The Publishing Industry Is Changing, It’s Time for A New Kind of Analytics
Let’s face it, the publishing industry is changing. Now more than ever it’s important to Know Your Audience.
Let’s face it, the publishing industry is changing. Now more than ever it’s important to Know Your Audience. Understanding your audience is important for several reasons, including (but certainly not limited to), audience building, defining content strategy, increasing engagement on your site, and getting advertisers to work with you.
I think the American Press Institute said it best in its article titled “Advertisers buy audiences, not publications or platforms, and data is the key” published on June 10, 2014.
“Publishers are traditionally used to selling advertisers space in their publications. But that model is working less and less as major advertisers stop buying publications and start buying audiences.”
“The advertiser on the other end may not know or care which publisher is serving the ad, they only care whom their ad is reaching. They are looking for people with a certain purchase intent, income segment, location, age or other factors.”
This is the future. And it is why I built KYA.
I’ve been publishing since 2003 — when I started BestTechie, at which time, I would literally update an HTML page with my thoughts on different types of technology. Fast forward to today, content management systems have evolved and improved, and publishing content has become so much easier. But while the publishing industry is evolving and seeing the need for different types of data, the analytics industry has remained mostly the same. When it comes to analytics, it’s always been about numbers and counting — which don’t get me wrong, numbers have their place and are important, but with KYA, we offer a different kind of look at your audience.
Let me explain.
The creation of KYA came from years of frustration as a publisher.
I wanted an analytics product that could tell me what topics or types of content performed best on my site to keep users engaged for longer periods of time. I wanted an analytics product that could tell me which content my audience enjoyed most (so I could create more of it). I wanted an analytics product that could provide legitimate demographic information as well as email addresses of engaged users on my site (with their permission of course). And lastly, I wanted an analytics product that could help me secure advertising dollars.
KYA does all of those things and more.
In order to be able to provide all of that to publishers, I decided to take a different approach in building an analytics product. The Shout Button, KYA Score, KYA Recommendations, and Smart Comment System make all of it possible. It works as follows:
1. Your audience Shouts and comments on content they like — think of the Shout Button as your audience’s direct line to you, the publisher. All the data gets relayed to you, for you to analyze and inform your content strategy.
2. Based on the content Shouted and commented on your audience will receive personalized content recommendations at the bottom of every article by our content recommendation system — keeping users on your site more engaged and on for longer periods of time.
3. All this engagement is part of your KYA Score (a real-time performance benchmark of your site against other sites in your industry within the KYA network), it shows you how well you are using KYA to deliver a great experience. The KYA Score can also be used as a benchmark for advertisers to see who specifically makes up the most engaged part of your audience and what kind of content they are interested in most.
I’m super excited to introduce KYA to publishers and readers. It’s a best of both world’s approach, everyone wins. I’m also really excited for the Shout Button and the plans we have for it, and I want you (whether you’re a reader or publisher) to be a part of them.
Right now, you can join our early access preview by getting in touch with us or by registering on your own! Oh and as a thank you for your interest, use the coupon code KYABETA to receive two (2) free months of access to KYA.
One important note: KYA currently only works with WordPress.org or WordPress.com based sites. If your site isn’t WordPress-based, please email us with your interest as platform demand will help us determine the next CMS’ to support.