Web Analytics for Content Publishers
What interests your readers?
For content publishers, the answer to that question often lies in your user data. But simply measuring how many people clicked on a piece of content can’t tell you the whole story. Understanding what your readers really like requires you to go deeper.
Statistics like time on page, number of comments, and user actions (like shares or downloads) provide a more comprehensive understanding of your readers. While voice-of-customer data from sources like reviews, social media posts, and surveys tell you even more (for more on this subject check out this article).
Google Analytics (GA) does a fantastic job of digging into the statistics part of the picture, and with additional applications like User Report or Medallia you can also include customer voice.
If you want a crystal-clear picture of reader interest, that may be difficult to accomplish with GA alone, you may need a data analytics platform that’s designed specifically for content publishers: Enter Chartbeat.
The Basics
Chartbeat provides real-time analytics to Websites and blogs, and shows visitors, load times, and referring sites on a minute-by-minute basis. This analytics tool also shows data like device type (desktop or mobile), top pages, social media links and mentions. (Weber, n.d.).
The tool combines the web traffic data with audience-behavior data so digital content publishers can better understand what content gets the most hits and how users engage with it (Angeles, 2014).
The Charbeat analytics platform is a paid service, there’s a minimum subscription cost and elements like record migration, customization, and in-person training are add-ons, this article from ITQlick has a good cost breakdown. The platform provides users with an analytics dashboard, optimization tools, and reporting. They also offer add-ons like a mobile application, rolled up data for displaying in command centers (called Big Board), Slack integration, API’s, and consulting (Even More, n.d.).
 |
| Images via Chartbeat |
Chartbeat also offers user support, onsite training, social media support, and other tools to get users with a less technical background set up, while a quick-start guide, FAQ, and self-serve product support pages are also available for self-service (Angeles).
From Data to Action
As mentioned, the real challenge with data isn’t availability, it’s using it to take action. Now, Google Analytics does help with much of this need, especially the Google Data Studio application and newly added AI functions in Google Analytics that generate insights, like trends of page views by page like in the following report:
But Google Analytics isn't a tool that's more narrowly focused on reporting about content. Chartbeat, offers insights similar to Google Analytics, however its reports are tailored to content needs.
In terms of direct comparison between Google Analytics Chartbeat was specifically designed for publishing, while GA is an application developed for general use (Consroe, n.d.). This hints at GA's strength, it can be used for any site, but that also makes it less of a precision tool for content publishers.
Chartbeat's reporting, dashboards, and other tools are aimed at helping publishers understand and optimize their content workflow, and it's focused on delivering that understanding in real-time. While Google Analytics is delivering real-time data as well, it's focused more on click-based events, not how users are moving around the pixels on your page (Consroe).
Finally, Chartbeat provides users with metrics focused on content quality and how much time people spend reading content. Google Analytics does provide session duration and page view duration, but it doesn't pre-package reports to match up all of your content engagement metrics for robust user understanding (Consroe).
Chartbeat Features
Let's run-down some of the key features of this software.
One feature that’s of high value to publishers is audience metrics tracking. With Chartbeat, content publishers can better understand audience behavior before, during, and after site visits (Angeles).
Audience measures include:
- Recirculation: Shows you the percentage of visitors who read more than one article in a single visit.
- Engaged time: Provides the end-to-end duration of visitors reading, commenting on and simply viewing your articles.
- Visitor frequency: Helps you understand how many new, repeat, and loyal audience members you really have.
Understanding your different audience segments, like new or repeat users is great for learning what’s drawing readers in...and then delivering content that draws them back. Chartbeat pairs audience measures with content metrics like:
- Acquisition: Learn about which content brings in the most new viewers
- Retention: Discover what brings readers back once, and what’s brought someone back again and again.
- Top pages: The content types and topics that have the highest draw.
- High-converting referrers: Which sources bring in the most users that convert (subscriptions, downloads, or contact inquiries) (Angeles)
- Play rate: Which videos are getting played and how often.
- Length of views: How long are users watching videos and at what point do they drop off? Can help you determine changes in length, pacing, and story structure.
- Video Comparison: How different videos stack up against one another, so you can compare which content’s a hit, which ones a miss, and how to plan upcoming content appropriately.
The Real Time dashboard displays content interactions as they occur. This dashboard gives you the option to create filters like traffic source, referrer, location, and author (A Window, n.d.). The real-time view can tell you that a particular piece of content is generating more attention, and that it deserves further promotion. Just the same, it could tell you that what you’re promoting is missing the mark and it’s time to bump it out of the spotlight.
The Historical dashboard gives you longer view of your content’s performance. This dashboard allows you to evaluate your content over time and see how it stacks up against your goals or KPI’s (A Window). With this view any relevant filter can be applied, like time, author, topic, or date. It can also be segmented by engagement factors like time on sites and articles, total engaged minutes and total pageviews. The Historical dashboard also offers artificial intelligence enabled insights so you can easily spot significant trends or milestones (A Window).
The Video dashboard helps you dive into this critically important content media. With this dashboard you can evaluate video story resonance and better understand what your audience likes (A Window). Available metrics include ad-dropoff, play rate, total time viewed, and more. The video dashboard integrates with the real-time dashboard so you can get a sense of where video fits in with your larger content strategy. The value here is that this dashboard can give you visibility into both content engagement and advertising effectiveness, which impacts both loyalty and your bottom line revenue/expense.
Chartbeat also offers personalized dashboards and queries. These features allow additional segmenting so writers, video producers, editors, and administrators can track content, social media activity, traffic, and all the KPI’s that matter. (Angeles)
The Bottom Line
Both Google Analytics and Chartbeat offer rich data and insights for digital content publishers. But, if you want a clearer picture of reader interest and reporting tailored to publishing, then Chartbeat is a solid option. Competing products like Hootsuite and Hubspot should be evaluated before making your final call.
Chartbeat is a solid player for evaluating content engagement, social sentiment, and website performance. These features alone make it a strong candidate for any publisher's needs. With real-time reporting, the application can help you track how many people are on your web properties at any given time and it can also tell you how they got there. While additional real-time features help you monitor real-time spikes in traffic, and alert you if site issues occur, like server outages.
Reporting and dashboards are readily available so team members at all levels can easily understand where things are going well...and not-so-well too. While historical reporting allows you to evaluate longer term trends.
Costs for the product vary, so take careful consideration about whether the ease-of-use is worth it for smaller content publishers. Like most software investments, it's all about making life easier. If the cost pencils then Chartbeat might be a good choice to help you truly understand your audience.
References
A Window Into Your Audience. (n.d.). [webpage]. Retrieved on November 11, 2018 from https://chartbeat.com/products/dashboards/
Angeles, S. (2014, March 19). 3 Google Analytics alternatives (and why you should use them). Business News Daily. Retrieved on November 10, 2018 from https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6090-google-analytics-alternatives.html
Consroe, C. (n.d.). How Chartbeat is different from traditional analytics platforms. Chartebeat. [blog]. Retrieved on November 10, 2018 from http://blog.chartbeat.com/2016/02/05/chartbeat-differentiators/
Even More. (n.d.). [webpage]. Retrieved on November 10, 2018 from https://chartbeat.com/products/add-ons/
Weber, I. (n.d.) 7 great Google Analytics alternatives. Mention.com. [blog]. Retrieved on November 10, 2018 from https://mention.com/blog/google-analytics-alternatives/
Comments