Inside The Atlantic's evolving approach to payments and subscriber retention

Retention teams spend a lot of time trying to convince subscribers to stay. But what happens when a customer wants to stay and their payment is the thing that gets in the way?

At The Atlantic, that question has pushed payments much higher on the retention agenda. What started with improving failed-payment recovery has expanded into a broader look at authorization, merchant credibility, and why subscribers enter a failed-payment state in the first place.

In this fireside conversation, Rebecca Quarls, VP Consumer Strategy & Growth, will share what The Atlantic has learned as it builds a more deliberate payments strategy with a lean team. We’ll unpack where involuntary churn shows up in the subscriber journey, the changes that have made a difference so far, and how retention teams can start improving payment outcomes without needing to become payments experts themselves.

Attendees will leave with practical ideas for identifying preventable subscriber loss, deciding where to focus first, and thinking beyond retries and dunning when payments start affecting retention.