Using Metrics to UnderstandNews Audiences

O li N A i tiOnline News AssociationOctober 2010

#ONA10 @danachinn

Dana Chinn

• Actions channels that indicate Actions, channels that indicate engagement

• Key indicators– Site, mobile or otherwiseSite, mobile or otherwise– Social media

Slides: www.slideshare.net/danachinnTwitter: #ONA10

@danachinn

Engagement: Want it, need it

Advertisers can reach audiences directly, but they need…

…additional channels to reach other, specific audiencesdata that shows a targeted audience is part of a

”..the true value of a network is measured by the frequency of engagement of the participants ”

…data that shows a targeted audience is part of a community in which relevant advertisers belong, too

IAB site ad, 10/10

participants.” -- IAB Social Media Ad Metrics Definitions, 5/09

Paid content:Paid content:What’s it going to take?

Unique content di daudiences need

Element X!

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What verbs indicate engagement? actions

Vi it l l Visit

R d/ i l

, regularly

Read/view content, a lot

Interact oftenInteract, often-- rate, print, vote, take a poll, click on an ad-- share, e-mail, comment, contribute

4

What needs to be measured: All ways a person can engage with you*y p g g y

* not “all the places you put content and hope everyone will come”

Computerp

1SEARCH

SITESHome

Work

Public

1

SOCIAL MEDIAMobile devicesWAP/mobile web

5 - 7Apps

24

3 5 - 7

5

Tablet4

Audiences, actions, metrics differ by channelAudiences, actions, metrics differ by channel

SITES SOCIAL MEDIA

Totals*

1. Who? How many?In target audience?

2 N f i i ?

? ? ? ? ? ? ?

3. What did they see?

2. No. of visits? How often? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

? ? ? ? ? ? ?Did they get want they wanted?

4. Did they interact?

? ? ? ? ? ? ?

? ? ? ? ? ? ?

6

yWhat did they do?How much?

? ? ? ? ? ? ?

* Different metrics, methodologies for each channel!

Counts only indicate a person was there t l t ( d b l )at least once (and maybe only once)

Our site has 5,000 monthly unique visitors.

Last Tuesday that story got 20,000 page views.y y g , p g

The average time spent on our site last week was 24 minutes.

Our iPhone app was downloaded 10,000 times.

We have 2,000 fans on our Facebook page.

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We have 5,000 Twitter followers.

An upside to pay walls! Understanding, serving audiences and g, g

advertisers better in all channels

Capture as much info as you can in registrationWho they are, where they liveWhat they’re interested in based on your unique content

(don’t assume interests from demographics, residency)

Explain why you need their info

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Key Performance Indicator #1: VisitsKey Performance Indicator #1: Visits

A visit is counted i every time

someone comes to a site

An increase in visits? Always good.A decrease in visits? Always bad.

Vi it f i itVisits from new visitors

Visits from returning visitorsvs.

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How often are they visiting?y gWhat, how much are they seeing?

Key Performance Indicator #2Visits per unique visitor

y

Page views per visitKey Performance Indicator #3Page views per visit

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Wh di d t i When audiences - new and returning -come, are they staying?

Bounce rate percentof the landing page

Key Performance Indicator #5

of the landing pagewhere most visits start

“I came. I saw. I puked.”-- Avinash Kashik on bounce rate

11A bounce: a visit with only one page view

Metrics needed for hyper-local, paying di d tiaudiences, advertisers

KPI #6Percent of content, visits to each specific nichePercent of content, visits to each specific niche

KPI #7T d i

By topic AND geography, e.g.,

Terms used in internal search engines – most, fewest, zero results Your site, as seen

by a user

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y p g g p y, g ,editorials about Westside education

, y

WHY?…aren’t current audiences visiting and engaging with you more?

Get as much info as you can from every action taken on your siteGet as much info as you can from every action taken on your site

An anonymous rating is the lowest level indicator of engagement

“What was the purpose of your visit today? Did you find what you wanted?”

Consider site surveys, but treat them like focus groups

Usability studies

…aren’t new audiences visiting? ?

Old-fashioned but highly

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customized, focused surveys are the only way to get data for crucial strategic decisions

Interactivity is essential f i i t ffi t itfor increasing traffic to your site

Facebook Insights – daily stats*

Nov. election

Facebook Insights – daily stats*

No of active usersKPIs:No. of active users

No. of likes

No. of commentsHigher educationg

Have different pages by topic to increase community, make analysis more insightful

Encourage lots of active users to avoid dominant

t t h i ht

14* Enter daily numbers in a spreadsheet for trending, rolling up into weekly/monthly totals

commentators who might constrict interaction

Measure influenceMeasure influence

-- Lists-- Lists-- Retweets-- Unique retweeters-- Unique mentioners-- Influenced by/influencer of

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Track tweets, retweets, traffic b t ifi /t iabout a specific page/topic

Advanced search by keyword, Twitter handle

KPI:No. of tweets, retweetsby page

Who retweeted, influencers

16Enter numbers in a spreadsheet for trending

Don’t settle for page views!Use the right metrics that will g

assess your full impact

1. Across all channels

2. By specific audience segment

3. By the small and large actions audiences took to indicate interaction, engagement, g g

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Dana Chinn

Spring 2011

LecturerUSC Annenberg School for Communications & Journalism

213-821-6259chinn@usc.edu

http://www.newsnumbers.comhttp://www.slideshare.net/danachinn

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