Publisher Analytics: Metrics & Actionable Insights

What is publisher analytics data?

Put simply, publisher analytics data allows you to measure the success of your content goals. It enables you to monitor your best (and worst!) performing pieces of content so that you can better understand what digital media resonates with your audience to improve and/or scale your content strategy.

How to measure content performance to gather audience insights

Although content strategies vary between industries and digital platforms, there are common key metrics that publishers track. The most important data to measure is content traffic, also known as page views, which refers to how many people are viewing your site and the pages within it. Ideally, you want to increase your page views over time.

When you analyze traffic data, you’ll gather important insights about your audience, such as: 

1. What your audience is interested in: Are you creating content that matters to or solves a problem for your audience? Are there specific topics that drive more traffic you can replicate? Can you create fewer low-performing posts?
2. Who you are targeting: What’s the age range and geographic location of your audience? How many people return to your site for content vs. how many are new users? Are you increasing your brand awareness?
3. How people find you: Is your audience finding you organically by searching keywords in Google or through advertisements? What type of device are they using when viewing your content? What time of day are they on your website?

This type of information is key to creating actionable insights so you can adjust your strategy. As you gather data, you can craft tailored content that targets your ideal audience.

Analyzing audience engagement

Once you’ve funneled page views to your content, analyze search volume even further. You can use an analytics tool like Google Analytics to view important engagement metrics like impressions, click-through rate (CTR), time on page, bounce rates, conversion rates, and new vs. returning visitors–all of which provide insight into how your viewers engage with your content.

Although tracking metrics is top-of-mind during content and advertising campaigns, reviewing publisher data daily will help you keep a finger on the pulse of your audience.

Likes, comments, and shares

An easy way to see whether your audience is engaged with your content is by reviewing your likes, comments, and shares on your site and on social media. Comments can be especially helpful, as audiences can often be direct in their feedback.

Time-on-page, scroll depth, and bounce rates

Measure this data to see how long someone stays on your page for and how far down they read. If they click on a page and immediately leave, then your content wasn’t what they were looking for. If, however, they scroll through the entire page and read it thoroughly, your content better matches search intent and is organized and engaging.

Call to Action (CTAs) click rates

Most good digital publishers know you must have CTA buttons throughout your content, but not everyone measures how successful they are. CTAs can range from asking your audience to sign up for a newsletter, download additional content, and even register for product trial demos. 

The number of CTAs within a page, their placement, and their copy significantly impact their success rate. You can experiment with your CTAs and track click-through rates to optimize their success and drive audience engagement.

Generating conversions and revenue with publishing data

Although attracting readers onto your digital publishing platform is the first and most important step, you’ll need to use your audience data to understand how they convert into long-time, returning readers and continued revenue. Here are some critical data points to track your conversion rates.

Impressions and CTR

Impressions refer to the number of times your content was displayed, regardless of whether it was clicked. CTR, however, is the ratio between those who saw your content displayed and those who clicked it, and this can show whether your content is appealing enough to those who see it. In ad campaigns, CTR will reveal which ads–from a subject matter, messaging, and placement perspective–are most appealing to your audience.

Conversion rates

Similar to CTR and CTA click rates, conversion rates show whether someone was interested in signing up for something, like a subscription, product demo, or transaction. Having a higher conversion rate means that your content is effective and more likely to generate revenue.

Revenue per conversion

You also need to measure which type of conversions lead to revenue. For example, is there a CTA, publication, or audience segment that converts at a higher rate? Understanding where your traffic comes from and what drives higher revenue means you can create a similar piece of content or user experience that leads to a recurring audience.

Defining publisher analytics for better insights

In today’s digital world, it’s more important than ever to develop a content user experience that’s tailored to your audience and to provide easy access to quality content through platforms like Invisibly.

To accomplish this, you must track these key publisher metrics that help you better understand your audience and their intent, produce high-quality content, measure its success, and create actionable insights that ultimately inform your content strategy. 

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