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Organizations Involved

 

The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter (CPR) is a US-based online newsletter covering election analysis. It was founded in 1984 by Charlie Cook and is now led by Amy Walter.

This project has been named a finalist in Acquia Engage Awards 2022 and EXCEL Awards 2023.

  • 500 new subscribers in one month
  • 14% QoQ revenue increase
  • 51% reduction in page load time
  • 84% increase in unique page views (subscription page) 
  • Retention: 76% to 90% 
  • Voluntary churn: 6.26% to 1.94%

About the project

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The problem

A leaky subscription funnel.

Readers arrived. They hit paywalled content. They did not convert at the rate CPR needed. Support requests piled up for password and access issues. Search and speed made the experience worse.

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Goals

  1. Turn more readers into subscribers. 
  2. Cut customer service load caused by access problems. 
  3. Improve speed, SEO, and search so content is easy to find. 
  4. Upgrade the platform and prepare for election-season traffic spikes.

 

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What we did

  1. Audited the site before touching design
    Analytics plus heatmaps to find where users dropped off, plus what content pulled them deeper.
  2. Rebuilt the subscription UX and paywall paths
    The subscription process and paywalled content journey were redesigned, then tuned based on observed behavior. 
  3. Made search usable
    Acquia Search replaced the weak search experience so readers could find current and archived content faster.
  4. Fixed performance and SEO fundamentals
    Page load times dropped. Organic search impressions and clicks doubled in a six-month comparison.
  5. Connected the site to the subscription and marketing stack
    Integrations included Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Recurly, and Zoho to support subscription management and customer support workflows.
  6. Built for traffic spikes
    Acquia Cloud Next supported performance needs during election seasons.

 

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Results

  • +500 subscribers in one month.
  • Retention improved from 76% to 90%. 
  • Voluntary churn dropped from 6.26% to 1.94%. 
  • 51% reduction in page load times. 
  • 84% increase in unique page views on the subscription page. 
  • 14% revenue increase

 


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Stack

  • Varbase | Drupal 10x
  • Acquia Search
  • Acquia Cloud Next
  • Integrations: Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Zoho, Recurly.

 

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Why Drupal was chosen

CPR needed structured content, a secure upgrade path, and the ability to handle traffic spikes. Drupal plus Acquia tooling supported that, while giving editors better tools for day-to-day publishing and iteration.

Partnering with Vardot, they leveraged Drupal to create a seamless UX design to engage audiences and fix the subscriber journey.

The Cook Political Report Drupal Website

Technical Specifications

Drupal version: