Recently, our team hosted a webinar exploring exactly that: what's working with Web of Science Author Connect, how our partners are using it in the field, and what the data is telling us heading into the second half of 2026.
The session featured a customer spotlight from Ivana Laslofi of Paradigm (a division of De Gruyter Brill), alongside strategic guidance from the WOSAC team on campaign optimization, promotional recommendations around the upcoming Journal Impact Factor release and other metrics, and campaign analytics. Read a recap or watch the recording below.
What Author Connect Is — and Why It Works
Author Connect is built on three pillars: targeted reach, campaign execution, and measurable impact. The service uses Web of Science data to create lists that are highly customized with extensive filters options such as publishing activity, citation patterns, and subject area to target Web of Science-indexed researchers, making it one of the most trusted and rigorously curated research datasets available.The targeting capabilities go well beyond basic list purchasing. Publishers can build audiences around whether researchers have published open access before, whether they publish in journals within a specific Journal Citation Report (JCR) quartile, or whether they publish in journals that cite yours (one of the most powerful filters available). That citation relationship is one of the strongest predictors of fit, connecting publishers with researchers already part of their scholarly conversation. Everything ultimately serves multiple outcomes, including driving submissions, increasing visibility, and strengthening engagement with the author community.
Customer Spotlight: Paradigm's Experience
Ivana Laslofi of Paradigm shared how the organization has integrated Author Connect across a diverse portfolio of society and association titles. As a publishing services provider rather than a traditional publisher, Paradigm's challenge is delivering consistent marketing impact across journals with varying scopes and geographic footprints.Their targeting approach combines disciplinary filtering with keyword selection and country targeting based on each journal's scope, including researchers aligned with a journal's aims, authors with a history of open access publishing, and authors publishing in journals within the same JCR quartile. Recent campaigns have delivered strong results: a call for papers for the Central European Journal of Public Policy achieved unique open rates above 40% and click rates around 10%, well above both industry benchmarks and Paradigm's own prior performance.
A highlight from the session was Paradigm's first use of citation notice campaigns through Author Connect in 2026, having previously managed these in-house. The shift generated open rates above 36% and significantly higher click rates than their internal benchmarks, which Ivana attributed to the dynamic, personalized structure of the campaign format and the quality of the underlying Web of Science data. Beyond the numbers, she emphasized the partnership itself: fast response times, proactive problem-solving, and a team genuinely invested in journal growth.
Preparing for the Journal Impact Factor Release
With the Journal Impact Factor release expected in late June, this window represents one of the highest-leverage moments of the year for author outreach. Authors are already paying attention to journal standing during this period, which means Impact Factor-related campaigns consistently see elevated open and click rates.What Makes Campaigns Perform
The Silverchair team also shared insights from years of experience into the levers that consistently move the needle across hundreds of campaigns.On the email itself: concise language and a clear call to action are essential, since authors are scanning rather than reading. Multiple CTAs placed at the top, middle, and bottom accommodate the range of how readers engage. Mobile-friendly design is critical as authors engage often on their mobile devices as well as via email. Name personalization consistently outperforms generic salutations, and the subject line carries the heaviest weight of all: phrases like "invitation to submit" generate strong open rates because they convey specificity and privilege. Leveraging editors and editorial board members, where they're willing, dramatically boosts engagement; an email that appears to come from a respected figure in the field will outperform institutional communication every time.
On targeting and distribution: sharing campaign goals early allows the team to shape audiences more precisely, whether the objective is driving submissions, reaching early-career researchers, or expanding into new geographic markets. Optimized send timing draws on network-wide volume that individual campaign data alone can't reliably establish; currently Monday leads for clicks and opens, with Wednesday and Thursday also performing well. And a single send is a first touch, not a campaign: re-blasts and social amplification through LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram consistently improve overall performance, with social exposure priming recipients to engage when the email arrives.
Performance Data and What It Shows
Shaina Kravitz, lead implementation consultant at Clarivate, shared 2025 full-file performance statistics: a unique click rate of 2.2%, unique open rates of 26.9%, and a click-to-open rate of 8.28%, all significantly above typical B2B email benchmarks. Citation notice and Impact Factor campaigns perform especially well, frequently exceeding 2–3% unique click rates on the network file.For publishers running multiple campaigns, an executive dashboard provides a consolidated view filterable by journal, promotion type, and JCR category, useful both for optimizing strategy and for making the case internally at budget time. The team is available to provide side-by-side comparisons of your individual campaign performance against network benchmarks on request.
Moving Forward
The through-line of the session was the power of combining high-quality data, thoughtful execution, and genuine partnership. For publishers planning the second half of 2026, the Journal Impact Factor window is approaching quickly and the Q2 promotion offers a concrete way to capture it while managing budget. Multi-touch campaigns consistently outperform single sends, and the sooner campaign goals are shared with the account management team, the more precisely the audience can be shaped to meet them.To explore how Author Connect can support your journal portfolio, reach out to your account manager or contact us at wosac@silverchair.com.