Increasing audience engagement is a major goal for digital publishers but what does audience engagement mean and how can it be measured? A Parse.ly survey of 130 digital publishers suggests these concepts are poorly defined within industry.
Fewer than half of the surveyed publishers have an agreed definition of audience engagement and the majority lack a clear understanding of how their sites define audience engagement.
Despite the vague understanding of engagement, nearly 77 percent consider their measurement of engagement to be average or better.
There is broad consensus on which metrics are most suitable to measure engagement with 85 percent of respondents considering shares and 82 percent considering engaged time.
However, these metrics are tied to the data analytics most readily available to publishers. When asked to share anecdotes that represented particularly good examples of audience engagement, many digital publishers described audience engagement as a personal relationship or interaction with reader. Yet, when asked to identify measures that represent engagement, only 28 percent considered “offline impact” or “other”.
Report author Allie VanNest concludes "analytics go a long way in helping digital publishers to track their audience, but to truly understand engagement, you need to clearly define the problem you are trying to solve and the metrics your team can use to help find a solution."
Read the Parse.ly report.
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