Making a digital edition is the easy bit. You already have the print PDF, and turning it into something that pages nicely on a phone isn't a big job.
The harder questions come afterwards. Who is allowed to open it? Who was actually sent it? And when the auditor or an advertiser asks how many people got issue 11, can you answer without digging through an email platform?
That's what this post is about: the plumbing behind the page-turner.
Three ways to control access
There are really only three models, and a publisher with several titles may well need more than one.
An open link. Anyone with the link can read it. It's the simplest for readers and it's fine for a controlled circulation title, where you want the edition read as widely as possible within the audience. The catch is that a link gets forwarded, and you can't tell a subscriber from their colleague's colleague.
A login. Readers sign in with a username and password before they can read. This is the usual choice for paid titles, because it means you can switch access off when a subscription lapses. The cost is friction. Every forgotten password is a reader who doesn't read this month, and a support email for someone in your team.
Organisation access. Corporate and academic customers often want everyone on their network to read without logging in, so access is checked against the organisation's IP address ranges. It's tidy for the customer, but you need to keep those ranges up to date, and you won't know which individuals are reading.
None of these is wrong. The point is to choose deliberately, title by title, rather than letting whoever set up the page-turner decide. A free controlled title and a £400 paid newsletter shouldn't have the same access model just because they're on the same platform.
Put the edition on the subscriber record
Whichever model you choose, the important thing is where the record of access lives. It should live on the subscriber file, not in a separate digital system with its own list of readers.
If digital readers sit somewhere else, you get the same problems print publishers had years ago with separate mailing lists:
- a reader renews, but nobody tells the digital platform, so they're locked out;
- a reader lapses, but keeps reading for a year;
- a reader moves from print to digital, and ends up counted in both, or neither;
- someone asks "did I get the March issue?" and nobody can say.
The fix is to treat a digital send like a printed copy. Each reader's format sits on their subscription. Each issue's digital send is a run, just like the print run, and it's logged against every reader who was sent it, with the date. When a subscription ends, access ends with it, because both are driven from the same record.
What the audit needs
If you're ABC audited, the 2025 changes made digital much easier to count. ABC's business magazine changes treat print and digital copies equally, a reader can be claimed for both formats, and digital copies no longer need a specific request unless the circulation category needs one.
What hasn't gone away is proof. For controlled free copies, ABC's Business Magazines standards say you must show each digital copy was delivered, or that the reader was notified the issue was available. If you notify by email, hard bounces must be excluded. You also have to keep the recipient list for the Audit Issue and be able to recreate the list for any other issue on request. That's awkward if all you have is an email platform's campaign history, and simple if each send is logged on the reader's record.
And the evidence behind each controlled copy (the reader's details and proof they meet your Terms of Control) still has to be less than five years old, whichever format they get.
There's also the "both formats" number. Where you claim print and digital to the same person, the certificate reports the average number of individuals who received both per issue. You can only produce that if print and digital sit on the same record.
If AAM (formerly BPA) audits your title, there's a useful extra. Its rules for business publications let a reader's use of the digital edition count towards renewing a free request, provided they access it often enough in the statement period. That only works if you can tie each access to a named reader, which an open link can't do.
Our audit preparation service helps if you'd like someone to check your digital evidence before the auditor does.
Bounces are the new gone-aways
On a print title, returned copies tell you someone has moved. On a digital title, bounced emails do the same job, and they're easier to ignore because nothing lands on a desk.
Deal with them after every send. A hard bounce means the copy doesn't count, and a reader who has changed jobs probably needs to be re-qualified at their new company before you claim them. Our post on gone-aways covers the print side, and the same habits apply.
Use the reading statistics, carefully
Most page-turner platforms tell you how many people opened an edition, how long they spent, which pages they looked at and which links they clicked. That's useful for editors and it's something to show advertisers.
Two cautions. First, opens aren't circulation. A media pack should keep audited circulation and reading statistics as separate figures, each with its source. Second, with an open link those figures are for the edition, not for named readers, so they won't tell you whether a particular subscriber is still engaged. If you want that, you need a login or per-reader links.
Paid digital subscriptions from January
If you sell auto-renewing digital subscriptions to consumers, the new subscription rules are due to apply to contracts made from 1 January 2027, subject to Parliament approving the regulations. The draft guidance has specific points about digital content. For example, a reader can only lose their initial cooling-off right once access starts if they expressly asked for it to start straight away and acknowledged that. Our guide to the subscription rules goes through it. Business-to-business subscriptions are out of scope.
Where we fit in
Our digital editions service builds editions from your print PDFs with FlippingBook, hosts them, and, if we run your subscriptions, logs each send against the reader's record. In Avio, our subscription platform for larger publishers, print and digital schedules run from the same subscriber record with separate print and digital gone-away flags, and IP-based access for organisations can be checked by your paywall. In Adeptis, our all-in-one platform for smaller publishers, each subscription is set as print or digital and sits on the same contact as any controlled circulation request.
If you're setting up a digital edition, or untangling one, get in touch.
Rob Sherwood is Managing Director of Adept Data Services. He has spent his career in subscriptions and circulation, at WDIS, Optima and CDS Global before founding Adept.