How News Perform transformed their subscription strategy with Insight Streams

The challenge: unlocking growth without a scalable research engine

News Perform—a high-growth division of global media giant News Corp—reaches over 2 million monthly users through platforms like Punters, Racenet, and The Greyhound Recorder. But while traffic was strong, premium subscription conversions remained low.

For Chris Piper, Senior Product Designer, the obstacle wasn’t just product optimisation—it was the lack of deep, ongoing insight into customer behaviour. The internal team was lean, and traditional research methods were too slow, resource-heavy, and reactive to keep up.

"We have traffic of around a million people on the website, but only a very small percent of them have ever been a premium member,” Chris said.

"We really struggled to talk to the audience that we needed to talk to."

Without a scalable discovery model, the team was left guessing whether the issue was messaging, UX, pricing—or something else entirely.

The solution: always-on strategic discovery with Insight Streams

To move from guesswork to clarity, News Perform adopted Insight Streams—Askable’s always-on, fully-managed discovery engine designed for fast-moving teams.

Insight Streams delivered weekly qualitative insight via moderated customer conversations, led end-to-end by a Certified Askable Researcher. This included recruitment, interviews, synthesis, and weekly strategic outputs—all without increasing internal overhead.

"The time the researcher spends doing all the legwork has saved us tons of time. I’m now handling several other projects, which would’ve been unmanageable alongside this.”

Early findings revealed a critical insight: the primary blocker to conversion wasn’t pricing, UX, or even value—it was awareness. Many users simply didn’t realise that premium subscriptions existed or what they offered.

“We were quite surprised early on to find that the biggest problem was an awareness problem. It fundamentally changed the way we view both our customers and our approach to strategy going forward.”

This shifted the focus from product refinement to top-of-funnel messaging and education—transforming how the team approached the problem.

The impact: from guesswork to insight-led growth

With Insight Streams integrated into their workflow, News Perform began operating with clarity and agility. Each week, the team received new, actionable insights—enabling smarter, faster decisions.

The value went beyond efficiency. With the ability to pivot the research focus weekly, the team stayed aligned with evolving priorities and market shifts.

“We’ve done one pivot in the script already, and the next shift will be more concept testing,” Chris said.

What began as a one-off initiative quickly became a core strategic capability. Insight Streams helped the team unlock subscriber growth by focusing on the right problems—supported by a continuous stream of real user insights.

“Insight Streams definitely saves time and money. But ultimately, we just wouldn’t have the same quality of insightful conversation—or decision-making—without it.” 

Looking ahead: an ongoing discovery engine

Insight Streams has now become core to how News Perform operates. It provides continuous discovery without requiring internal headcount—bringing clarity to high-stakes decisions and helping the team evolve with their audience.

“Askable fills a critical gap by helping us stay close to our customers, even when our internal capacity is stretched. We wouldn’t have the same quality of insight—or the ability to move this fast—without Insight Streams. It’s fundamentally changed how we approach product and strategy.”