Artbeats: Subscription-based Web Application for Digital Media 

The Overall Problem

Artbeats built a great reputation in their industry for creating the highest quality video files, images, sound effects, and AfterEffects templates. As the industry evolved, Artbeats found that more and more of their customers were seeking lower cost digital media through subscription Websites where “good enough” content was available at a lower price point.

With a back catalog extending nearly 20 years, Artbeats created a plan to build a marketplace in which both their historical content, and the content of new digital artists, could be made available for sale in a single location. However, solving the technical and user challenges of working with large file formats, recurring charges, and a user self-service upload and download process was a large undertaking. Artbeats engaged GRAYBOX to help navigate these challenges and craft an elegant solution to meet their business needs.

Our Solution

1. Subscription Management, Recurring Billing, and Royalty Management

At the core of the Artbeats business model was a two-sided marketplace. Those who created content (Contributors) needed a mechanism to sell their content, and those that use content (Subscribers) needed an easy way to purchase the digital assets created by contributors. The solution to this need took two forms. For users not logged in on the site, all CTAs either subtly or overtly directed the user to an easy and streamlined subscription signup process. Flexibility was key, so users were offered multiple tiers of subscriptions, as well as the ability to “roll over” unused credits and move their subscription up or down on a month-to-month basis based on their content needs. The system automatically reconciled all new and modified subscriptions as transaction occurred, providing real-time stats on subscriber and revenue figures. In parallel, GRAYBOX built tools that tracked credit usage to be able to report on number of credits used, and the Contributor of the content that was downloaded. At the end of a period, automated reconciliation reports ran that tallied total active subscription revenue in the period, and total downloads per Contributor’s content library. Royalty payments were then calculated per-Contributor based on the proportion of downloads in that period attributed to their content. The system automated the reporting, calculation, and reconciliation process such that the Artbeats users could export the report with a single button to run all monthly check runs.

2. Media File Upload and Transcoding Application

Digital media is diverse, complex, and tend to be large files. The Artbeats catalog alone represented Terabytes of data, and the site allowed Contributors to add to this every day. To support the upload and file management, GRAYBOX built a custom solution partly in Ruby on Rails, and partly on Amazon AWS. Contributors were given two methods for uploads: Bulk upload and individual file uploads. The bulk uploads tool leveraged a mapped CSV spreadsheet in which users could download a template and populate the meta data for their files, then upload via drag-and-drop their many files to the site. The system matched CSV data to file names, and automated the process of tagging, categorizing, validating, and associating data and content to work within the site’s robust search tools. Contributors were additionally given an individual file upload tool with a metadata editing grid to manage the data for each file. GRAYBOX developers crafted an easy to use system that made category recommendations based on values provided by the Contributor, validated inputs, and provided an intuitive visual interface for managing data for both new and existing content on the site. The content upload process was a key success factor in the project, making it easy for Contributors to get their content into the site and start generating sale as quickly as possible.

3. Content Merchandising through Search, Recommendations, and Promotions

The Artbeats website launched with tens of thousands of available media files across five content types and dozens of categories. GRAYBOX collaborated closely with Artbeats to develop several tools to help users find and purchase content to increase the stickiness of subscriptions. First, GRAYBOX built a sophisticated search tool, leveraging SOLR and a tremendous amount of fine tuning of the search logic. Users could use expressions, modifiers, and easily add/remove facets from their search to get the right results. Second, the content upload process guided users to classify, categorize, and otherwise tag data according to standardized attributes. This was done in the UI by using picklists and making suggested values based on user input, and through the bulk import by providing clear instructions in the CSV template, and performing validation and real-time feedback to the user for values that weren’t going to be easy for Subscribers to find. Finally, GRAYBOX developed a flexible promotions tool for the application. The Artbeats team could setup promotions that incentivized new user signups, upgrading subscription plans, locking in to annual plans, and promoting content from new or popular Contributors. Promotional content seamlessly layered into the users’ content libraries, and could be easily reviewed and digested by Subscribers.