Context
In early 2024, Yandex launched Yango Play, a media service targeting the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This expansion was a strategic move to capture a growing digital entertainment market, offering movies, TV series, music, and games with an integrated voice assistant, Yasmina.
Design Lead • Spring 2024 • play.yango.com
Problem
Yango Play ran a major marketing campaign with promo codes for a free 3-month trial to drive initial adoption. However, the leadership team anticipated a significant drop-off once the free period ended — a common challenge in subscription-based services.
There were three main reasons:
- Lack of perceived value. Some users hadn’t engaged with the platform enough to justify paying.
- Price sensitivity. Many were unwilling to subscribe after a free trial.
- Forgetfulness. Users often forgot their trial expiration dates and were surprised by automatic charges.
Our goal was to reduce user churn by implementing grace period notifications within the product
Communications audit
The first step was to audit our existing user communications, including emails, SMS messages, push notifications, and TV full-screen displays. We needed to strike a balance — reminding and helping users without overwhelming them with too many notifications.
We also analyzed churn behavior from previous Yandex subscription services and identified two effective strategies:
- On-device reminders (TV & mobile notifications) were more effective than email.
- Personalized content recommendations increased engagement and reduced cancellations.
Platform Variety
Our team faced the challenge of maintaining consistent communication across multiple devices, including mobile, desktop, and TV.
Communication Mapping
After collecting all communications, we created a touchpoint map to maintain balance in product communications and not overwhelm our users
Solution
Top Screen Notifications
We implemented notifications at the top of the screen for both mobile and TV apps.
The notification was fixed at the top of the mobile app screen. This placement required us to modify several interface elements, including pull-to-refresh functionality, static mini-app header, popovers, and system messages.
On TV, the notification appears upon app launch and receives initial focus. Users who want to update their payment method only need to press once on the remote controller to see more information.
Profile Highlights
Throughout the grace period, we display payment reminders prominently on user profiles in both mobile and TV apps.
For TV users, we added a QR code banner on the profile page for quick access to payment options on mobile devices.
Right-to-Left (RTL) Support
The app must fully support the Arabic language and right-to-left text direction.
Results
- The churn rate for users who registered during the product launch with promo codes decreased by 40%.
- A scalable framework that Yandex can now use for future subscription-based products.