Media Group Eliminates Paywall Evasion and Lifts Conversions by 35% with Adenty

Client
The client is an East Coast media group operating more than 100 newspapers and digital magazines focused on news and entertainment. With strong traffic across their properties, they wanted to strengthen reader engagement tools and improve subscription performance.
Challenge
Unauthorized readers frequently bypassed paywalls using VPNs or incognito mode. According to IAOP (International Association of Outsourcing Professionals), 11% of paywalls are evaded this way. The client saw similar patterns across their network. They needed to prevent paywall evasion, protect subscription revenue, and improve personalization for both anonymous and returning readers.
Solution
The media group implemented Adenty to stop paywall fraud, enhance personalization, and increase media audience engagement.
Cross‑site visitor recognition to stop paywall evasion
Adenty enabled the client to recognize returning visitors with 99% precision, even when they used VPNs, incognito mode, or private browsers. Previously, these visitors appeared as “new,” which reset free‑content limits and allowed them to bypass the paywall.
With cross‑site visitor recognition, readers who hit the free‑content limit and reload the page in private mode are still prompted to log in or subscribe. This eliminated paywall fraud and protected subscription revenue.
Adenty also unlocked richer visitor profile enrichment by unifying reader activity across multiple websites. Their previous analytics stack relied heavily on third‑party cookies, which created fragmented insights. Adenty provided granular, well‑attributed data across sites and sessions.
Data activation for coordinated engagement
Before Adenty, the client managed pop‑ups, recommendations, banners, and discount offers through multiple tools, which created inconsistent and poorly timed engagement.
With Adenty’s orchestration, the team can now set multi‑step engagement scenarios centrally. These scenarios coordinate all MarTech tools in real time, ensuring synchronized, personalized interactions across the entire reader journey.
This approach is powered by visitor tracking tools, visitor data storage, client‑side storage, server‑side cookies (Adenty Stable Storage), privacy‑first tracking, VPN‑resistant tracking, incognito‑safe tracking, and cookieless tracking solution.
Results
After implementing Adenty visitor tracking plugin, the media group achieved:
- ~15% more on‑site conversions in the first month
- ~35% conversion growth after six months
- complete elimination of paywall evasion
- stronger personalization and higher subscription intent
With anonymity‑resistant tracking and coordinated engagement, the client delivered more relevant, loyalty‑building experiences. And then, readers responded with subscriptions.
Start exploring our features for free to find the ideal match for your requirements.