With the social, mobile age finally underway, content media consumption habits have evolved, and publishers are challenged to identify the central KPI most worthy of their attention. What's that one content performance metric that they should constantly measure and strive for? What's the one metric that unlocks insights into correct editorial and business decisions at media companies?
In an era where everything is measurable, publishers split their attention across multiple measurement platforms - big data business intelligence tools, Facebook Insights, Google Analytics, content amplification ad reports, DoubleClick for Publishers and more - to try and keep an eye on what's going on without getting overwhelmed. We have the ability to measure pretty much everything we can think of, and we have more data at our fingertips than we know what to do with. How, then, should content media professionals use all of these metrics to actually learn actionable, valuable lessons - both from a business perspective and an editorial/UX perspective? What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) that accurately point to real success?
Media Measurement Has Changed
Back when traditional media was the only game in town, primary metrics used by the industry were focused on audience size. If you were in print, you'd look at "circulation" figures, and if you were in broadcast, you'd look at "ratings." Then, when digital media first started to emerge as a market force, professionals focused on digital versions of the same things, expressing them as unique visitors, page views, ad impressions, per-page conversion revenue value and the like.
But with new models now in place for the way people discover and consume content, the KPIs we look at need to reflect these changes. Here are some examples of scenarios where over-reliance on outdated metrics can lead you to the wrong conclusions.
The Bounce Trap: If you focus too much on average pages per session or bounce rates, then you're basically negating the socially driven content discovery experience, which naturally leans towards less pages per session. When users see links in their social media newsfeeds, they may want to click through and check out the content that their peers posted, but once they've seen it, they usually immediately go back to scrolling through the newsfeed. This is why it's better to focus on daily, weekly and monthly pages per user, so you can see how many people came back for more over time, a far better indication that your site's content experience and branding resonates.
False Negatives in the App Funnel: Content websites often employ popups and banners that direct mobile visitors to download their native apps. So if your publication has an app suggestion funnel and your KPIs include time on page, pages per session, clicks per page, session duration and the like, then you're going to misidentify your successful conversions as failures. Many of the people who bounce out after a few seconds should actually be viewed as converters.
False Positives from Clickbait: If you're promoting your content on social media, using clickbait for your titles and promotional microcopy, then you might think you're you're increasing traction, while in reality you're only attracting an irrelevant, disengaged audience. Headlines touting free iPads or scantily-clad pop starlets may prompt people to click, but when they arrive on pages that disappoint, they'll bounce without reading, clicking or sharing, and they won't ever come back. In this case, an inflated number of visitors may create an impression of growth, but it won't properly reflect the level of actual usage and engagement.
Identifying the KPIs that Matter
Good KPIs serve as signposts correlating with actual success, and today, those are largely publication-specific. Be customer-centric, and keep your users' expectations in mind when deciding what to measure. Different metrics work best in different situations, with their different engagement scenarios.
To help you decide which metrics should apply to which situations, map out your top discovery touchpoints and ask yourself:
- How might my audience have found me? Social? My own app? How will these sessions appear in my tracking tools, and how does the experience of clicking from these referrers impact content consumption patterns?
- What is the ultimate result I'm looking to track? If it's engagement with audience growth potential, then I should look at shares. If it's engagement as an indication of brand equity growth, then I should look at comments, likes and attention minutes. If it's engagement with revenue potential, then I should look at clicks on call-to-action buttons, for example.
- How do I know they had a positive experience? Did they come back? Did I build any brand equity?
Benchmarking Success at My Company
Here at Playbuzz, about half of our traffic is referred from social channels, so we assume these users want to go back to their feeds. We feel good about 1.8 being our average pages per session for audience members referred by social. Specifically for quiz content, we look at start rates (the percentage of people who click on a page's "Let's Play" button), completion rate (the percentage of people who finish the quiz) and share rates as the KPIs most indicative of positive engagement. We also keep an eye on likes and comments (we use Facebook as our on-page commenting solution, so as to maximize the socially integrated experience).
Shares are the ultimate conversions here at Playbuzz. Social sharing is the key to referring likeminded users, and as a KPI, shares indicate that visitors have identified with a content experience so deeply that they want to tell the world that it's part of their identity.
Get Going with Metrics that Matter Now
When your KPIs are aligned with the specifics of your publication's content experience and business goals, you're able to actually use them to validate success. With so much being measured nowadays, and with so many changes to how audiences interact with pages, it's more important than ever to ensure that the metrics you track are actually effective as signposts pointing to insights.