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Case Study

American Community Journals (ACJ)

American Community Journals

American Community Journals (ACJ) is a regional source of uplifting, community-focused news with five digital editions reaching readers across the Delaware Valley, including DELCO Today, BUCKSCO Today, MONTCO Today, PHILADELPHIA Today, and VISTA Today.

ACJ came to First Ascent with an extensive 120,000+ subscriber list but lacked meaningful subscriber data, list segmentation, and the tracking needed to understand what its audience actually wanted. With affiliate partner stories and engagement driving ACJ’s revenue, the business hinges on relevant content and the platform readers see it on. Getting the right story in front of the right subscribers is critical to creating value for both readers and partners.

Scope of Work

Email Marketing Audit
Subscriber Acquisition and Segmentation
HubSpot CRM Implementation
Website Design and UX
WordPress Multisite Development

Uncovering Subscriber Stories

to get the full scoop, First Ascent conducted an in-depth audit of ACJ’s email and tech stack, including deep dives into a techstack consisting of more than a dozen platforms. We mapped the entire user journey from sign-up to disengagement, leaving no data collection flow unturned.

The good news? Click and open rates told the story of a genuinely loyal audience.

 
The bad news? Fragmented tech and unsynchronized data collection were creating incomplete subscriber profiles, without enough detail to support personalized marketing efforts.

50-70% of sign-ups from a single source
Less than 8% of sign-ups from the dedicated subscribe pages
Inconsistent fields and placeholder entries across the subscriber database
No welcome emails, onboarding sequence, or re-engagement strategy

We also benchmarked ACJ against 12 peer media organizations, and the headline was clear: ACJ had work to do. 83% of peer outlets sent a post-sign-up welcome email, and most used preference centers and progressive profiling to collect additional subscriber data. ACJ had none of these.

One ACJ team member summed up the state of things: “Right now, we just have names and emails…it feels like we’re emailing into the void.”

Charting the Next Edition

Our audit revealed clear opportunities, which we translated into a roadmap of short, medium, and long-term recommendations
for ACJ to turn a new page.

Short term:

Clean subscriber data
Standardize contact fields
Audit and repair data syncing
between platforms
Improve sign-up UX
Define and align content tags to
support personalized targeting
Implement re-engagement
campaigns

Medium term:

Configure HubSpot as the central
subscriber data platform
Launch welcome email automation
Build progressive profiling email
series
Segment subscribers by
engagement stage

Long term:

Consolidate email operations into
HubSpot to reduce platform complexity
Implement user account creation for
first-party behavior tracking
Integrate donation or paid
membership workflows

A New Front Page

Alongside the email audit, First Ascent rebuilt ACJ’s WordPress multisite network across all five edition sites. The legacy system
was rigid and code-dependent, making routine updates a hassle for the editorial team. We transitioned the network to a modern
Full Site Editing (FSE) architecture, meaning ACJ could manage headers, page layouts, and visual details without coding.

This allowed them to introduce consistent subscribe call-to-actions (CTAs) throughout site content, so readers always had a
clear way to sign up and share their information. New exit-intent pop-ups caught visitors before they left, while an optional
progressive profiling pop-up prompted new subscribers to share more detail after signing up. Every signup fed directly into ACJ’s
CRM, giving them a single, connected view of subscriber data for the first time.

As for affiliate partners, the new SPOTlite Custom Post Type gave sponsored stories their own dedicated home, separate from
editorial content. Specialized templates and CTA blocks made it easier to showcase partner stories, support gated content, and
drive new SPOTlite program sign-ups.

Hot Off The Press Results

With new email and web systems in place, ACJ had a press-ready picture of how its subscriber ecosystem actually works.

May 2026 numbers showed 1.6 million page views, up 200,000 from the previous month. FSE implementation reduced custom theme complexity, improved accessibility scores, and exceeded PageSpeed targets. Revenue Per Mille (RPM), the average revenue a publisher earns per 1,000 ad views, also showed significant growth across four of ACJ’s five markets.

This increase signaled an engaged audience and advertiser interest in the content, a direct reflection of getting the right stories in front of the right readers through improved email segmentation, website functionality, and subscriber data.