Subscription Sessions

Ensuring successful and frictionless transactions across subscriber lifecycles is critical. Add in the complexity of operating globally and a steep rise in online fraud risks, and the stakes get even higher.

Financial and payments professionals, justifiably so, are asking themselves “How can I evolve my payments infrastructure and processes to manage security concerns, but not compromise the customer experience?” And “how can I securely scale my subscriber base and achieve global payments success?”

Hear from this panel of payments experts as they uncover everything you need to know to solidify your global payments strategy, including addressing online fraud concerns.

Prasanta Chakraborty, General Manager of Payments at Sling TV, and Masha Cilliers, seasoned payments consultant and Founder at Payment Options Ltd., share their insight and explain how growing your recurring subscriber base—by making your solutions more “sticky”—could decrease fraud risks.

Subscription businesses today face several headwinds: maintaining customer retention goals amid macro-economic downturn, proving your brand’s value to customers to justify pricing, and evolving your product to cater to power-users. These challenges necessitate innovation to drive subscriber growth, like creating new offers to incentivize investment or customized content packages, for instance.

From pricing to payments, this distinguished panel will dive into the top tactics and strategies leading subscription businesses are using to drive recurring revenue in this challenging environment.

Don’t miss this session as each speaker shares their perspective on what tactics truly drive subscriber growth and loyalty, what’s not working, and how the subscription landscape is evolving:
• Jack Marshall, Co-founder at Toolkits
• Megan Krouse, Director of Loyalty at Cinemark
• Michael Ribero, SVP Consumer Revenue at Condé Nast
• Seth Harris, VP, DTC Strategy & Operations at CNBC

Subscription program billing is under the scrutiny of many parties as relates to legal and regulatory compliance: The Federal Trade Commission, State Attorneys General and District Attorneys, consumer class actions, and Visa and Mastercard all bring their own rules to the table.

The bad news is, compliance is getting tougher than ever, with the FTC doubling down, increasingly restrictive state laws with diverse policies, and a focus on cancellation back-end processes. How can you possibly navigate these legal landmines?

Listen in to Linda Goldstein, Partner at BakerHostetler, as she offers sound advice on navigating the complexities of subscription compliance and dispenses tips to avoid the landmines.

In order to grow and maintain a sustainable subscriptions-based business model, you need to dial into what motivates subscribers to buy, stay, and invite others; to pivot when these motivations change; and to diversity your offerings with the right level of targeting and personalization.

The focus is no longer “growth at all costs;” instead, customers expect a tailored experience. Therefore, we directly asked subscribers, “What makes a great experience?” Our latest State of Subscriptions Report has the answers.

Explore our global subscriber preference research and report results, alongside subscription industry benchmarks, with Recurly CMO Theresa McEndree in this Subscription Sessions webinar.

Taxation rules and regulations are constantly changing, making it crucial for organizations to adapt and optimize their tax processes to fit their subscription billing model. Whereas one-time purchases are more localized, the sheer volume of subscriptions can understandably overwhelm an organization and subscription taxes are tricky to navigate at scale.

Questions to consider as you strategize include:
• Should we include the year’s sales tax upfront in our offer, or calculate taxes every month to align with monthly user payments?
• What if I have tax-inclusive pricing and the tax rate changes? How will that affect my bottom line?
• Do we have the right internal tools and resources to gather tax data?

Hear from tax expert Gina Chen, Senior Sales Engineer at Vertex, as she sits down with Sarah McCredie, Director of Product Marketing at Recurly, and you to clarify how subscription businesses are ensuring tax compliance, calculation, and collection and to share common pitfalls of backend tax management.