Summary: Watch changes in engagement and take appropriate actions. When engagement declines, send an email or so something to get them back. When engagement increases, find out what you’re doing right, or get a testimonial! I thought I had coined a new phrase in the May issue of The Krehbiel Letter, which is available online … Read more
Summary: This article explains why third-party cookies matter, what their loss will mean for internet marketing, and what companies should do now. How do you know which part of your marketing is helping you? That’s an old problem, and over the years people have tried various methods for solving it. Let’s say you publish “Carrot … Read more
Summary: This article emphasizes the importance of curation in creating a good product. It’s up to content creators to sift through the noise and present the most valuable and relevant content to their audience. The author encourages publishers to actively seek and incorporate granular, detailed customer feedback to improve their product. My friend Charles Benaiah … Read more
Summary: Content consumption is broader than just web pages. Find ways to compete profitably in other mediums. The world of content consumption is much bigger than web pages, but some publishers seem to be stuck on the webpage. There’s a new type of dinosaur in the publishing world. The old dinosaur was the publisher who … Read more
Summary: The article discusses the importance of granular data analysis over aggregated data in various contexts. This idea extends to different scenarios like social media, television viewership, and book readership. The author emphasizes the value of detailed feedback, such as pinpointing a specific social media post causing unfollows or identifying the exact moment viewers stop … Read more
Summary: The article discusses the importance of questioning assumptions about data to ensure accurate interpretation. A conversation with data expert Michelle Drewek highlights key observations. Firstly, the shift from “average time on page” to “average session duration” led to better content decisions. Secondly, eliminating anomalies from page views and considering context aids accurate analysis. Lastly, … Read more
Summary: Relying solely on analytics without customer feedback can lead to misconceptions. This article outlines situations where data can mislead without contextual understanding, highlighting the importance of validating assumptions with real customer experiences. Are you sure your analytics mean what you think they mean? I saw a post on LinkedIn the other day asking why … Read more
Most website owners worry about engagement, which they should do, because if people aren’t engaged with your site, they won’t do the things that you really want them to do. More on that in a bit, but first, let’s say you wanted to find the most engaged users on your website. How would you do … Read more
You probably spend a lot of effort to get new email addresses on file, because email is still a fantastic tool for keeping in touch with your audience. But how much effort – and money – is justified? To know this, you have to calculate the value of a new email address. To do this, … Read more
Have you heard of “intent-based marketing”? According to an article by Sara Fischer, It’s Dotdash Meredith’s response to the alleged death of the 3rd party cookie. To understand how this works, let’s start with how things used to work. You visit a website, say 123.com, and 123.com participates in an ad network, called ads4everybody.com. If … Read more
Summary: Measurement is often a prerequisite to growth, but it can also lead you astray. “What gets measured gets done” is a useful saying in many ways. Measuring something requires attention. Measuring allows you to track improvement. An impending measurement motivates action. However, a bias towards measurable things might lead us to abandon worthwhile things … Read more
This weekend I was backpacking on the Appalachian Trail with some friends, and — inevitably — while working my way up a rocky path I wondered, “Do I really enjoy this?” I keep going back, so I guess I do. The same applies to your customers. Don’t rely exclusively on what people say they like. … Read more
As you probably know, GA Universal Analytics will stop collecting data on July 1, 2023. If you want to continue using GA, you’ll need to switch to GA4. You’ll have access to historical data in Universal Analytics for 6 months, then it will be gone. You might want to schedule some downloads. You might not … Read more
Takeaway: It doesn’t matter what “audiences” want. It matters what your audience wants. Publishers should be wary of trend analysis that doesn’t take demographics into account because it can lead to a skewed understanding of the audience and their preferences. For example, Booktok might seem like a great way to get “crowdsourced” information about what … Read more
A recent Bo Sacks post included this interesting paragraph. “Norwegian publisher Amedia reaches 2.4M readers daily across all platforms. It uses a machine learning algorithm to identify characteristics of user behavior that indicate happy and satisfied customers. The algorithm analyzes up to 70 reader behavior statistics and boils it down to a single number called … Read more