Running Experiments

Because Metrics for News is tailored for your publication, use it to help you answer questions, test ideas and conduct strategic experiments. Let’s take a look at some ways you might think about running your own experiments. 

Experiment: What is the best time of day for us to publish on weekdays?

• In MFN, add a new content category for tracking Time of Day.

• Within that new content category, add content category options for each time frame or hour. 

• As your stories go live and their analytics are collected, review the categories dashboard to monitor the blocks of time.

• What kind of observations can you make based on the metrics? Which blocks of time see the highest readership? Which audiences engage the most during those blocks? 

Experiment: How would a new series about the local food scene impact our subscribers goals?

How would YOU craft the strategy around this experiment? Think about how you would build the tools. Work with your admins and editors to:

• establish metrics in your analytics source (e.g., Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, etc.) and integrate them with Metrics for News as custom metrics;

• filter the stories into their own dashboard with content categories;

• build an engagement score to track this specific level of engagement;

• declare loyalty stages to monitor goals,

• add audiences to learn from your audience segments; or

• create a team so all the journalists can see their collective impact in one place.

Experiment: I’ve got a hunch for a new beat. What does the data tell me?

• This was a real experiment by The Virginian-Pilot! Check out their case study: Using analytics to identify and build a popular new beat. 

Next: How to find more granular views or the exact metrics you need. (4/5)