How to Track Audience Engagement

With an abundance of content available these days, connecting with your audience or increasing your following can be harder than ever.  Keeping your audience interested and engaged is more of an art, however with the general list of data metrics below, you can gauge content interest.  With this world of distractions and endless choices, bringing people together and listening to them is pivotal to have your audience return. 

Enhancing audience engagement is important in building and growing your returning audience organically thru site article shares, social media shares and WOM.  Your returning users are more likely to trust a publisher’s brand. They return more often to the website, visit more pages during a session and are more inclined to sign up for an email newsletter and can lead to an increase in paid content conversions. 

When tracking engagement, it’s key to focus on metrics that indicate an active involvement by the user – not just page views or unique clicks.

Here’s what publishers should be focusing on when analyzing audience engagement:

Average Number of Pages Per Session

The more pages a user visits during a session, the higher the engagement level.

Average Session Duration

The longer an average session, the more a user is engaged, as he or she is choosing to spend more time on your website.

Bounce Rate

If the bounce rate is high, that means a large percentage of your visitors click off of your website instead of viewing other pages. So, a low bounce rate means higher engagement.

Returning Visitors vs. New Visitors

To enhance audience engagement, a higher percentage of returning visitors is important. This means that new visitors are being converted into returning visitors, increasing your loyal readership.

Shares from Article Pages

Article shares indicate that a visitor is actually on one of your pages and has shared that story to their network. This implies that the visitor is actively involved in your content and has chosen to promote it on their own. 

The list of metrics listed above should be used to quantify audience engagement.  Reviewing the data on a monthly or quarterly basis will show areas of excellence and areas needing of improvement.  Like any business, your website needs to be analyzed and improved for reader satisfaction and audience growth.  Staying relevant to your audience is not just fundamental, but a publisher’s labor of love.

GLM Communications is your media solutions partner.

GLM is a media services firm that provides advertising sales, event sponsorship, custom publishing solutions and related services. We act as an extension of our clients to meet and exceed goals and bring new opportunities to life. Since 1980, client satisfaction has been our only priority.