall messaging.
Next, let’s create the new dynamic rule for Subscribers in Grace.
As described in step 11, the suggested manual offer setup:
Title: Update Payment Now
Rate: Please update your payment to avoid losing access
Limits: It’s easy and quick
Image (optional): We added an 'alert' icon
Button text: Update Payment
As described in step 12, the manual offer Targeting setup.
Start in the main Access Control rules panel by clicking New to create a new rule
Select Web
Name the rule “Grace Nag Payment Reminder” or something similar
Click New to the right of Access method group to create a new Access method group, and name it “Nag after 1 view”
On the Methods tab, click Add > Meters Note: If the UI doesn't display completely, close the UI, adjust your browser size to 100%, and try opening the UI again.
Select 1 free view. This means the subscriber will see one article without prompts, and the 2nd article will nag them to update their payment. They will continue to see the nag on every article after that.
On the Settings tab, select Nag Mode. This makes sure subscribers can dismiss it instead of blocking content.
Click New to the right of Access offer group to create a new Access offer group, and name it “Grace Subscribers: Update Payment” or something similar.
Customize the paywall headline to grab the attention of the user, and explain why they’re seeing the message. We suggest, “There's a problem with your account.”
On the offers tab, click New > Manual offer (use a link)
Modify the offer Title, Rate, Limits, Image (optional), and Button text to guide the user in what you want them to do. What we used are displayed in the image caption below.
On the Targeting tab, paste in the url of your dashboard management. This url will look like:https://YOURSITE.com/users/admin/service/. Just replace YOURSITE with your website domain. As an optional step, you can append the following to the url to track it in GA: "/#tncms-source=grace-wall".
Click Update
Click Save and close to close out of the Access offer group setup
In the Access criteria box, click Add
Select the access criteria you created earlier, "Status = Grace - All Services"
Click Select
Click Save
Click Save again to close out of the rule. NOTE: By default, your rule will be disabled after it is created. Click the checkbox next to your rule, then click Enable in the upper right to make it live.
The finished rule will look like this if you've followed our suggestions.
Testing Payment Update Alerts (Grace Nags)
To test the Grace rule and nag you created, you must be logged in as a user who had a subscription in the past, but has expired.
Here’s the easiest way to force a subscriber into grace quickly:
On a Subscription type service, on the configure tab, select Grace period of 1 month
Purchase a subscription on that service
In the Subscription admin, locate the subscription, and backdate the expiration to yesterday
You should see the user now showing as Grace in the main subscription list view
NOTE: It will take 5 minutes for the system to refresh. We recommend logging out of the user account and logging back in to speed this up, then logging back in.
Log in as the user in grace, and click articles/content to hit the rule you created. You should see your Grace prompt on the 2nd article.
To test the user flow, click the Update Payment button. You should be directed to the Manage Subscriptions page.
NOTE: If you have Premium Credit Card Management, you’ll see an Update button that links to the quick and easy experience. Clicking Update Payment allows the user to simply add a new card and continue their current subscription without signing up again. If the user has other cards in their wallet, they will appear as choices in the list. Without Premium Credit Card Management, you will see the Renew subscription button, linking to the standard renewal form. The user will need to re-enter their information and add the new card to continue their subscription.
