Audience KPIs for Public Media

January 2018

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Read the Current article

Download and print the 18x24 poster

Created by an analytics workgroup of public media organizations

APM/MPR�Greater Public�KCTS�KPBS�KPCC�KQED�NHPR�NPR

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WGBH�WHYY�WITF�WNYC��Facilitated by Mark Fuerst

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OPB�PBS�PRX�St Louis Public Radio�WAMU�WBEZ�WBUR

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Starting points

• As a system, we haven’t really defined what success is, especially for digital platforms
• Even though we share many common organizational goals, we don’t have a shared understanding of what metrics matter most in relation to those goals

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What we set out to do

Establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that…

• Reflect the most important shared goals of our organizations
• Are useful, intuitive, and actionable metrics that indicate progress to all parts of our organizations
• All organizations could adopt to encourage a common definition of success and more collaboration

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Why does this matter?

With a set of shared KPIs, we can...

• Better advance our collective mission as public media and measure our collective progress
• Better share best practices, tools, and techniques for making progress on goals (as well as for measurement and reporting)

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A framework for talking about our common audience goals

Grow audiences across platforms so we increase our reach in our markets, distribute our content more widely, and expand loyal audiences

Grow

Monetize

Know

Engage

Know our audiences so we can form and deepen individual relationships and encourage membership

Engage with our audiences so we encourage affinity, loyalty, membership, and advocacy

Monetize our audiences so we drive membership and other forms of revenue

Digital metrics that matter most for �each goal

The number of people who engage with our content

Grow

Monetize

Know

Engage

Emails/registrations

Time spent or occasions for the average person

New members and revenue

DIGITAL AUDIENCE KPIs

If you can’t get Users, �use Downloads instead

Download and print the 18x24 poster!

Website

Podcasts/�on-demand

App

Live streams

Video

Email

Social �media

3rd-party apps

DIGITAL AUDIENCE KPIs: Social media examples

Social media rule of thumb

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

YouTube

What these KPIs are...and aren’t

• A baseline recommendation, not a requirement — �use as you see fit
• The few most important metrics related to your high-level goals as an organization, not a comprehensive list of everything you should measure

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How you might use the KPIs

• Use this as a starting point to create your own version given your unique organization
• Create a weekly or monthly report or dashboard so everyone can see progress on these most important metrics and internalize the key goals behind them
• Set annual targets for the KPIs that reflect your current priorities

Recommended best practices

• Always try to compare apples to apples (e.g., don’t compare website users and podcast downloads)
• To calculate year-on-year growth, use the last 3 months compared to the previous year to minimize news volatility
• Never add up all your users across platforms — �you’ll be overcounting, because many people engage with you on multiple platforms

Appendix

The following slides provide additional details and advice on each of the KPIs

DIGITAL AUDIENCE KPIs: Website

Source: Google Analytics (or analytics.nprstations.org).

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Users: This standard measure of total reach is still important given our missions. Keep in mind it is likely overcounting, since Google Analytics will treat the same anonymous person visiting via laptop and phone as two users.

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Users with 3 or more sessions per month: This KPI measures how many people we’re reaching who are loyal visitors and more likely to become long-term relationships and donors. It encourages us to try to get users to come back more often. You’ll need to create a custom segment in Google Analytics to get this number, since it’s not a standard metric.

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Time per user: Google Analytics doesn’t measure time spent accurately, so don’t use it to measure time unless you’ve set up custom tracking. Instead, you’ll want to use Sessions per user as your Engage KPI. It measures how many times the average person is visiting your site each week or month and is a strong signal of loyalty.

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Do you have ecommerce tracking turned on in Google Analytics? Do so to learn more about how people who donate behave differently on your site—and perhaps how you can encourage more people to give.

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Additional useful website metrics: Users in your market, new users, users who listen, sessions, pageviews, audio plays, pages per user, bounce rate, and of course metrics by individual story!

Website

DIGITAL AUDIENCE KPIs: App

Source: Depends on your app. Some might use Google Analytics, others might get metrics from an app vendor.

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Users with 3 or more sessions per month: This KPI measures how many people we’re reaching who are loyal app users and more likely to become long-term relationships and donors. It encourages us to try to get users to come back more often. If you use Google Analytics for your app, you’ll need to create a custom segment to get this number, since it’s not a standard metric.

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Time per user: Google Analytics doesn’t measure time spent accurately, so don’t use it to measure time unless you’ve set up custom tracking. Instead, you’ll want to use Sessions per user as your Engage KPI. It measures how many times the average person is visiting your site each week or month and is a strong signal of loyalty.

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Additional useful app metrics: Downloads/installs, users in your market, new users, users who listen, sessions, screenviews, audio plays, screens per user, and of course metrics by individual story!

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App

DIGITAL AUDIENCE KPIs: Live streams

Source: Triton WebCast Metrics (ask NPR if you don’t have access).

Note: In Triton there’s always a reporting delay of at least a week.

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Check to see if your station uses Total Line Reporting with Nielsen. If you do, then your Nielsen numbers already include your streaming numbers, so you shouldn’t add them together.

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Cume is the number of unique listeners based on combination of IP address and user agent. They are counted only if they listen at least 1 minute. Keep in mind cume is often exaggerated because the same user can move between multiple IP addresses and thus get counted more than once.

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Time per user refers to the total time the average user spends listening to your stream(s) in a given week or month. It is not session length (ATSL in Triton). Triton doesn’t provide Time per user, but it’s easy to generate: TLH / Cume.

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Additional useful stream metrics: Session Starts, Total Listening Hours (TLH), sessions per user (SS / Cume), Average Time Spent Listening (ATSL).

Live streams

DIGITAL AUDIENCE KPIs: Podcasts/on-demand audio

Sources: analytics.nprstations.org or your audio hosting provider or Podtrac.

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Ask your provider if they follow the IAB podcast measurement guidelines version 2:

https://iabtechlab.com/specifications-guidelines/podcast-measurement-guidelines/

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Users for now refers to people who download a podcast or other audio file (based on log file data). Eventually, when there is comprehensive client-side measurement, we’ll want to shift to counting people who actually listen, not just download.

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Time per user refers to how many minutes of total podcasts or other audio that an average user downloaded in a given week or month.

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Additional useful podcast metrics: total hours downloaded, actual listeners from Apple Analytics, and of course metrics by individual show and episode!

Podcasts/�on-demand

DIGITAL AUDIENCE KPIs: Video

These KPIs refer to video on your own platforms (e.g., your site and app). For YouTube, see the Social Media section.

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Source: Depends on your implementation, possibly Google Analytics.

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We recommend counting a User or View only when at least 30 seconds of a video have been watched. (That’s the same threshold YouTube uses and Facebook provides this metric as well.)

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Time per user refers to how many minutes of total videos that an average user viewed in a given week or month.

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Additional useful video metrics: completed views and of course metrics by individual video!

Video

DIGITAL AUDIENCE KPIs: Email

Source: Depends on what you use for emails.

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Subscribers are the number of email addresses you send emails to.

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Opens per email is the number of times the average email is opened by all those who receive it.

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Unsubscribe rate is the number of unsubscribes divided by total subscribers in a given time period.

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These KPIs are related to membership and revenue you can attribute to an email touchpoint.

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Additional useful email metrics: new subscribers, open rate (opens / deliveries), click-through rate, and of course metrics by individual email!

Email

DIGITAL AUDIENCE KPIs: Facebook

Source: Facebook Insights. Go to Export Data for the most comprehensive metrics.

(Tip: When you export data and look at weekly or 28-days data, you’re seeing a rolling total. So the weekly data point for Jan 6 also includes the six days prior. Don’t add up the days.)

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Consumers measures the number of people who clicked through to actually read, watch, or listen to your content or share your content with others on Facebook. It does not count those who merely clicked Like (or other reaction) without consuming the content.

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Emails refers to how many people on or from Facebook gave you their email address directly in a given time period. Think of it as a conversion metric.

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Earned mentions refers to how many mentions your brands (your station, shows, etc.) are getting outside of your own platforms. CrowdTangle, which is now free, is a great tool for this social monitoring.

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Consumptions per impression is a simple click-through rate: Of all the times your total posts get seen by people (i.e., total impressions), how often does that result in a click to actually consume the content or a click to share it with others? This ratio is a good engagement metric because it works even if Facebook changes its algorithm and fewer people see your posts. Facebook Insights doesn’t offer this metric by default, so you’ll have to use Export Data and search for Page Consumptions and Total Impressions.

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New members attributable refers to people converted from Facebook. Revenue can include any direct revenue from your Facebook presence.

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Additional useful Facebook metrics: Lifetime Total Likes (for your page or show), Total Impressions, Total Video Views, Page Consumptions, referrals to your site.

Facebook

DIGITAL AUDIENCE KPIs: Twitter

Source: Twitter Analytics.

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Twitter doesn’t have a metric for the number of people who actually see your tweets, so Tweet impressions is the best we can do. It’s the number of times people saw your tweets on Twitter.

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Emails refers to how many people on or from Twitter gave you their email address directly in a given time period. Think of it as a conversion metric.

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Earned mentions refers to how many mentions your brands (your station, shows, etc.) are getting outside of your own platforms. CrowdTangle, which is now free, is a great tool for this social monitoring.

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Engagement Rate is Twitter’s take on how engaging your average tweet is. Of all the times that your total tweets get seen by people (i.e., total impressions), how often does that result in a click, retweet, reply, follow, or like? This ratio is a good engagement metric because it works no matter how often you tweet.

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New members attributable refers to people converted from Twitter.

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Additional useful Twitter metrics: Followers, Engagements, referrals to your site.

Twitter

DIGITAL AUDIENCE KPIs: Instagram

Source: Instagram Analytics.

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Instagram doesn’t have a metric for the number of people who actually see your posts, so Impressions is the best we can do. It’s the number of times people saw your posts on Instagram.

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Emails refers to how many people on or from Instagram gave you their email address directly in a given time period. Think of it as a conversion metric.

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Earned mentions refers to how many mentions your brands (your station, shows, etc.) are getting outside of your own platforms. CrowdTangle, which is now free, is a great tool for this social monitoring.

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Engagements per impression is a simple calculation on how engaging your average post is. Of all the times that your total posts get seen by people (i.e., total impressions), how often does that result in a like or comment? This ratio is a good engagement metric because it works no matter how often you post.

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New members attributable refers to people converted from Instagram.

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Additional useful Instagram metrics: Followers, total engagements (Likes + Comments), referrals to your site.

Instagram

DIGITAL AUDIENCE KPIs: YouTube

Source: YouTube Analytics.

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YouTube doesn’t have a metric for the number of people who actually watch your videos, so Views is the best we can do. It’s the number of times people watched at least 30 seconds of your video.

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Average % viewed per video is a good indicator of how successful your videos are at keeping people watching. This percentage is a good engagement metric because it works no matter how often you post or how long your videos are.

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New members attributable refers to people converted from YouTube.

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Additional useful YouTube metrics: Subscribers (a tiny fraction of everyone who saw your videos), total engagements (Likes + Dislikes + Comments + Shares), referrals to your site.

YouTube