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.
How to Reduce Churn Fast: 5 Retention Tactics for OTT Platforms
Struggling with subscriber churn? These quick-win tactics can help you boost retention and protect revenue, starting today.
Subscriber churn is an expensive problem. Whether it’s a user actively cancelling or a payment silently failing in the background, every lost subscriber impacts your growth, ARPU, and acquisition ROI.
Before diving into these five proven tactics, download our free 7-Step Streaming Churn Self-Assessment to see where your current strategy stands and where you can improve.
Not all churn is inevitable. At Magine Pro, we’ve built smart tools and features into our platform to help streaming operators tackle both voluntary and involuntary churn without heavy lifting. Here are five high-impact retention tactics you can activate today:
-
Send Card Expiry Reminders
Involuntary churn from expired payment methods is one of the most easily avoided revenue drains. Magine Pro’s built-in card expiry notifications automatically send timely reminders to users across devices.
-
Curate an Engaging Content Experience
If your catalogue feels stale or generic, users are more likely to lose interest. Use metadata, fresh artwork and custom content rows to highlight fresh, relevant recommendations. Magine Pro lets operators curate collections by genre, mood, artist, or even seasonal events, directly from the CMS, no developer needed.
-
Automate Dunning Flows
When a payment fails, the follow-up process is critical. Our dunning automation tools give users more chances to resolve issues without leaving the service. Magine Pro customers who use dunning flows typically recover over half of failed payment attempts.
-
Run Win-Back Campaigns
Some churn is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be permanent. Run win-back campaigns that offer time-limited discounts or highlight new content drops. You can trigger these from your CRM or marketing tools connected via the Magine Pro Console.
-
Turn Reactivated Users into Long-Term Subscribers
Winning back a churned user is just the start—the real value lies in keeping them around. Track reactivation trends over time and identify what keeps returning users engaged. Use these insights to reinforce your messaging, fine-tune offers, and build long-term loyalty with smart, automated follow-ups.
Ready to See Where You’re Losing Subscribers?
To help you evaluate your current approach, we’ve created a free 7-Step Streaming Churn Self-Assessment. Download it here and find out where your service currently stands.
Need help improving retention? Speak to our team to explore what’s possible.
Why Retaining Streaming Subscribers Is More Cost-Effective Than Acquiring New Ones
Subscriber churn is one of the most persistent and frustrating challenges for streaming services. You work hard to acquire users through marketing campaigns, trials, partnerships, and then just as quickly, they disappear. But here’s the thing: retaining your existing subscribers is almost always more cost-effective than acquiring new ones.
Before you invest more into lead gen and acquisition, ask yourself: What if improving your churn rate could give you better ROI, faster?
To help you benchmark your current strategy and identify areas for improvement, we created the 7-Step Streaming Churn Self-Assessment, a free checklist and infographic that covers all the key areas from engagement and payments to win-back campaigns. Download the checklist & infographic to see where you’re loosing subscribers, and how to fix it.
The Hidden Cost of Subscriber Churn
Did you know it can cost up to 5x more to acquire a new subscriber than to retain an existing one? But churn doesn’t just mean lost revenue; it increases your customer acquisition costs (CAC), impacts brand perception, and can stall your growth trajectory.
And while voluntary churn (users actively cancelling) is easy to spot, involuntary churn is often more damaging, as failed payments, expired cards, and billing errors silently erode your subscriber base. If you’re not actively addressing both, you leave money on the table.
Why Retention Is a Smarter Growth Strategy
Keeping subscribers engaged and loyal doesn’t just protect your revenue, it multiplies it:
- According to Bain & Company, improving retention by just 5% can increase profits by 25–95%.
- Happy, loyal users are more likely to refer others, reducing your acquisition costs
- Engaged subscribers are more open to upselling opportunities (premium plans, paid content, etc.)
Retention isn’t just a back-end KPI. It’s a front-line business growth lever. At Magine Pro we’ve seen simple card expiry reminders that auto alert users before their card expired help our customers see an 18% reduction in involuntary churn. Other retention-focused tools we offer within our platform have also driven strong results – see the infographic checklist for more..
What Causes Viewers to Churn?
Understanding churn is the first step toward solving it. Common culprits include:
- Content fatigue: Viewers run out of things to watch or don’t see enough fresh, personalised recommendations
- Poor user experience: Clunky navigation, slow loading, or inconsistent app performance
- Payment failure: Involuntary churn from expired or declined payment methods
- Low engagement: Users forget the service exists if there are no timely nudges, updates, or perks
Churn is often a combination of several small friction points that build up over time. The first step to solving it? Understanding what’s causing it.
Take the Self-Assessment
Use our 7-step checklist to evaluate how well your platform is set up to keep users around. From onboarding to billing to re-engagement, it’s designed to help you spot the gaps and take action fast.
Whether you’re an AVOD service, SVOD operator, or somewhere in between, this guide will help you pinpoint what’s working and what needs attention. Download here.
Want to learn more about Magine Pro’s retention tools and how our platform can support your growth? Speak to a member of our team to explore how we can help reduce churn and book a personalised demo.
CHECKLIST: How to Reduce Churn and Boost Retention for Your OTT Streaming Service
If you’re operating an OTT or streaming service, subscriber churn is one of your most critical metrics and one of your biggest threats to growth. But here’s the good news: much of it is preventable.
At Magine Pro, we’ve created a free 7-step retention checklist and infographic to help streaming platforms identify where they’re at risk of losing subscribers and take action to keep them engaged.
Why Retention Matters More Than Ever
Acquiring new subscribers is expensive, often up to 5x more than retaining an existing one. Yet many services still focus most of their energy on acquisition, while overlooking the low-hanging fruit: smarter retention.
Churn doesn’t just affect revenue. It impacts your customer lifetime value (LTV), marketing ROI, and future growth potential. For OTT and niche streaming services especially, even a small improvement in retention can translate into a major performance gain.
What You’ll Find in the Checklist
This guide gives you a simple, actionable way to assess your current retention efforts, backed by anonymised performance insights from real Magine Pro customers.
Here’s what you’ll get:
✅ A 7-step self-assessment to evaluate your OTT churn strategy
✅ Aggregated delta improvements across features like dunning flows, win-back campaigns, and card expiry reminders
✅ Practical retention tactics you can implement today
✅ Key benchmarks and tips to strengthen subscriber loyalty and reduce involuntary churn
Whether you’re losing users to failed payments, low engagement, or a lack of reactivation strategy, this checklist will help you understand where you’re losing revenue and how to get it back.
Start Reducing Churn Today
If you’re ready to stop churn before it impacts your bottom line, this guide is for you. Download the free checklist now and see how your strategy stacks up.
Interested in improving your service’s retention performance? Get in touch with a member of our team to discuss how you can reduce churn and grow subscriber value. With deep experience in the B2C streaming market, we’re here to help you build a stronger, more sustainable OTT business.
Contact us to learn more, or follow us on LinkedIn for the latest product updates, feature launches, and streaming insights.
The OTT Billing Blueprint: 5 Tactics to Boost Revenue and Retention
Mastering effective billing strategies is crucial to boost OTT revenue and retention. As consumer preferences and market dynamics continue to shift, OTT providers must adapt their billing approaches to meet evolving demands and maximise revenue potential.
One of the primary challenges facing OTT platforms is maintaining a balance between generating revenue and retaining subscribers. Effective billing strategies play a central role in achieving this balance by offering flexible options that cater to diverse user preferences while ensuring sustainable monetisation.
Here are our five top tips for mastering effective billing strategies for OTT platforms:
- Understand Your Audience: Analyse user data to gain insights into subscriber preferences and payment habits. Tailor your billing models to align with user expectations, driving higher conversion rates and reducing churn.
- Offer Multiple Payment Options: Provide a variety of payment methods to accommodate diverse user preferences and geographical considerations. A seamless and convenient payment experience enhances customer satisfaction and retention.
- Implement Dynamic Pricing Strategies: Leverage data analytics and machine learning algorithms to segment users into different pricing tiers based on behaviour and consumption patterns. Offer personalised pricing plans tailored to individual preferences and usage levels to increase subscription upgrades and maximise revenue.
- Maintain Transparent Billing Practices: Clearly communicate subscription fees, billing cycles, and any additional charges to build trust and confidence among subscribers. Offer flexible billing options such as monthly, yearly, or pay-per-view plans to empower users to choose the option that best suits their needs.
- Focus on Customer Experience: Prioritise a user-friendly billing experience by providing intuitive billing interfaces, easy-to-understand billing statements, and responsive customer support. Enhancing the overall customer experience fosters satisfaction and loyalty, driving long-term success for your OTT platform.
Mastering effective billing strategies is essential for OTT platforms looking to thrive in today’s competitive landscape. By understanding your audience, offering multiple payment options, implementing dynamic pricing strategies, maintaining transparent billing practices, and focusing on customer experience, you can optimise revenue generation, reduce churn, and ensure long-term success.
Interested in diving deeper into billing strategies? Download our latest white paper, ‘The Profit Playbook,’ for valuable insights into strategies that reduce churn and ensure long-term revenue maximisation. Additionally, explore ‘The Essentials of OTT Monetisation,’ our e-guide that delves into the intricacies of subscription, transactional, and advertising models.
If you’d like to discuss monetisation models further or explore the capabilities of Magine Pro’s advanced billing engine, connect with our experienced team. Visit our blog for more resources and explore our entire collection of white papers available for download. Stay updated with the latest news, events, partnerships, and product announcements by subscribing to the Magine Pro e-newsletter.
Top 5 strategies to improve OTT subscriber retention
Subscriber retention is essential for any business, but especially in OTT, given the choice of services and the propensity of viewers to regularly change or alternate subscriptions.
To grow sustainably, streaming service operators need to focus on converting new customers and retaining existing ones. Fortunately, there are several ways to keep your subscribers happy and engaged, such as offering exclusive content, early access to new features or releases, personalised recommendations, and customer service that goes above and beyond. By implementing a subscriber retention strategy, you can make sure your business grows sustainably for years to come.
With that in mind, we’ve put together our top five strategies to improve subscriber retention:
1. Customer feedback loop
It’s essential to create a space where customers feel heard and their concerns are taken seriously – even if you can’t always immediately resolve the issues they’re experiencing. All feedback is valuable, and negative feedback can be especially useful in identifying areas that need improvement. Ignoring customer feedback or brushing it off will only lead to frustration and eventual retention. Create a strong customer service and retention strategy to ensure your customers always feel like their voices are heard and valued.
2. Leverage your data
The cost of customer acquisition is high, so it’s important to keep your existing customers engaged and coming back for more. And one of the best ways to do that is to understand their viewing habits and cater content around their interests. Fortunately, with today’s data-driven insights, tracking customer behaviour and developing targeted campaigns that resonate with your audience is easier than ever. Leverage your data and gets to know your customers; you can build specific content categories around their interests and personalise comms for select groups to highlight what’s available.
3. Regular and engaging communication
Keep your subscribers engaged and interested in your content to keep them coming back for more. A well-considered communication strategy is essential for achieving this. You can personalise your communication based on data you know about your subscribers, such as their favourite actors or genres, and highlight up-and-coming releases that they might be interested in. Stay top of their minds with regular outreach that is engaging, informative and on brand for your business.
4. Reward loyalty
It costs much less to keep a customer than to acquire a new one, so rewarding loyalty makes good economic sense. There are a number of ways to show appreciation for loyal customers, such as offering discounts, access to exclusive content early or for free, or even a personalised thank-you email. Whatever the method, the goal should be to personalise the user experience as much as possible. After all, happy customers who feel valued and appreciate your brand values are more likely to stick around.
5. Continue to educate
At Magine Pro, we believe customer education should continue long after conversion and onboarding. Continuing to educate customers throughout their journey with your brand is essential. Build educational campaigns around your streaming service, highlighting valuable features such as building Watchlists, Continue Watching, etc. By helping users make the most of their subscriptions, you’re more likely to keep them loyal and engaged. In addition, these campaigns can help to create a more positive customer experience, which is essential for driving long-term growth.
Want to learn more ways to increase subscriber retention and engagement for your streaming service? Our white paper ‘OTT Discovery: How to stand out amongst the crowd‘ features some great insights. You can also check our blog for more practical advice.
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.