Paywall Podcast - Subscription strategies for news and magazine publishers

In this episode of The Paywall Podcast, Pete sits down with James Baldacino, fractional CMO of Leaky Paywall and AI SEO specialist at Ellipsis, to break down what publishers need to do as AI reshapes search and reader revenue: how to optimize your content for LLMs like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, why most publishers underprice their content and how to run a silent price test that lifts revenue without spooking subscribers, plus a live teardown of a high-traffic B2B publication that exposes the exact paywall friction points costing publishers paid conversions.

🔑 What you'll learn in this episode:

• The New AI Search Game: Shifting from legacy SEO to AEO and making your unique content extractable for AI bots.

• The 6-Month Pricing Rule: Why static subscription prices signal low quality, and how to test higher rates without triggering churn.

• The Database Monetization Strategy: How to turn your historical content archives into hyper-focused, premium data assets readers will gladly pay for.

• Frictionless Conversion Funnels: Why hard paywalls fail, the power of a free registration wall, and how to spot conversion killers on your checkout page.

🔥 Learn more about our paywall strategies: https://leakypaywall.com/

Connect with James Baldacino & Ellipsis:
📩 james@getellipsis.com
🌐 https://getellipsis.com/