UOL, one of Brazil’s most popular news outlets, first began using Chartbeat in 2017. Their newsroom was previously leveraging free analytics platforms to monitor the 80 million+ people who visit their site each month.
However, there was a need to analyze UOL’s audience engagement in real time. Namely, what articles visitors were reading, where they came from, and how they were interacting with the site — in order to quickly optimize content, improve distribution strategies, and stand out in a highly competitive online news market bidding for the attention of over 145 million internet users.
Tracking stories, optimizing with data
As UOL’s Editor-in-Chief for Hard News, Jorge Corrêa integrates Chartbeat data into his everyday work. “We cover the news around the clock,” says Corrêa. “Chartbeat’s Real-time Dashboard is the only way we can track which stories are working and which ones we need to work on.”
Aside from article-specific data, the Real-time Dashboard provides live, site-wide data, including traffic sources, geographic location, reader device, referrers, visitor frequency, and more. “Being able to filter data by [these categories] in real time allows us to segment and understand our audience in ways we never could before,” says Flavio Moreira, UOL’s Editor for SEO.
Being able to filter data by [these categories] in real time allows us to segment and understand our audience in ways we never could before.
Generating real-time impact
One example of how Moreira uses Chartbeat for real-time impact is by capitalizing on direct search trends to engage readers via social media. “I easily segment the data to see who’s coming in from Google search,” says Moreira. “This tells me what stories the public is searching for organically, so I can then work with our social media team and promote those articles on our social networks.”
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Concurrents
Total number of people on your site at any given moment
Recirculation
Percent of readers that move on from one article to another
Engaged Time
Average time visitors spend interacting with your content
UOL leverages Chartbeat’s real-time capabilities to monitor more than just written content, using the Real-time Video Dashboard to monitor dozens of videos every day. Among other metrics, the Video Dashboard shows Engaged Time and Total Plays per video, allowing editors to pair high-performing videos with appropriate content.
Furthermore, as one of Brazil’s most established news outlets, UOL sees very high homepage traffic. Millions of Brazilians go to UOL.com.br as their main source of news, and UOL responds to this loyal behavior by consistently optimizing their homepage in real time to provide positive reader experiences.
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How audience insights lead to homepage enhancements
Chartbeat’s Heads Up Display (HUD), an overlay projecting real-time data directly atop your website, provides a visual representation of audience behavior on the homepage. UOL’s homepage editors leverage this data to increase Engaged Time and encourage deeper reading within the site.
“As Editor for Hard News, it’s essential for me to know how my content is performing on the homepage,” says Corrêa. “The Heads Up Display tells me everything, like how an article is performing for that specific slot on the homepage, or how far down the homepage readers are scrolling before dropping off. This is all data we can use to make immediate changes and improve engagement.”
Testing headlines in real time can exponentially increase average time on-site, while improving our site for SEO purposes.
By integrating historical data into UOL’s real-time insights, Chartbeat helps UOL benchmark current site performance against their expected numbers.
Within the Heads Up Display, UOL can experiment with headlines for each article, right on their homepage. “This is invaluable for us,” says Moreira. “Testing headlines in real time can exponentially increase average time on-site, while improving our site for SEO purposes.”
The UOL team also scores Chartbeat’s real-time tools high on their intuitiveness and ease of use. Analytics platforms can pose a challenge for editorial and content teams, but adoption is key to developing data literacy and understanding how best to use insights from data to shape strategy and tactics.
Chartbeat seamlessly fits the workflows of editorial users. “It’s not just the impact of the tools themselves that are helpful for real-time decision-making,” Moreira said. “It’s how easy it is to access and use them. Everyone in our newsroom uses Chartbeat.”
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