When Meta announced its Canadian news ban in June 2023, Le Devoir braced for a major drop in traffic. Like many publishers, Le Devoir relied on Meta to drive awareness and traffic, and the news ban threatened our visibility and discoverability — underscoring the need to reduce our dependence on external platforms.

We focused on strengthening direct relationships with our subscribers to counter the anticipated decline in traffic resulting from Meta’s Canadian news ban. Consequently, an onboarding journey targeting Le Devoir’s new digital subscribers was implemented.

A new path

The onboarding journey gave us a direct line to new subscribers, helping build stronger relationships from the start. We expected this would lead to more direct traffic and lower churn, and it quickly proved effective.

In fact, we saw an increase in direct traffic by four percentage points, while the churn rate was reduced by 0.9 percentage points. Overall, the strategy successfully engaged and retained our subscribers, mitigating the potential impact of Meta’s Canadian news ban.

The onboarding journey was built around four key pillars:

1. Introducing subscribers to our platforms, both proprietary and third-party.
2. Showcasing the breadth and diversity of our content.
3. Delivering helpful resources early in the subscriber lifecycle.
4. Familiarising subscribers with the people behind the news to humanise the brand.

Originally designed as a 90-day sequence with one e-mail per week, the journey was refined through testing. One e-mail was ultimately removed, bringing the total to nine e-mails.

The power of contact

Direct contact with subscribers aimed to boost both brand familiarity and consideration, ultimately positioning Le Devoir as their first choice for news. Direct traffic emerged as the key metric to assess the strategy’s effectiveness in engaging readers.

As a result, we set a clear objective: increase monthly direct traffic by two percentage points between May and December 2024.

Building direct relationships with subscribers offered more than an increase in traffic; it also strengthened brand loyalty. Onboarded subscribers, after all, were expected to be more committed than those who hadn’t gone through the journey.

As such, we aimed to reduce the monthly digital churn rate by 0.5 percentage points between May and December 2024.

The results exceeded expectations on both fronts.

First, direct traffic rose by four percentage points, double our initial target, from May to December 2024. Before the onboarding journey, direct traffic made up 22% of total traffic. By December, it had climbed to 26%, reflecting a significant shift toward deeper, more intentional engagement.

Secondly, the digital churn rate dropped by 0.9 percentage points, reaching 1.4% in December 2024. In May, Le Devoir already had a strong churn rate of 2.3% for this segment, but by year’s end, we had nearly doubled our goal, strengthening long-term subscriber retention.

From the onset, our strategy was designed to be iterative. By June 2025, we had already implemented seven stages of modifications and refinements to improve the onboarding journey’s operational efficiency.

Our goal remains the same: to continuously optimise the journey in the short- and medium-term. Indeed, even small gains in open or click rates can translate into meaningful results for Le Devoir.

Implementing an onboarding journey for new digital subscribers led to stronger engagement and retention rates. More importantly, it marked Le Devoir’s first step toward greater independence and a more secure long-term position as a leader in the industry.

In the age of generative AI, direct traffic has become our most reliable safeguard. In the short term, our goal is to raise its share to 33%, an ambitious target that now anchors our roadmap for navigating an increasingly uncertain landscape.

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