The real cost of siloed subscription, content, and commerce systems
JUL. 21, 2025
6 Min Read
Audiences can tell when media companies treat them like faceless account numbers, and they’re tuning out.
A recent study found that while most customers want tailored experiences, only 18% feel media and entertainment brands meet their personalization expectations. This shortfall isn’t due to a lack of content or creativity; it often stems from how companies manage their technology. When subscription, content, and commerce systems remain siloed, even the most creative teams lose sight of the individual behind each screen.
Media audiences now hop between streaming apps, content hubs, and online stores seamlessly. They expect a cohesive journey, but many organizations still run each platform in isolation. Without a unified view of their audience, companies struggle to recommend the right show, offer a relevant subscription bundle, or suggest the perfect merchandise at the right time. The result is a disjointed customer experience that frustrates users, undermines loyalty, and ultimately cuts into subscriber lifetime value.
key-takeaways
- 1. Siloed systems keep audience data fragmented, leading to incomplete insights and poor internal coordination.
- 2. Fragmentation across platforms creates frustrating user experiences that break trust and increase churn.
- 3. Missed personalization is missed revenue—disconnected systems prevent timely and relevant offers.
- 4. A unified ecosystem enables targeted engagement, faster execution, and higher subscriber lifetime value.
- 5. Lumenalta helps media CIOs align systems and teams around a single audience profile for measurable growth.
Siloed systems hide the full picture of your audience
For all the advances in digital transformation in the media and entertainment industry, many organizations operate with a patchwork of separate platforms that don’t communicate. Critical audience insights stay locked in departmental silos: marketing might have e-commerce purchase data, the content team sees viewing habits, and the subscription system holds billing and profile info. No single system has the complete story. This means teams make decisions based on fragments of customer behavior, leading to campaigns and content strategies that miss the mark.
The cost of these silos is higher than most realize. Data trapped in disconnected systems leads to duplicate work, inconsistent metrics, and missed opportunities to personalize. A study estimates that data silos cost companies up to $15 million per year in lost productivity and inefficiency. Perhaps more importantly, without a single source of truth on each subscriber, you can’t fully understand what keeps your audience engaged or why they leave. In the end, a fragmented internal view inevitably results in a fragmented approach to the customer.
“When subscription, content, and commerce systems remain siloed, even the most creative teams lose sight of the individual behind each screen.”
Fragmented platforms create fractured customer experiences
From the viewer’s perspective, internal silos become painfully obvious in day-to-day interactions. A subscriber might wonder why their streaming app doesn’t recognize the shows they bought on the company’s online store, or why the news site recommends generic content instead of topics they love. Fragmentation across platforms leads to jarring experiences at every turn. Instead of a seamless journey, customers encounter friction and one-size-fits-all interactions.
- Multiple logins, one customer: Users often have to manage separate accounts or sign-ins on different channels, disrupting an otherwise smooth experience.
- Inconsistent recommendations: One platform suggests content with no awareness of what the user watched or read on another platform, resulting in irrelevant suggestions.
- Generic promotions: Email offers and ads remain broad and untargeted because marketing systems aren’t informed by a subscriber’s actual viewing or purchase history.
- Missed cross-sell moments: A fan’s interest in a series never translates into merchandise or bundle suggestions, since commerce data and content preferences live in different systems.
- Disjointed support: When customers seek help, support staff lack a unified view of the customer’s subscriptions, content usage, and purchases, so assistance feels impersonal.
All these friction points add up: viewers notice the inconsistency and start losing trust. Eighty-five percent of brands think they deliver personalized experiences, yet only 60% of consumers agree, a clear sign that customers feel these gaps. A fragmented experience makes it obvious the company doesn’t really know its audience, reducing the perceived value of the service. Over time, these frustrations push subscribers away. In other words, poor experiences caused by silos quickly translate to lost engagement and revenue as frustrated users churn or choose a competitor.
Lost personalization is lost revenue
Ultimately, failing to personalize customer experiences has a direct impact on the bottom line. When viewers don’t feel catered to, they disengage faster and spend less, shrinking the customer lifetime value that media companies depend on. This connection between personalization and revenue is impossible to ignore.
Higher churn and lower loyalty
Churn is a constant threat in subscription-based media. Customers have endless entertainment options, and if nothing feels specifically relevant to them, they won’t stick around. At a 5% monthly churn rate, a service would lose roughly half its subscriber base in a year, a costly drain on recurring revenue. Much of that churn comes from disengagement: users who don’t find anything compelling to keep them coming back. In contrast, providers known for tailoring content to individual tastes see significantly better retention. For example, Netflix’s deep personalization strategy helps it achieve about 2% monthly churn, far better than the ~7% industry average. Fewer people leave when each user feels the service is built for them, directly preserving revenue that would otherwise be lost.
Missed opportunities for growth
Silos don’t just affect retention; they also cap your ability to grow each customer’s value. Without integrated data, teams miss countless chances to upsell and cross-sell. Personalized offers drive purchases: one survey found 80% of consumers are more likely to buy from brands that offer personalized experiences. That means if you treat every subscriber the same, you’re leaving money on the table. Maybe a viewer would pay for a premium package if shown relevant content they’re missing, or they’d buy merchandise if it tied into their favorite show. Those incremental revenues evaporate when systems aren’t sharing insights. Media firms that have invested in personalization programs have seen customer lifetime value and revenue exceed expectations by as much as 72%. The message is clear: delivering a cohesive, personal experience isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s directly tied to monetization and growth.
"When viewers don’t feel catered to, they disengage faster and spend less, shrinking the customer lifetime value that media companies depend on. "
One connected ecosystem turns engagement into growth with Lumenalta
For media providers who have felt the pain of siloed experiences and lost revenue, a connected ecosystem offers a clear path forward. Lumenalta helps by uniting content, subscription, and commerce platforms into one seamless system built around a single audience profile. With every customer interaction feeding into the same hub, teams can finally deliver the targeted recommendations, personalized bundles, and contextual offers that resonate with each viewer. The audience feels recognized at every touchpoint, staying engaged and loyal instead of drifting away.
Internally, this unified approach eliminates duplicate effort and gives leaders a real-time, 360-degree view of audience behavior. Instead of assembling reports from separate systems, CIOs gain immediate insights from one source of truth, resulting in faster, more confident decisions. Aligned data and processes also let teams roll out new content or offers quickly, making IT an accelerator of innovation rather than a bottleneck. This approach reduces complexity and cost while unlocking untapped opportunities to boost subscriber lifetime value and long-term growth. These outcomes are exactly what successful digital transformation in media and entertainment is meant to achieve.
Common questions about digital transformation in media
How can I tell if my media tech stack is too disconnected?
What’s the impact of disconnected systems on personalization in media?
How do silos affect content recommendations and monetization?
How can I increase subscriber lifetime value through system integration?
What role does Lumenalta play in digital transformation in media and entertainment?
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