Make the Most of the Summer Slowdown: 5 Ways to Optimise Your Streaming Service
While summer doesn’t bring everything to a halt, it often creates just enough breathing room to focus on improvements that tend to get sidelined during busier periods. For streaming operators, it’s a valuable window to refine your platform, boost subscriber engagement, and prepare for the busier autumn and winter months when streaming activity typically climbs.
In this blog, we’re sharing a few practical, quick-win optimisations you can implement now – no heavy development required. Here are five areas to focus on this season, all easily managed through the Magine Pro Console:
1. Tackle Involuntary Churn with Payment Recovery Tools
Churn doesn’t always happen by choice. Failed payments from expired cards or missed renewals can silently erode your subscriber base, especially over the summer months, when people are travelling or distracted.
Magine Pro’s built-in dunning tools automatically trigger payment reminders and retry cycles. Operators can also send card expiry notifications to prompt users before issues arise, helping reduce revenue leakage without lifting a finger.
Want to know where your biggest retention gaps might be? Our Retention Checklist is a quick self-assessment to help you identify opportunities and benchmark against best practices used by Magine Pro customers.
2. Refresh Your Content Discovery Experience
If your homepage feels static or generic, viewers are more likely to lose interest. Seasonal curation and regularly updated rows help keep the service feeling fresh and relevant, even if your actual content library hasn’t changed.
In the Magine Pro Console, you can:
- Create custom content rows
- Curate by theme, genre, artist, or mood
- Set up time-based promotions (e.g. “Summer Picks,” “Holiday Favourites”)
It’s an easy way to make your platform more dynamic, and every update goes live instantly across all devices.
3. Experiment with Promo Codes and Offers
Need to boost signups or re-engage lapsed users? Summer is a great time to test promotional offers and measure what works before peak season returns.
The Console makes it simple to create and manage promo campaigns that:
- Apply discounts as a percentage or fixed amount
- Target specific countries or user types (e.g. new users only)
- Use viral (shared) or unique (one-time-use) codes
- Define duration, validity dates, and even bypass checkout entirely
Whether you’re running a seasonal campaign or an affiliate partnership, you can tailor your offers without touching any code.
4. Audit and Enhance Metadata for Better Searchability
Your metadata does more than just describe content, it powers discoverability and improves the viewing experience, especially on Smart TVs where users often browse by visuals and search queries.
This is an ideal time to:
- Fill in missing fields like title, synopsis, cast, and genre
- Update or add translations for multilingual audiences
- Optimise artwork (poster and 16:9 formats recommended)
- Use custom tags (if configured) to reflect seasonal themes or content types
All of this can be done in the Media & Metadata section of the Console, with changes published to your service in real time.
Better metadata = better engagement. It’s one of the simplest ways to increase time watched and reduce bounce rates.
5. Prepare for What’s Next
Even small operational changes made now can help you scale more effectively in the months ahead. Whether you’re planning a new content drop, entering a new market, or refreshing your onboarding flow.
Now’s a good time to:
- Review your user journey across devices
Especially on Smart TVs, where features like QR code sign-in can reduce friction and improve the user experience. - Enable anonymous viewing
Let viewers explore your content before signing up. It’s a proven way to increase engagement and drive conversions, especially for AVOD or hybrid services. - Build passive conversion funnels
Combine tools like anonymous viewing, time-limited promo codes, and targeted offers to nudge users toward becoming subscribers, all running quietly in the background once set up.
These small steps now mean less scrambling later, and a stronger foundation heading into the year’s busiest months.
Use Summer Strategically – Without Slowing Down
You don’t need to hit pause to make progress. By using this time to fine-tune your platform, you’ll be better positioned to retain subscribers, deliver stronger experiences, and scale smartly into autumn and beyond.
If you’re not yet on Magine Pro, or want to see the Console in action, we’d love to show you. Book a demo or contact the team to learn more.
Frightful Growth: How Splatter Uses Magine Pro’s Tools to Dominate Halloween Streaming
This Halloween season, as horror fans hunt for thrills, Splatter—the horror-themed SVOD service powered by Magine Pro—is ready to deliver. By utilising the powerful tools available in Magine Pro’s CMS console, Splatter has crafted a strategic campaign that not only delights horror aficionados but also maximises their reach and user retention.
Splatter’s Halloween Campaign
This year, Splatter is offering a special limited-time deal: 50% off for two months for new, returning, and ongoing subscribers. This offer is made possible using customisable promo codes created within the Magine Pro Console. These promo codes aren’t just about slashing prices—they’re a powerful marketing tool, designed to boost subscriber numbers during a peak time for horror content.
Splatter is also sharing a viral promo code URL via email communications as part of a win-back campaign, strategically targeting former subscribers who might want to return to get their fright fix this Halloween.
Crafting and Deploying Promo Codes with Ease
Thanks to Magine Pro’s intuitive CMS (Content Management System), Splatter can generate promo codes tailored to their specific marketing needs—whether for social media campaigns, targeted email blasts, or promotions through horror influencers. These promo codes are fully customisable, giving Splatter the flexibility to fine-tune the conditions of each promotion and adapt them based on audience response.
Tracking the success of these codes is simple. The Magine Pro Console provides real-time analytics, allowing Splatter to monitor how well its Halloween campaign is performing. They can track which promo codes generate the most sign-ups, identify spikes in subscriber growth around marketing activities, and optimise campaigns accordingly.
Find more information about Magine Pro’s promo code capabilities here, including how customers can independently create and implement them within the CMS.
Scaling for Success Beyond Halloween
While Halloween is a significant event for Splatter, the tools within the Magine Pro CMS enable them to sustain their momentum all year. The flexibility and advanced features of the platform allow Splatter to continuously create targeted campaigns, use promo codes, and offer exclusive content—even after the last pumpkin has been carved.
Magine Pro empowers operators like Splatter to focus on what they do best: delivering killer content to passionate audiences. We ensure that our customers have a service that stands out in a competitive market, drives subscriber growth, and keeps fans coming back for more.
To learn more about Splatter, check out the case study here. You can also hear directly from Splatter founder Olle in this insightful Q&A here.
Interested in how Magine Pro can power your OTT platform? Get in touch for more details or to request a demo.
Promo Codes: How to set up and why they’re important
In this blog, we explore the benefits of promo codes for marketing campaigns and highlight why you should use them to increase customer acquisition, engagement and retention. We also take you step-by-step through setting up a promotional code for your Magine Pro-powered streaming service.
How promo codes can positively impact growth and subscriber retention
Promo codes are a great marketing tool for streaming service operators to attract new customers and retain existing users. For example, promo codes offering a lower price for the first month or year subscription will expand your reach and entice potential customers who may not have otherwise considered signing up to your service.
Promo codes can also help encourage existing users to stay by showing that you appreciate their business and that you’re willing to work with them to provide the best possible value. Do this via subscription discounts or loyalty rewards that give them first access to new content, for example.
Ultimately, promo codes are an effective tool for both subscriber retention and growth.
- Increase customer loyalty by providing a discount to customers who return to your service.
- Attract new customers by providing a discount on their first purchase.
- Boost sales during slow periods by providing a temporary price break.
How to set up a promo code in your Magine Pro-powered streaming service
Check out our complete step-by-step guide on setting up a promo code for your streaming service via the Magine Pro CMS Console:
Top 3 tips for promo code campaigns
- Keep it simple
One common mistake is to make promo codes too complicated. A long and confusing code is more likely to be ignored than a simple one.
- Use regularly
If customers only see promo codes a few times a year, they may forget about your brand or feel like they’re missing out on potential savings. To get the most out of promotions, try using them regularly.
- Make it worthwhile
When planning a promo code campaign, make sure that the discount offered is significant enough to be worth the customer’s time and effort. Promo codes should incentivise customers to sign up and/or stick around.
If you need more information on setting up a promo code in your service, head to our knowledge base or reach out to a member of the team.
Want to learn more about improving customer acquisition, subscriber retention and engagement for your streaming service? Our white paper ‘OTT Discovery: How to stand out amongst the crowd‘ features some useful insights. You can also check our blog for more practical advice, including 5 reasons you should offer Day Pass access to your streaming service.
If you’re interested in learning more about our flexible OTT platform, our partners and how we can help you build and launch a successful OTT business, get in touch with us today.