6.10 Dripping and Expiring Protected Content

Dripping content is the process of releasing your protected content to your users in batches, or at different times, compared to all at once.

Expiring content is the process of expiring access to protected content so that even paying subscribers can no longer see it. 

MemberPress' rules allow you to drip and expire content with this simple feature found in each of your rules:

Note: these two features are independent, meaning you don't have to use one in order to use the other.

Important Note: If you would like to drip and/or expire content to a membership(s) on your site with a rule that has a drip and/or expiration feature as outlined below AND have the content available to another membership(s) immediately (no drip) and/or never expire (no expiration), then simply create another rule for that same content for the other membership(s) and make sure it has no drip and/or expiration feature to it.

Using the Drip Feature

Dripping Whole Pages, Posts, etc.

The MemberPress Drip feature can be applied to any rule that you have, meaning that you can drip anything that can be protected by a  MemberPress rule.

Here are the basic steps to set up a drip feature on a rule:

1. Navigate to your WordPress Dashboard > MemberPress > Rules.
2. Click an existing rule to edit it, or simply click the 'Add New' button to create a new rule.
3. On the rule's edit page, scroll down until you see the section 'Drip / Expiration'.
4. Click the checkbox next to 'Enable Drip'.
5. Set the Drip trigger.

Here is an outline of the Drip trigger options, from left to right:

• First Drop Down - here, enter any whole number that corresponds with the second dropdown.
• Second Drop Down - here, select either day(s), week(s), month(s), or year(s).
• Third Drop Down - here, you will select after what event the drip be triggered. Your options are: 
  • member registers - meaning when the member registers on your site for the first time, regardless of membership.
  • fixed date - meaning after the date you set with the additional box to the right of this drop-down when selected.
  • member purchases any product from this rule - meaning after a user purchases any membership selected in the 'Rule Options' for this rule. 
  • member purchases [membership-name-here] - meaning after a user purchases this particular membership. A separate option will be created for every published membership on your site.

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Sequence Dripping

MemberPress does not currently have a feature that allows you to set one rule or one drip setting, that will control more than one piece of content at a time. 

This is because, each unique drip feature, must be apart of a unique rule. 

So, for example, if you have two protected pages on your site, and you want page 1 to be dripped two weeks after a membership is purchased, and page 2 to be dripped three weeks after the same membership is purchased, you will need two separate rules to do that. 

Finally, if you want to create a page, that will provide dripped links to your dripped content, please see the following subsection.

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Dripping Partial content

On your site, you may want to drip certain sections of a page, post, or custom post type. This done by simply creating a partial content rule in MemberPress that has a drip feature. 

Remember, MemberPress' rules allow you to set up only one unique drip feature per-rule. So, for each unique dripping trigger, you will need to create a unique and separate partial content rule. 

Using a partial content rule to drip

After you have created the partial content rule and set your desired drip trigger, you can use our simple shortcodes to wrap the content you would like to drip. Our shortcodes to accomplish this can be revealed by clicking the 'Partial Content Codes' button on the rule's edit page:

MemberPress also makes it easy for you to add a custom message in place of the hidden content if you would like to do that. You will just need to use our [mepr-active] shortcodes as outlined  here. Here is a simple example of the shortcode in action:

Shortcode used: 

[mepr-active rule="123" ifallowed="show" unauth="message" unauth_message="Only paying subscribers to our Gold Membership have access to this document after the first week of their subscription. Please return after having your subscription for a week or <a href='https://mytestsite.com/register/gold'>purchase that membership</a> to view."]Check out our Gold level documents here![/mepr-active]

Shortcode on the page:

Custom unauthorized message on the page:

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Dripping menu items

If you would like to drip your menu items, then simply create a rule with a drip feature and then follow the instructions found in the second video on this page.

Please note in following those instructions, that if your menu item is linking to a specific page, post, etc. that is being protected by a MemberPress rule, you should use that rule's custom ID. Otherwise, you should use a partial content rule that has the desired drip trigger. 

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Notifying Users of Dripped Content

MemberPress does not currently have an email feature that will trigger an email to be sent to the user at the same time dripped content become available. 

However, many of our email marketing add-ons do allow for what we will call an Automation Workflow. If you are wondering if your selected email marketing add-on supports this type of feature, please contact their support directly. 

For example, MailChimp allows you to set up what they call an  Automation or also an Automation Workflow. With a MailChimp Automation, you can set the first trigger to be when the user signs up, or when they are added to your list (please contact MailChimp support directly if you need help doing this). 

With our MailChimp integration, MemberPress can add the user to the list when they subscribe to a specific membership or any on your site. 

Thus, you can have emails sent to users when dripped content is dripped. Simply be sure to have our MailChimp integration properly setup, your Automation Workflow created in MailChimp for your linked list in MemberPress, and your drip triggers added to your rules.

So to review, simply set up the Automation Workflow to correspond with your drip trigger in MemberPress. If you have a MemberPress drip trigger to drip content one week after a user subscribes to membership on your site, you will also want MailChimp to trigger an email one week after the user signups to your list (again, this will be done based on your  MailChimp integration setup).

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Adjusting a Users Drip Position

From time-to-time, you may need to put a user further ahead in the drip sequence than they are currently at.

Drips are handled differently based on what triggers you use.

Fixed Date

If you've set your Drips to be based off of a fixed date, then it will not be possible to fast-forward a user in the drips.

After Member Registers

If you drip based on the user's registration date (for the website, not any specific membership). Then the only way to fast-forward them in a drip is to modify their WordPress user_registered value in the wp_users database table. Or use a plugin like this to alter it.

After Member purchases "Membership"
or
After Member purchases any product for this rule

If you're dripping based off of the date the user signed up for a Membership. Then in most cases, you can fast-forward that user's drip status by modifying the "created at" date on their first transaction for that Membership.

Note: The only time editing the created_at date doesn't work, is if the user had a free trial period before their recurring payments began.

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Using the Expiration Feature

If you would like to expire access to content on your site (like for a limited time offer) you can use your rule's expiration feature. Please note that the expiration applies your paid subscribers. So, if your rule reaches it's expiration date, then the content associated with that rule will not be available to the users of the membership(s) connected to the rule. 

Now, because the way you use an expiration feature and it's settings are the same as a drip feature, we will avoid being redundant here and ask that you please see the sections above for the drip feature to use your expiration feature. : )

For example, if you want to expire partial content on your site, you will set the expiration feature and do the same items explained in the " Using a partial content rule to drip" subsection above.