6 Must-Have Audience Engagement Metrics

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Attracting an audience to your website is just the beginning. Knowing if people are interacting effectively with your website is vital. When it comes to tracking, we’ll list the most common metrics below, but before we get into that, it’s also useful to have a concept of how a basic marketing funnel works.  Generally speaking, there are three stages to the funnel

Top of Funnel (“ToFu”): behaviors and metrics that happen before, or just at the point of, your first engagement with your audience. Examples include: initial website visits, a request for more information, or signs up for a newsletter

Middle of Funnel (“MoFu”): behavior and metrics that happen after an audience member first engages with your brand, but before they purchase or sign up. Examples include: repeat visits, researching product reviews or case studies. 

Bottom of Funnel (“BoFu”): behavior and metrics that track the final actions leading up to, and including, final purchase or signup. Examples include: signing up for a free trial, going through a personalized product demo, or applying for a discount or coupon.

Why Audience Engagement Metrics Add Value

How do you tell if your marketing efforts attract the right audience for your goals? Audience engagement metrics are a powerful way to see if you are progressing effectively. Find out how to use these metrics to assess your website’s performance.

The Six Essential Audience Engagement Metrics

1) Average Session Duration

Average session duration means how much time users spend on your website and is usually the first metric you start with at the top of the funnel. 

Generally speaking, a longer session time is better because it means your message and content is resonating with your audience.  This metric has limitations, however. If a user leaves a website or switches to another tab in their browser, session duration may continue to increase even though the user is doing something else. As a general rule of thumb, session durations under 30-60 seconds are a warning signal because you are likely to see fewer conversions with so little time.

Balancing this metric with other measures like webpages per session and first-party data generated.

2) Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of users who leave your website after viewing a single page on a website. A high bounce rate suggests that users aren’t satisfied with what they find on your website. It’s a useful metric at all stages of the funnel – especially as you’re working to optimize specific landing pages – but it’s especially useful at the top of the funnel and should be one of the first things you optimize for along with session time. 

It’s also one of the oldest metrics tracked by website analytics tools. According to Semrush, the average bounce rate for websites varies from 20-25% at the low end for ecommerce and B2B and up to 90% for landing pages, blogs and portals. 

It’s also helpful to measure bounce rates by page. For example, a blog post targeting a high-value search keyword should aspire to a lower bounce rate if it is well-optimized. However, other pages on your website might have a relatively higher bounce rate if they are less optimized.

3) Returning Visitors vs New Visitors

This metric gives you a broader view of your audience and is one of the first middle of funnel metrics to optimize. If a website has few returning visitors, that is a warning signal. Few returning visitors may imply that users see no value in returning to your website.

One way to improve the number of returning visitors to your website is to provide new engaging content and experiences live a Live Blog that provides continuous updates for breaking news or continued coverage of an ongoing trend. Other successful tactics include hosting a regular event (weekly, monthly, etc) so that your audience becomes accustomed to returning to your site at a regular cadence.

To help your audience remember, you can help direct them back to your website through email & social campaigns or mobile push notifications. 

4) Social Media Shares

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Social shares are an interesting engagement metric because it requires user action. However, a social share doesn’t entail the same level of commitment as a conversion or purchase so it may feel more accessible. 

Interestingly, social shares can happen at any point in the funnel as current customers, or audience members in the middle of your funnel, may wind up sharing content to their own audience who’ve never encountered your brand before, which then becomes a top of funnel experience for them.

Tracking social shares over time can tell you which content, themes and pages resonate with your audience. For example, you may find that an online event with Arena live chat prompts increased social shares and traffic. Or you might find that video content prompts the most social share activity. 

While social sharing is helpful, keep the drawbacks in mind. It can be challenging to achieve your growth goals when people engage with your brand on social media rather than on your website. The trick is to encourage social shares that contain teasers or calls to action that invite people back to your domain.

For instance, create a quote image to share a comment from a keynote and include a CTA to experience the full keynote speech on your website, or use social media to promote a coupon or discount that is only redeemable on your website, or ecommerce storefront. 

5) Average Web Pages Per Session

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Holding everything else equal, a person who visits multiple web pages is more valuable than someone who only visits a single page. That said, not all pages are created equal. Compare two visitors who visit different pages for a B2B company.

  • Visitor A: visits a blog post and then visits the contact page to request product information.
  • Visitor B: visits multiple blog posts and then leaves without opting in to receive more information.

In the short term, visitor A is more valuable than visitor B. To encourage more contact page conversions, look for ways to weave in more links to your contact page. 

6) First-party Data Generated

Your audience is busy, so it is vital to have a way to get in touch with them after they leave your website. That’s the first reason why you want to have a “first party” connection with your audience, such as having them join your email list. The second reason is that a person who provides information about their interests and preferences through clicks and participation in online events is easier to engage.

The amount of first-party data you can gather from your audience is limited only by your technology and creativity! Here are two specific first-party data metrics you can use to get started.

Email List Signup

Email marketing remains one of the most reliable and effective ways to engage audiences. Therefore, encouraging website visitors to sign up for your list should be a goal. After a person joins your email list, you will have the chance to gather additional first-party insights by observing their email engagement (e.g. link clicks, opens, replies).

Online Event Participation

Track the quantity and quality of engagement with your online events. For instance, a brand that hosts a monthly event with live chat might consider anybody who participates in more than one event in three months highly engaged.

How To Use Audience Engagement Metrics For Growth

Gathering and reviewing all of these engagement metrics is a good starting point. Yet, your audience will not grow simply through data gathering (wouldn’t that make life easy!). Instead, it’s essential to leverage engagement metrics in your workflow.

Use these tactics to make sure you get full value from all of the engagement metrics you’re gathering.

Identify Red Flags 

If multiple metrics (e.g., bounce rate increases and social shares fall) trend in the wrong direction for a prolonged period of time, that may be a red flag. Left unchecked, your audience engagement and growth goals may suffer if such red flags are ignored.

Clarify The Audience/Customer Journey

We all make assumptions about how our audience members and customers engage with us. You might assume that a person needs to visit your website daily for five days to become a regular visitor and then a customer in the next 90 days. The audience engagement metrics above – especially first-party data – can clarify if your assumptions are valid so that you can plan future growth effectively.

Develop And Test New Content and Campaigns

Developing growth ideas and tactics from a blank page is tough! Fortunately, audience engagement metrics save you time and money here. When a given piece of content resonates across multiple engagement metrics, that is a solid signal to create more content on a similar theme to keep your audience coming back for more.

Lifting Audience Engagement Is Easier With These Tools

The art of growing your audience loyalty over time takes significant effort, some risk and creativity. There are ways to make it easier! Install Arena Live Chat and Arena Live Blog on your website. These tools make it simple and easy to create engaging experiences that will draw in your audience. Discover how to build a thriving community right on your website.

9 Tech Tools & Tactics To Get More First Party Data Now

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First-party data is the indispensable ingredient to successfully engaging with your audience. Since first-party data is directly provided to your organization (i.e. there are no intermediaries), gathering first-party data also deepens your relationship with your audience.

Whether you’re transitioning away from third-party cookies or looking for online growth, systematically gathering more first-party data is vital. 

Now, what exactly do you need to have in place to gather first-party data? There are two answers to this question: technology and data generation strategies. The right technology is your foundation for gathering first-party data, so we’ll start there. 

The Arena Toolkit for First-Party Data

Arena’s products give you powerful ways to gather more first-party data while giving your audience a great experience at the same time. Each of these apps are powerful at helping you to better understand your audience and connect with them more effectively.

1. Arena Live Chat

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Your website is constantly competing for online attention. You’re up against entertainment (e.g. streaming services), communication and community (e.g. social media platforms) and more. All of these distractions to your audience engaging with your website are just one tab away.

One solution is to use Arena Live Chat to give your audience a reason to stay engaged on your website. Instead of visiting a page or two and leaving, a live chat experience keeps people engaged for much longer. As your audience participates in live chat, they’re sharing a variety of first party data points like social reactions, chat comments, votes in polls, and clicks. 

From a first party data collection perspective, Live Chat has shown to be one of the most effective methods available today. Community based Live Chat, especially when paired with a live stream event, often gets over 35% of anonymous users to register.

2. Arena Live Blog

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News and publishing websites know trending stories draw a lot of attention. However, publishing a single story about a trending development isn’t enough. 

Breaking news events are a great opportunity to use a live blog. You can quickly publish short (or long!) updates to cover every angle of a rapidly developing story. Your live blog can include a mix of pre-written content and up to the minute coverage. 

A live blog is also an invaluable way to encourage your audience to share first party data. Your audience can interact to your coverage through polls and social reactions. Creating a live blog takes less than a minute which makes it a great choice for news.

3. Arena Personas (Beta)

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With live chat and a live blog in place, you’re equipped to give your audience an engaging experience on your website. As your audience grows, you may face a new challenge: managing and using all of the first party data you’ve collected.

Arena Personas is a key part of the solution. It brings all the first party data you’ve collected with Arena and ads context based on actions and intent (Beta).. With all of this data in one place, it’s far easier to create personalized marketing campaigns and support the sales team.

Additional Tools For Your First Party Data Strategy

In addition to Arena, there are several other tools you can use to gather and leverage first party data. Here are some of the most popular options.

4. Email marketing service

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Email marketing is one of the most reliable marketing channels around. According to industry research, email marketing generates $42 for every $1 invested in it. For that reason alone, email marketing remains a key priority for many companies. 

If you don’t have Arena, you can use tactics like web forms and newsletter signups to facilitate the collection process, however, email engagement & actions should also be a part of your first party data strategy.

When we say engagement and action, we mean the actions (or lack of actions) your subscribers took when you sent the email. Things like email opens, clicks,  & view time can all be used to enrich a user profile and trigger next steps for marketing outreach.  For example, if you send a monthly newsletter highlighting recent news and product updates, you might analyze the link clicks in the email and follow up specifically with recipients who engaged with content about a new feature, or promotion. 

5. Customer relationship management (CRM)

When a CRM is used systematically to track interactions with customers and potential customers, it becomes a rich source of first party data. To better understand the customer journey, look for ways to combine this first party data with other sources like website and chat usage.

6. Live video experiences

Video experiences like conferences, product launches and similar events can yield first 

party data. The nuance is that using a third party video platform like YouTube or Facebook may limit the amount of first party data you can collect. For the best results, host the video streaming on your website.

Hosting streaming video through your website is easy when you have the right tools. To find out more, see our post: How to stream video with Vimeo OTT In 7 Steps.

Ways To Capture More First Party Data

Putting all of the right technology in place to gather first party data is necessary, but it’s not enough. You need to give your audience a good reason to come to your website and then keep coming back. Here are a few of the most successful proven strategies that build a connection with your audience and generate useful first party data at the same time.

7. Add a digital element to in-person events

Is event marketing and experiences significant for your business? If the answer is yes, you have a great opportunity to gather more first party data.

For example, you might open up your event’s keynote speaker to a wider audience by livestreaming it on your website. Finally, enrich the experience by including a live chat for your audience to ask questions and share feedback during the event.

8. Shift marketing effort to your website

This way to capture more first party data involves making a strategic change. Look at where and how you are using your marketing budget. If you are dedicating a substantial amount of resources to building a following on social media, there are drawbacks. When your audience interacts with your content on social media, you don’t have a direct relationship so there is no chance to gather first party data.

To maximize your first party efforts, look for ways to use social media and other online platforms to promote your website. To use a movie analogy, it’s smart to share a “trailer” to promote your movie (or other premium content) widely. However, your website will remain the single best way to experience that content.

9. Reward customers for sharing first party data

In recent years, new regulations and laws have compelled brands and publishers to act more transparently in how they gather and use customer data. These efforts can make it more challenging to earn permission to gather first party data from your audience.

The solution isn’t to seek out loopholes or shady tactics to trick your users. Instead, the solution lies in offering value to your customers so that they look forward to engaging with you.

Making it worthwhile for your audience to say yes to your ask for first party data often takes some experimentation. Some in your audience may only respond to traditional incentives like discounts or similar promotions.

Get Started With Arena Today

Putting the right tools in place to gather first party data is essential. To grow your connection with your audience, you need to give people a rewarding experience. Discover how to take back your community from the big social media platforms!

How To Capture First Party Data: 5 Ways That Work

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First party data is the future of online marketing because we’re entering the cookieless future. Third party cookies are effectively ceasing to exist because Apple and Google’s web browsers will no longer support them soon. 

So, what’s your alternative to reach your online growth goals?

The single most important approach to thrive in the 2020s is to focus on capturing more first party data. First party data is data that your website users, mobile app uses and emails subscribers provide directly to you. There’s no middle man or intermediary who can change the rules or stop you from accessing first party data.

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Why Gathering More First-Party Data Matters

Most companies we talk to have some level of first party data gathering in place. For instance, you have probably gathered website analytics data for years. Further, there’s a good chance that you also have a wealth of data from your email marketing platform. These sources of first party data are valuable and worth using. There’s just one drawback to them…

All of your competitors are likely using these forms of first party data already. It’s going to be tough to build a competitive advantage on that basis. The solution is to gather more data so that you can understand your audience better.

Five ways to gather better first-party data 

Use these methods to level up your first party data gathering efforts. The first strategy to get more first party data is one of the most potent ways to better understand your audience. 

1) Use online events and experiences

Your website has the ability to host online events and experiences for your audience with live chat technology. With Arena Live Chat, it’s easy to add a social interactive experience to your website. 

As your audience participates in online events, you will gain additional first party data. As a starting point, you can identify your most engaged audience members through their participation in a chat session. Even more significant is the live chat log. By analyzing chat activity, you can see which topics excite your audience the most.

2) Leverage lead generation forms

The traditional wisdom in digital marketing tells us to ask for minimal information on lead generation forms like name and email. In some cases, seeking to maximize the sheer size of your audience may be reasonable. For many businesses, name and email simply doesn’t provide enough information to power modern personalized marketing campaigns.

The way to gather more first-party data is to experiment with adding one or two more questions to your lead generation forms. A B2B company might ask for a job title and company name to qualify leads. A publisher might present a checklist of a few news topics (e.g., business, sports, local news) and ask users to check off what they are most interested in.

Asking a few more questions on your lead gen forms may reduce lead volume however. Before making that change, discuss it with other stakeholders like the sales team to set expectations.

3) Ask your audience what they want to hear more about

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Gathering first party data is an ongoing process of building a relationship. Like any relationship, it’s important to take an interest in your new audience member. There are a few ways to solicit this type of first-party data including:

Polls During Chat Sessions

Live digital experiences, enabled by live chat, are a powerful tactic to engage your audience. You can also use these live chat experiences as a way to discover what your people care about. 

Arena Live Chat includes the option to run polls so it’s easy to gather questions. For example, your poll might ask: “What should our next live event be about?” and then give the audience three topics to vote on. If there is a robust interest in a certain topic, make it a priority to offer that type of event. 

Short Email Surveys

Some people in your audience may be more interested in engaging with your emails instead of events. To gather insight from this segment of your audience, send an email asking for feedback on what topics future emails should cover.

Most email marketing platforms give you the option to track clicks on links, so let your audience vote on their preferred topics by clicking on a link.

Engagement Calls To Action In Content

In your videos, blog posts and other content on your website, it’s smart to periodically change up your call to action. For instance, most of the time your CTA might be to ask people to sign up for a demo. Once in a while, change your emphasis to ask people to comment on what they liked in your content or what they want to see more of.

4) Test a wider variety of marketing channels 

Ultimately, there are two dimensions to gathering first party data. You can go deep (i.e. gather data about an audience member over time by watching what they click on and how they interact) or you can go broad (i.e. get more people to join your community). Both are important to creating a thriving online community.

The next way to gather more first party data is to branch out and experiment with more marketing channels. If you’ve typically focused your ad budget on Google and Facebook, run some experiments on TikTok or LinkedIn. Likewise, don’t limit yourself to social media platforms either. Running a focused joint venture webinar with a complimentary company is a smart way to grow your audience without sacrificing quality.

5) Balance direct response with brand building

Direct response marketing is powerful! The ability to run an ad and get a lead (or sale) right away is well worth pursuing. However, aiming for an immediate conversion isn’t always the right move. If your objectives include gathering substantial first party data to facilitate first party data, brand building needs to balance direct response objectives.

Some of the best ways to pursue effective brand building involve content and communities. For example, take a look at Nike. The company’s Nike Activity Finder is an online resource to help people find athletic activities they like. This resource provides value to the audience looking for fitness ideas without immediately asking for a purchase.

Whether you create tools and apps like Nike or other forms of helpful content, regularly publishing new brand building assets on your website is a great way to build your audience. As more people interact with your content, you’ll gather more first party data in the process.

Transform Your Website Into A First-Party Data Generating Machine

Your website has the potential to produce endless amounts of first-party data so you can create effective personalized marketing campaigns. Find out how to build a thriving online community on your website with Arena!

First-Party Data Collection Is Mission Critical

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First-party data collection is fast becoming a top priority for many digital brands and publishers. For marketers, community builders, and publishers, first-party data matters because it brings a direct relationship. First-party data is provided directly by the end user to your company. There are four reasons why first-party data should become one of your top digital priorities this year.

Five Reasons Why First-Party Data Is Indispensable

Shifting your online growth efforts to focus on first-party data collection is vital for five key reasons. 

1. First-Party Data Offers Better Revenue Growth Potential

Gathering first-party data collection means you have a one-to-one relationship with your Community. Boston Consulting Group and Google found that first party data based strategies delivered a 290% increase in revenue. Even better, first-party data delivers significant cost savings! For marketers concerned about making every dollar stretch during economic uncertainty, first-party data is the best choice.

2. The Coming End of Third-Party Cookies

For years, third-party cookies quietly fueled billions of dollars of digital advertising. These cookies made it possible to track user activity across multiple websites. While third-party cookies made online marketing easy, they have raised numerous privacy concerns. As a result, the value of third-party cookies is going to collapse soon as Apple and Google (Who collectively control the most popular web browsers) end support for them.

For a detailed breakdown of the rise and fall of third-party cookies, see our infographic: 

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In other words, the old way of doing business – relying on cookies – is about to end. 

First-party data is the future.

3. Uncertainty About The Successor To Third-Party Cookies

Even as third-party cookies come to an end, there’s continued demand for personalized advertising. Google has been working hard to develop a replacement for cookies through its Privacy Sandbox initiative. Unfortunately, that effort has been delayed several times. There’s considerable uncertainty about whether Google’s new approach will work for advertisers.

4. Data Privacy Expectations Create New Expectations (and Penalties!)

Companies can no longer afford to take a casual approach to user data and privacy. GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in Europe and the CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) in California have decisively shifted privacy expectations. While it’s true that these legal changes do not directly affect every company, there’s no denying that privacy scandals and user expectations have shifted. It’s simply getting more difficult to fuel growth by relying on data collected by other companies.

5. Social Media Platforms Are Struggling

It’s no secret that the biggest social media platforms are struggling to keep users happy. Twitter and  Facebook are struggling to grow and fight harmful content. Advertisers are getting worried and looking for the exits. 

It’s time to reassess whether resources dedicated to social media can find a better return elsewhere – like growing your community directly on your website.

For a complete overview, see our post: Why The Largest Social Media Platforms Are Declining And What To Do Next.

The good news is that the vast majority of companies already have some amount of first-party data. For example, Google Analytics (or your preferred web analytics app) gathers some first-party data like audience demographics. Other company systems will have even more valuable data, such as purchase history records, interactions with the sales team, and more.

The Problem With “First Part Data Collection” Thinking

By this point, it’s clear that we see first-party data as valuable and vital to the future of online growth. Yet, there’s an attitude that might slow your progress substantially… The problem lies in the phrase “first-party data collection” itself.

Looking at first-party data as a resource to be collected is problematic. It encourages you to consider your users as a mineral to be mined. That kind of thinking plays well in a spreadsheet. There’s just one problem with the “collecting data” mindset – it deemphasizes relationships and humanity.

Your audience needs to look forward to visiting your website to succeed in the long term. Your audience needs to be happy to volunteer information, comments, and more with you. In short, they need to trust you. And that trust from your audience needs to be earned by providing value.

Long-Term Strategies To Earn First-Party Data That Your Audience Will Love

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Earning audience permission to obtain first-party data takes some work. The days of relying on sneaky tactics and hiding permission in the fine print are ending. Instead, you need to build and sustain trust from your audience in the following ways.

Bring People To Your Website With Content

To earn first-party data, you need to bring people directly to your website or app. For most companies, the single best way to attract people to your website is to recommit to quality content marketing. Give your audience practical examples, inspiration, and even entertainment! Those strategies will help to succeed online.

Creating compelling content that serves your audience and meets the needs of search engines takes time. Fortunately, you can use Arena Live Blog to accelerate the process. Get the details in our guide to improve your SEO with your live blog.

Content on its own isn’t enough. After all, competitors may find ways to create similar content. The better approach is to enrich your content with engagement technology and community.

Deepen Relationships With Engagement Technology

The most successful personalization requires significant data. Obtaining that data requires significant interaction with individual users. If your users come to your website, view content for a matter of seconds, and then disappear, you’re going to face an uphill climb to gather first-party data.

What if you had a way for your users to spend 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or even an hour on your website? You don’t have to create a streaming service or YouTube clone. Instead, you just need the right engagement technology: Arena Live Chat and Arena Live Blog. Arena’s engagement technology is fast and takes minutes to install on your website.

Transform Your Website Into A Community Hub

Once upon a time, companies viewed their website as digital brochures. That approach will not cut it anymore, thanks to social media. Connection and community have become vital. However, social media platforms are increasingly becoming toxic sources of misinformation. 

Your website can offer something different – a brandsafe community experience for your users. For example, a news publisher can offer exclusive Q&A experiences with award-winning athletes and business leaders. Arena’s moderation features mean that you can quickly stop profanity and other inappropriate content.

Offer Live Experiences To Your Audience

Virtual events, live shopping, and hybrid events are some of the most popular ways to drive revenue and engagement with your audience. Not sure what kind of live experience to offer your audience? Take a few minutes to review your analytics to see what kinds of content your audience is already most interested in. That will give you a starting point to craft a live experience.

Live Shopping

Live shopping is the marriage of entertainment with shopping! Industry research shows that live shopping experiences are already driving billions of dollars in spending. Don’t have the right on-screen talent available in your team to get started? You can partner with online influencers to host the event for you. Live shopping, sometimes also known as livestream shopping, can include product unboxing, demos, and product launches.

To discover more ways to use live shopping for growth, learn the best way to make live shopping successful.

Unique Experiences 

Exclusive experiences and connections are one of the key reasons why people pay to go to conferences and other events. One-of-a-kind experiences – like an Ask Me Anything with an industry leader – are a powerful way to attract your audience. As the event unfolds, your audience will share a wealth of first-party data in the live chat.

Grow Through Other Events Your Audience Cares About

Organizing your own events is just one way you can use to grow. In 2022, Arena quickly built an online hub dedicated to the World Cup: How We Created Live World Cup Coverage for Every Game. 

To apply this live experience strategy to your business, find out what your audience cares about and then look at upcoming events you can leverage. Effectively curating existing content – and adding your own perspective on that news – remains a great way to create compelling content.

Planning and executing a successful online event series doesn’t have to feel scary. Arena’s resources are here to help you to launch events. Use our free virtual events checklist to plan a stress-free experience that grows your audience (and yields plenty of first-party data simultaneously).

How To Make It Easy To Earn First Party Data, Week In And Out

As you gather more insight into what makes your audience tick, it’s easier to connect with them. That means less guesswork and more conversions without constantly increasing your budget. To keep your audience engaged, you need content, experiences, and community. Use Arena to transform your website into a digital community where your audience is happy to keep coming back. 

6 Ways To Grow The Bottom Line

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Publishers are under growing pressure to improve profitability and engagement. Social media platforms, streaming services, and other options compete for attention. There’s a way for publishers to win in the 2022s: invest in first-party data. 

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What Is First Party Data?

In simple terms, first-party data is information that a publisher directly obtains from a reader, subscriber, or member of an audience. The following first-party data examples show what this includes:

  • Website Analytics. Many publishers are already collecting data points like clicks, page views, and time on site through their website analytics platform. 
  • Paid Subscriber Data. When a person buys a subscription to a publication, a publisher gains more data about them, including their location, news preferences, and media preferences.
  • Email Engagement. Publishers that send out emails to their subscribers quietly gather data with every open and click.
  • Event Participation. If a publisher offers live events (especially if the event has a digital component), you can gather first-party data from those events. 

Publishers, especially those with paid subscriptions, have long collected data on their audience. So, why does first-party data matter today more than ever? The answer has to do with the death of third-party cookies.

The Death of Third Party Cookies: What It Means For Publishers

Apple and Google have decided to end support for third-party cookies in their web browsers. That’s critically important because these companies control most (approximately 80%) of the world’s web browser market. If web traffic is important for your publication, then take note of these changes.

Third-party cookies have fueled the growth of digital advertising for over a decade. This technology allows advertisers to track user behavior across multiple websites. That’s why consumers will see personalized ads for products they’ve viewed long after they close a product page.

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Want the full story on cookieless future? See our post: The Future of Cookies In Marketing Strategy

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When third-party cookies fade away, it will make life challenging for advertisers. Specifically, advertisers will have to change their standard processes. There’s another reason why advertisers are looking to make a change – growing problems in social media. Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms have been hit by multiple scandals, growing misinformation, and harmful content.

The changes create a perfect storm that creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity for publishers. Unlike other online properties, many publishers have strong commitments to quality content and curation. That matters because advertisers are hungry for brand-safe advertising opportunities.

While the growth opportunity is exciting, there’s a caveat: advertisers have high expectations.

They expect tremendous data to guide their decisions and effectively leverage programmatic advertising. Without significant first-party data on your audience, connecting with what publishers are looking for will be tough. 

6 Ways Publishers Can Lift Revenue With First-Party Data

Earning buy-in from management and colleagues to implement first-party data effectively is easy when you know the benefits. Fortunately collecting and using first-party data about your audience and subscribers unlocks new ways to increase revenue. 

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1. Drive Online Audience Growth

A publisher with a steadily growing, engaged audience can weather nearly any storm. First party data directly supports growing your audience, pageviews and engagement. For example, you’ll better understand which content and experiences your audience wants. Further, you can test and optimize word of mouth and sharing campaigns to grow your audience.

2. Lift Paid Subscription Growth Steadily

A growing number of publishers, large and small, are setting up paywalls or restricting parts of their content for paying customers only. Persuading more of your audience to purchase a subscription requires a detailed understanding of what customers value.

The secret to lifting subscriber revenue lies in getting granular and seeking unexpected patterns. For example, look at which content paid subscribers access when they first activate their paid account. Supplement this usage data with surveys to dive even deeper into what subscribers value.

To illustrate the impact of first-party data on growing paid subscribers, consider the following pitches to subscribers.

  • Subscription Pitch Without First Party Data.

“Flash Sale. Sign up today for 50% off your annual subscription.”

  • Subscription Pitch With First-Party Data.

“80% of staffers in Albany read our news coverage. Sign up today to keep up with what political insiders are readying.”

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First-party data also helps you launch much more targeted appeals to different audience segments based on how they engage with your publication.

3. Improve Editorial Quality And Decisions

Publishers have endless opportunities to decide which stories to cover and how to cover them. Professional judgment and experience play an essential role in these editorial decisions. 

What if you could supercharge your editor’s judgment with premium data?

That’s precisely what is possible when you leverage first-party data. Start with general types of data, like reviewing the content that attracts the most views and shares. First-party data analysis can take you a step further. You can also identify content engagement by segment (i.e., which content is valued by paying subscribers vs. anonymous website visitors).

With data as a guide, it is easier to update your publishing plans to keep your audience coming back for more. These editorial improvements will translate to more pageviews and higher engagement, key ways to make your publication more appealing to advertisers.

4. Increase Ecommerce Revenue

Selling subscriptions isn’t the only way for publishers to generate revenue. Media companies have offered merchandise (e.g., apparel, notebooks, books by your staff) for years. Digital products, like audio/video recordings and NFTs (non-fungible tokens), represent another opportunity to sell.

First-party data helps support Ecommerce growth in a couple ways: 

  • You can make better decisions about which products to create and promote by looking at audience behavior. 
  • Second, first-party data supports more effective segmentation and personalization when promoting products for sale.

5. Grow Loyalty With Events and Experiences.

Bringing your audience together through events and community experiences is a powerful way to deepen connections. Community experiences also create a moat around your publishing business that will be difficult for other companies to copy.

Community – the network of relationships formed around your content and events – is an important intangible asset. When your audience sees your publication as a community hub, they’re less likely to switch to alternatives. Over time, such increased loyalty translates to higher renewal rates and fewer cancellations.

6. Increase Value for Advertisers

Winning advertiser dollars for your publication is easier when you have robust first-party data. You can offer advertisers a wider variety of segmentation options based on how the audience engages with your content.

For example, an advertiser might want to appeal to new parents. With first-party data, you can filter your audience for people interacting with content related to families, fertility, and related topics. That segment is far more likely to convert for the advertiser compared to a more generic segment based on age and gender.

How Publishers Can Start Getting More First-Party Data Right Now

It’s clear that earning first-party data is valuable and can drive up revenue for publishers. Use the following tactics to get more first-party data.

1. Audit The First Party Data You Have

Most publishers already have some form of first-party data in their systems. The challenge is that this data tends to be scattered across multiple teams and apps. To assemble this data, start by looking at website analytics, mobile device analytics (e.g., mobile web and mobile apps if applicable), and email marketing analytics.

Once you have identified all of your first-party data resources, you can start to build a “single source of truth” for subscribers. This means organizing your data to track a subscriber’s activities across multiple devices, channels, and experiences.

2. Allocate Resources For First Party Campaigns & Testing

Accumulating first-party data is potential growth only. To gain the benefits of first-party data, committing to acting on it is vital. This could be as simple as setting a goal of creating at least two tests per month based on first-party data. Whether you start small or invest deeply in data, 

3 Use Engagement Technology To Grow Website Engagement

Most publishers are already gathering website analytics and email data. While valuable, those sources of first-party data are more common. Therefore, it’s more difficult to build an advantage based on that data.

Adding Arena Live Chat and Live Blog to your website gives your audience new ways to engage. Instead of simply looking at pageviews, you can look at chat interactions and chat logs. As you offer more online community experiences that resonate with your audience, you’ll grow audience loyalty and get more data.

Discover How To Get More First-Party Data With Arena

The end of third-party cookies will change the world of online advertising and publishing. That change creates a new opportunity for publishers to grow their audiences and attract advertisers. 

The essential ingredient is growing your online audience and continuously gathering first-party data. Find out more about Arena’s solutions for publishers.

First Party Data For Brands: Ways To Lift Revenue

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First-party data is quickly becoming the new opportunity to fuel personalization, customer engagement and online growth. Publishers are already starting to use first-party data to deliver customized experiences to their audience. For retail and ecommerce brands, there’s a tremendous opportunity to grow with first-party data. 

What Is First Party Data Anyway and Why It Matters

The best way to explain first party data is through a quick story. Imagine you’re running digital marketing at an apparel company and you’re looking for ways to sell more shoes this quarter. You have many different options and resources to choose from. One decision you’ll have to make upfront is what kind of data to leverage.

Consider planning your campaign by reviewing past customer activity. For example, you may look at website analytics to see which product pages are already receiving the most traffic. In addition, ask your customer service colleagues to summarize what kind of questions and complaints you get. All of this data comes directly from your customers, website visitors, and email subscribers. That’s all first party data.

First party data is often contrasted with another popular type of marketing data: third party data. For many years, digital marketers have used third party data for growth. Third party data is customer data generated by other companies. While this type of marketing data is popular, it’s becoming less useful for two reasons.

There are two reasons why companies are moving away from third party data. First, it is less transparent to consumers and can result in negative feedback. Second, Google and Apple are ending support for third party cookies (a popular technology that enables many third party marketing campaigns) in their browsers. 

First party data has multiple applications regardless of how you sell products. Let’s take a closer look at some of the most powerful use cases.

Retail and Ecommerce Use Cases For First Party

At its simplest, first party data is data that you gather directly from your customers, website visitors and others who interact with your brand online. Leveraging first party data makes it easier to achieve several sales and marketing goals.

Achieving Marketing Goals With First-Party Data

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Systematically using first party data makes it easier to achieve your digital marketing growth goals. 

Optimize Your Content Marketing Efforts

First party data tells you what content, links and assets your audience finds the most engaging. For example, start your analysis by reviewing your top 10 pages by traffic for the past 90 days. Ideally, focus on the pages that have driven the most conversions (e.g. purchases, website signups etc). 

Based on what you find, you can make better decisions about your content marketing strategy. An athletic apparel ecommerce company might find that their ultimate guide for marathon running drives the most conversions. Based on that insight, you may create more content to attract marathon runners to your website. 

Reduce Digital Marketing Expenses

Success in digital marketing requires the patience to experiment with new ideas, technologies and campaigns. The downside is that many marketing tests may not deliver significant results. When marketing budgets come under pressure, you may be asked to stretch your marketing dollars further. First-party data can play a powerful role in lifting marketing efficiency in the following ways.

Optimize Referral Campaigns

Word-of-mouth referrals are one of the most powerful ways to grow online. That said, sending out a blast message to your entire database is unlikely to work.

It’s far better to focus referral campaigns on your VIP customers – the ones who buy over and over again. First party data can help you identify your best customers which means you can create a far more targeted referral campaign.

Boost Loyalty Marketing Efforts

Many retail companies have loyalty programs because these efforts effectively encourage repeat business. The data you gather from buyers through your loyalty program is one of the most valuable forms of first party data. 

Analyze the buying patterns of your top customers and then use those patterns to inform your new campaigns. For example, you may find that 80% of repeat shoppers start by buying low-priced products. Use that insight and prepare a loyalty campaign to encourage one-off buyers to buy that product.

Increasing referrals and loyalty sales don’t require additional advertising so they’re a great choice when budgets are tight. You just need to focus on analyzing your customer data and executing campaigns based on those insights. 

Achieving Sales Goals With First-Party Data

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Some businesses are not focused on online sales. For example, industrial products, vehicles and enterprise software are rarely bought in a matter of clicks. In these more complex sales, first party data can support your sales goals.

Identify High Interest Sales Leads

Sales professionals only have so many hours in the day. First party data can play a role in lifting the efficiency of sales conversations. An analysis of first-party data can identify the prospects who are the most engaged with your content and may be open to a sales call.

Earn Attention With Relevant Content

Complex sales can take weeks, months or even years to close. Staying in touch with prospects during these longer customer journeys takes a lot of work! You can only send a “checking in” style email so many times. 

First party data can support the nurturing process. You can see which content your customers access in the lead up to purchase and afterward. As a result, you can craft follow up messages focused specifically on content that resonates with buyers.

From First-Party Data To Deeper Engagement

Simply gathering and using first party data will give you an immediate advantage in making sales and reaching your marketing goals. 

Ultimately, your goal isn’t really focused on getting data (even highly useful data like first party data). You want to build an audience of people who look forward to visiting your website regularly. An audience who finds insights, connections and experiences all through your company is one that will stay loyal. 

The secret to gaining first party data and deep engagement requires the right technology. That’s where Arena Live Chat technology comes in. You can install it in just a few minutes and get up and running. Discover more about how Arena can help you grow ecommerce revenue!

Start A Sustainable First Party Data Strategy: 5 Principles

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The coming end of third-party cookies means brands and publishers need to evolve. The road forward lies in embracing first-party data. First-party data refers to information your organization has collected from customers and users. As third-party cookies are ending, brands should focus on first-party data.

Got First Party Data Party FOMO?

First-party data is crucial to engaging your audience and customers. It gives you a rich understanding of what your audience wants. Even more powerful, collecting first-party data means you’re building a direct relationship with customers and audience members.

Despite these benefits, many organizations have yet to use first-party data fully. Several reasons for that slow adoption include a need for the right technology. In some cases, first-party data may be viewed as a marketing technology project rather than the lifeblood of growing your audience.

Google’s research shows that investing in personalization offers excellent results. Specifically, the company found “a personalized approach increased the brand’s ROI between 12% and 35%, depending on the marketing channel.” Thriving in the new digital reality defined by first-party data is vital. Use the following strategies to build first-party data into your business.

5 Strategies To Create Sustainable First-Party Data

Charting your path to audience engagement and growth in a first-party world starts with the right approach. 

1. Define your goals for first-party data

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Gathering and using first-party data will take time, effort, and resources. Before making those investments, it’s wise to take a few moments to clarify your goals. Ideally, your first-party data objectives should be linked to other organizational goals (e.g., revenue, engagement, etc.).

We recommend creating a mix of quantity and quality goals to inform your approach. For example, you might set a goal of growing your online audience of registered community members by 10,000 people. To ensure your community is growing effectively, add a quality goal, such as at least 20% of registered users making a posting on your website once per month.

For more guidance on using community tactics and technology to grow, see our post: Ways To Use Community Tactics & Tools To Hit Your Goals.

2. Answer the “what’s in it for your audience” question

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It’s not 2010 anymore – expectations around user privacy and legal changes have changed the conversation. In other words, the days of relying on sneaky methods to gather data from users are over. Instead, success in a first-party data world means offering a compelling value exchange to your audience in return for their data.

Your approach to earning first-party data from your audience will be more successful by making multiple offers to your audience. For example, a consumer brand might offer a discount code or access to a sale in return for first-party data. Discount offers aren’t suitable for every situation, though.

Another way to answer the “what’s in it for me?” questionis to focus on your community. For instance, you may offer exclusive online events with influencers, company leaders, and others to those who sign up for events. In this way, your audience receives a clear benefit – insights and new connections – in return for providing their data.

3. Build your first-party technology platform

Once you have your goals and value proposition, it’s crucial to have the right technology in place. Arena has a suite of solutions to help you earn and use first-party data.

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Arena Live Chat

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Use Live Chat to create engaging community experiences directly on your website. Arena Live Chat is a lightweight application that can be added to any site in minutes. When you use live chat to offer exclusive experiences, you’ll give your audience a reason to keep coming back to your website. Over time, you’ll gather more data to understand your audience’s preferences better so you can connect better with them.

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Arena Live Blog

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Are you a publisher covering breaking news for your audience? Keep your audience focused on your website as the place to get live updates rather than social media. Arena also makes it easy to pull in social media posts that meet your brand guidelines.

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Arena Personas (Beta)

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Arena Personas (Beta) make it easy to segment your audience based on their behavior (e.g., clicks on content) and interests. It’s a powerful way to organize all the first-party data you’re gathering through live chat and live blog experiences.

4. Apply “test and learn” thinking to first-party data

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Marketers and publishers have relied on third-party cookies for over a decade. Marketing systems, habits, and processes have all been built to leverage those cookies. Making the switch to a first-party data world wouldn’t happen overnight.

Ease the pressure on your time to adopt a test-and-learn philosophy. It may take trying plenty of new ideas to generate and use first-party data. Then review what’s working every 90 days before making additional changes. 

To illustrate this strategy, let’s look at two parts of your audience defined by their first-party data.

Audience Segment 1: Product Interest

For example, you might create a test assuming that people who have clicked on multiple product pages in a short period are ready to buy. You can test that idea by emailing offers to that part of your audience. If they don’t respond, it may be time to test a different marketing message or portion of your audience. 

Audience Segment 2: High Chat Engagement

You may find that people who view product pages don’t fully appreciate the value of your brand yet. In that case, you may want to test a campaign with a different segment – like audience members who have participated in several chat sessions – responding to your messages better.

5. Update your measurement processes

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The way your organization measures the value of first-party data will need to evolve. Examine how marketing campaigns and tests using first-party data compare to other efforts. 

While measurement is essential, a word of caution is in order. As mentioned above, first-party data centric marketing may be new to your organization. Keep your expectations reasonable as your team transitions to first-party data. Creating a digital community on your website will take time to pay off.

Equip Your Organization For First-Party Data

Thinking about the role of first-party data will only take you so far. The next step is to get out there and gather data from your audience. Simply asking for permission to gather data can help, but that’s an incomplete solution.

You also need engagement technologies like Arena Live Chat and Arena Live Blog to offer experiences for your audience. 

How publishers can grow engagement and reduce cancellations

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As a publisher, you take pride in your content. Your staff and freelancers put countless hours into production. 

Yet, industry studies estimate that 40% of your subscriber base paid for a subscription but do not access your publication. These sleeper subscribers are quietly hurting your publishing business in several ways.

When nearly half of your subscribers fail to engage in your content, you can lose revenue. Sleeping subscribers are at a greater risk of churning out, causing revenue instability. Second, a significant number of sleeper subscribers means you are losing advertising revenue. 

What happens if your publication overlooks sleeper subscribers and continues business as usual? The disengaged subscribers will only cause compounding problems over time.

Getting The Silent Treatment From Your Subscribers

As the months and quarters roll by, sleeper subscribers who fail to engage with your publication cause even more problems. 

Compounding Losses in Advertising Revenue

Advertisers want to connect with a living, breathing audience. When a third or more of your paid subscribers ignore you, it becomes more challenging to fulfill advertiser needs.

Some publishers try to solve this problem by building their audience further, but that’s a brutal way to grow. It can lead to a shallow relationship with your brand. Lower levels of engagement mean less trust in your brand and less engagement with ads.

Lost Opportunities For Organic Growth and Referrals

A trusted recommendation from a friend tends to be trusted far more than any kind of influence. According to BrightLocal, 49% of people trust personal recommendations from friends and family. 

Your disengaged subscribers are unlikely to share links or offers with people they know. Since you have fewer referrals to fuel growth, your publication will depend on other, more costly efforts to sustain growth.

Declining Staff Morale

Your editorial staff thrives on feedback and engagement with the audience. When they see a fall in audience engagement, staying highly motivated at work is tricky. This type of employee disengagement is potentially even more severe when considering why people choose journalism as a career.

Many people join journalism because they want to share a passion, make the world a better place or connect with people. When the audience goes quiet, the inner fire that keeps your staff coming back to work each day starts to dim. 

There are many costs when a large portion of your audience sleeps on their subscription. Growth gets complicated because word-of-mouth marketing stalls. Employee morale falls further because less feedback from the audience. Growing advertising revenue becomes more difficult. 

Fortunately, there are several ways you can wake up your audience and bring them back to full engagement.

Firing Up The Imagination Of Your Subscribers The Right Way

All of your subscribers once saw value in your publication. Then, somehow, life got in the way, and they became distracted. The following strategies can help you to reduce your sleeper audience faster. The best part? These strategies don’t rely on magical thinking or unsustainable tactics. 

Strategy 1: Transform your website with engagement technology

Like it or not, social media has conditioned your audience to seek instant gratification. Catering to those expectations doesn’t mean you have to recreate Facebook. However, offering a sense of connection between your audience members does matter.

Start by adding Arena Live Chat to your website. This technology makes it easy to host interactive social experiences for your audience. Further, Arena has built-in moderation features to keep the discussions brand-safe. Engagement will naturally increase when your audience sees your website as a place to connect with exciting information and friends.

The next opportunity is to leverage Arena Live Blog to fully leverage breaking news stories. Whether you cover elections, sports events, conferences, or trials, your audience is hungry for trustworthy information. With a live blog, you can increase audience engagement by rapidly publishing updates as a story evolves. Arena live blog makes it easy to manage multiple contributors so you can keep workload levels reasonable.

With these two technologies in place, growing audience engagement gets easier. Instead of reading a digital newspaper, your audience will see your website as a social experience revolving around the news. 

Strategy 2: Improve audience engagement with segmentation

The next strategy to lift subscriber engagement starts by looking at your audience with more nuance. Start by looking at the most extreme segments of your audience: the highly engaged and the sleepers. For simplicity, let’s define highly engaged as above-average engagement (e.g., if the above subscribers have ten pageviews per month, anyone with more than ten pageviews would be tagged as highly engaged). Sleeper subscribers would be those with zero pageviews over the last 60 days.

Analyzing your highly engaged subscribers

Highly engaged subscribers are the lifeblood of your business. It’s important to start with these subscribers and understand their behavior. Your goal is to identify patterns and pain points in your subscriber’s life so that you can create even more super fans!

Use the following questions to understand better what your highly engaged subscribers have in common:

  • Referral source. Start by seeing where your top subscribers come from. For example, a business-focused publication might acquire its most engaged subscribers from LinkedIn.
  • Promotions. Many publications run promotions and discount campaigns. The question is this: are those campaigns generating truly engaged subscribers or not? If the answer is no, you may need to rethink your campaigns.
  • Onboarding experience. Examine the types of content that new subscribers tend to spend the most time during their first month on your platform. For example, are they connecting with certain high-profile writers or personalities? If so, consider doubling down on those subscribers.
  • Social engagement. Look at social actions like sharing links to articles, and social reactions (e.g., likes and thumbs up) to see what kind of content resonates with VIP subscribers.
  • Editorial patterns. Analyze the top topics and sections that pull in your best subscribers weekly. For instance, if you find that sports coverage or certain columnists successfully attract high engagement, it may be wise to promote those assets to new subscribers.

With these insights in mind, you’ll be equipped to run new data-driven campaigns to improve onboarding with new subscribers.

Uncover the causes of subscriber discontent

Analyzing your sleeper subscribers may feel a bit uncomfortable. These people don’t see much value in your publication, as shown by their lack of interaction. Despite this fact, it is crucial to understand the cause of subscriber discontent for two reasons.

Churn Risk

Disengaged subscribers are likelier to cancel their subscriptions, especially during economic downturns. 

Improve Future Subscriber Acquisition

There may be certain messages, promotions, and tactics attracting the wrong type of subscribers to your business.

Use a mix of analytical and qualitative methods to understand why these subscribers are not engaging with your content. The prompts below can help you to design your analysis.

Data Questions 

  • Do sleeper subscribers have any common demographics? 
  • Are there any patterns regarding when or how the subscriber disengaged? (For example: you may have offered in-depth coverage of the World Cup, which turned off subscribers uninterested in that event)
  • Did the subscriber submit any tickets to customer service? What were the requests?

Qualification Questions

Use these questions as free-form questions in a survey or add them to a script if you call subscribers:

  • What attracted you to subscribe to the publication? (For example – was the person brought in through a promotion or subsided based on event-based news like an election?)
  • How do you like to access the publication (e.g., desktop, mobile, app, email)?
  • If we could make one change to make the publication more appealing to you, what would that be?
  • Do you subscribe to other publications? If so, which ones?
  • Do you know anyone subscribes to the publication? (This question helps you to understand the quality of community engagement).

Strategy 3: Add digital events and hybrid events to the subscriber experience

In strategy one, you learned about Arena Live Chat. Digital events are one of the most valuable ways for publishers to use chat with their subscribers. Take a look at the following ways to use digital events, and chat, to grow engagement with your subscribers.

VIP Guest Ask Me Anything

As a publisher, you’re probably connected with industry leaders, elected officials, sports stars, and other fascinating people. Put those connections to work by creating a virtual event with a star guest. Make it a win for the guest by promoting them, such as an actor’s upcoming movie release.

Arena Live Chat offers a blend of automated and manual moderation features to keep the chat brand safe and comfortable for all participants. That means your audience can focus on engaging in the event rather than dealing with online trolls.

Exclusive Access To Premium Content

Examine your publication’s upcoming coverage and plan a virtual event around your premium coverage. For instance, Forbes could offer a virtual event about trends in wealth in anticipation of their annual “Forbes 400” feature on the richest people in America.

Enrich Offline Events With A Chat Experience

Many publications organize or participate in-person events. One challenge with these events is that they may not be convenient for all subscribers to attend. One way to increase subscriber engagement is to offer your subscribers a complimentary virtual event ticket for your top events.

Building Strong Subscriber Engagement For The Long Term

You don’t have to live with the frustration of disengaged subscribers. Use the three strategies outlined in this guide to understand what’s working and what’s not working for your audience. You can then leverage Arena’s platform to give your audience more ways to meet each other and trust your brand more deeply.

Stop News Avoidance Now: 3 Engagement Principles

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Many publishers still offer a standardized news experience that looks the same to everybody. That “one size fits all” experience is there for a reason – it’s inspired by the print experience that offered a uniform page to every subscriber. That’s no longer enough to connect with audience preferences that revolve around data-powered personalization.

The way to win audience engagement and subscribers requires personalization and data. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube present customized experiences based on the user’s connections and preferences. Other online services like Netflix and Amazon have also leveraged personalized experiences to grow engagement. 

There’s a clear ROI to investing in personalization. Industry research suggests that high levels of personalization can lift conversions by 30% or more. That means increased subscriber sign-ups and fewer cancellations, key ways boost revenue and profitability.

Offering personalized experiences helps to lift customer retention and audience engagement. For publishers, personalization is also vital because publishers are facing a crisis of confidence and trust.

Misinformation And Declining Trust: An Existential Crisis For Publishers

Growing audience engagement and subscriptions become difficult when audiences do not trust a publisher on a fundamental level. The Pew Research Center has found that trust in national news organizations fell from 76% in 2017 to 58% in 2021. The same research also found trust is falling for local news from 82% in 2016 to 75% in 2021. Distrust isn’t the only challenge, either.

The Reuters Institute for the study of Journalism found that 72% of news industry leaders found that news avoidance is a challenge. Avoiding the news is driven by, “a response to media coverage related to politics, climate change, inflation or coverage of the war in Ukraine, which leaves people feeling overwhelmed and powerless.” says News Media Canada.

Solving news avoidance will also take a variety of strategies, including editorial changes. The Reuters Institute argues that explanatory journalism, Q&A formats, and inspirational stories are worthwhile solutions to news avoidance. All of these changes have their place in leading to a solution. 

Solving the misinformation crisis will ultimately require collaboration across society, including educators, publishers, and other stakeholders. Publishers have an opportunity to lead the conversation by enhancing trust.

Laying A Foundation For Trust: Integrity, Data, and Personalization

Restoring your audience’s trust in your publication starts with developing three principles: integrity, data, and personalization. These principles can then help to guide you through the tactical steps to follow.

Principle 1: Integrity

Publishers can earn trust by restoring a focus on integrity. Fortunately, many publishers and journalists are committed to practicing good journalism ethics. That said, some of the commitment to integrity is invisible to your audience. With some measure of transparency, it is easier for a skeptical audience to trust you.

Improving your publication’s reputation for integrity will depend on how your audience perceives you. The following methods can help you to enhance your perceived integrity.

Reinforce fact-checking

When a publisher fails to collect and present accurate information, it’s tough to maintain audience trust. For high-profile stories, it’s worth making the extra effort to verify the facts. Investing more effort into accuracy will also help to separate your publication from less professional outlets.

Own your mistakes and follow up

Every publisher makes mistakes now and then – it’s inevitable given the tight timelines and other pressures of publishing. When mistakes happen, whether factual errors or something else, take the time to update your digital stories with corrections. Many publishers already do this, so implementing this best practice is vital to staying  

Invite your audience to occasional behind-the-scenes conversations

Occasionally pulling back the curtain on the publishing process can also help to build trust with your audience. For example, share how you approach high-profile or controversial coverage. By revealing the care and due diligence you use, inspiring audience trust will get easier.

While integrity matters, it will only take you so far. To compete successfully against the largest media outlets, leveraging data and personalization is vital.

Principle 2: Data 

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Data is the next element in solving news avoidance and boosting audience engagement. Specifically, publishers need to make gathering and using first-party data a priority. First-party data is gathered directly from your audience without relying on anyone else. Asking consumers to provide more data is more likely to succeed when the audience sees value.

There are several ways to invest more deeply in data to build audience engagement and grow, including the following:

Deepen your audience understanding with first-party data

First-party data means information your audience has directly provided to you. For example, you might track opens and clicks on your email newsletter. That data gives you direct insights into what your audience values.

Upskill your journalists on data literacy

More and more stories and coverage today require data journalism skills. Whether you train staff, recruit people with this expertise, or take a hybrid approach, data skills matter. The capacity to analyze data critically for your audience will become a key way to build trust and counter misinformation.

Principle 3: Personalization

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Personalization matters in rebuilding trust because it shows that you are paying attention to what your audience values. For many publications, personalization based on first-party data is the largest opportunity for growth. Therefore, we’ll explore this opportunity in the greatest depth.

Depending on your goals and resources, there are multiple ways to personalize the subscriber experience. Here are some of the most popular ways to personalize the subscriber experience.

Personalize The Homepage Experience

Many publishers, especially those with a background in print, present their home page

like the front page of a newspaper. Some subscribers may like that approach, but it may not work for everyone. Give subscribers the option to customize their homepage experience based on their interests. For example, some of your audience may want in-depth political coverage, while others only want to see breaking business stories.

Tailor The Email Experience

Your email newsletter experience is the next opportunity to leverage personalization. Take inspiration from the Morning Brew, an email-only news publisher. The publication started with a general news publication broadly focused on technology and business stories in the US. More recently, the company has created separate email newsletters based on job roles (e.g., CFO Brew) and industry interests (e.g., Marketing Brew).

Arena Live Blog makes creating this kind of experience easy! For example, a new publisher could set up a live blog feed for local news and  another for sports and create an email newsletter based on the most popular content. In that way, your email newsletter delivers only the most popular content to email subscribers!

Invite Subscribers To Exclusive Events

Welcoming your subscribers with premium events is one of the best ways to offer a personalized experience. From the audience’s perspective, an event is a powerful networking opportunity because you can ask questions and interact with people who share your interests. From the publisher’s viewpoint, digital events are a powerful way to deepen audience engagement and gather data.

Running digital events doesn’t have to be complicated either. You just need the right tools – like Arena Live Chat – to get started. Check out the next section for tips and tricks on how to use live chat in your events!

Let’s take a closer look at how publishers can use digital engagement and events to engage their audience.

Unlocking More First-Party Data With Events: 4 Strategies

Unlike static articles, podcasts, or videos, interactive events offer the chance to connect with others who share similar interests. 

Expand Access To In-Person Events

A growing list of publishers like TechCrunch and WIRED offer in-person events to serve their subscribers. For those subscribers able to attend these events, there’s nothing quite like breaking bread with other people. However, the reality is that many of your subscribers may not find traditional events convenient to attend due to travel costs and other responsibilities.

The solution is to offer a digital pass to your event. Using Arena Live Chat, you can use chat experiences on your website to engage your subscribers in various ways. For those who buy digital tickets, you might offer an intimate small group event to interact with your publication’s top personalities. 

Run Brandsafe Events With VIP Guests

Every industry and interest has celebrities and thought leaders. Building an event around an exciting guest is one of the best ways to create an enticing event experience. One challenge associated with running a live event with a high-profile guest is moderation.

While many celebrities have a large fan base, such personalities inevitably attract their share of detractors and haters. Arena has you covered here! You get customizable AI profanity filters to stop the most common “not safe for work” language from ever making it into your chat. Also, Arena provides moderation features, so your staff can filter questions and comments before posting them.

Enhance Coverage Of Live Events

When a big story breaks, your audience will be hungry for up-to-date coverage and analysis. Major events in sports and politics offer tremendous opportunities to provide in-depth coverage. 

Arena Live Blog is one of the best ways to increase engagement during these high-profile events. Your team can leverage a combination of breaking news and content created in advance (e.g., explainers, Q&A with experts, etc.). A live blog – which some publishers call ‘live updates’ – makes it easy to provide short updates. 

When a major news story breaks, your audience may take to social media to share their thoughts. Arena Live Blog equips you with curating social media content to enrich your coverage. However, unfiltered social media can bring low-quality and inappropriate material. 

Arena Live Blog keeps publishers in control of how they bring in social media content. You can use a combination of automation and manual filtering to ensure that every social media update you feature meets your brand guidelines.

The Path To Bringing Personalization To Your Website

Building trust and engagement with your audience is a journey. Yet the first few steps of lifting engagement don’t have to take a long time. Many companies find they can install and implement Arena Live Chat and Live Blog in less than an hour (some are even faster!). Discover Arena’s solutions for publishers!

3 Ways To Build Online Community Hubs For A Crisis

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When a crisis strikes, it’s all hands on deck. Governments, police, firefighters, and more all have a critical role to play. Those impacted by a disaster also come together in communities to share support, information, and strategies to recover. 

Community-based solutions like Facebook Groups, shared hashtags, and websites empower people to work together. The power of community can provide vital social and practical aid to people suffering through a crisis. 

The Impact Of Disasters Runs Deep

When a crisis strikes, people suffer in many different ways. Let’s look back at two of the most significant US disasters in 2022 to show the impact of disaster events.

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In the winter of 2022, the electricity grid in Texas failed for days. As a result, more than two hundred people died, according to the Austin-American Statesman. Economically, the cost of the damage has been estimated at $195 billion by the University of Texas at Austin. 

Residents took to social media with the hashtag #texaspoweroutage to share updates about the crisis and its aftermath. These messages helped to provide a sense of connection during tough times. That’s not all. These fast online community building effort helped to rally attention and donations from across the country to local organizations like Austin Mutual Aid and homeless shelters. 

A few months later, West Virginia suffered from exceptionally high amounts of rain which caused flooding. According to local news reports, the August 15 rainfall alone damaged more than 100 homes. Damage assessments are ongoing, and federal funding is being provided to assist the area.

In early 2023 (last week, as of writing this), major flooding hit California hard. CNN estimated that millions of people were under a flood watch on January 15th. Residents went online using hashtags like #bayareastorm and #AtmosphericRiver to share their observations. Some shared videos showing flooded road conditions – a powerful way to supplement government safety warnings. Others organized charitable relief efforts for people negatively affected by the flood such as the region’s farmworkers using the hashtag #theyfeedus. In the long term, we may find that online community efforts played an important role in helping people through the crisis. 

When disaster strikes, the need for community – including online community hubs – is paramount. Publishers and brands that offer such community support during a crisis have an incredible opportunity to contribute to the community.

Four Reasons Why Online Community Hubs Are Valuable In A Crisis

Offering an online community hub to your audience during a crisis offers tremendous value. An online community hub is not a replacement for traditional emergency relief. Instead, it is best seen as enhancing those measures by helping people to meet their community needs.

Here are some ways a digital community experience can help people get through tough times. 

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1. Provide Accurate, Up To Date Information

During a crisis event, it’s difficult to understand the full scope of the event while you are going through it. You may not know which roads are open, when power will be repaired or how to find emergency aid. In times like these, your audience needs reliable, trustworthy sources of information. Running a live blog with updates on getting help during a crisis is one way to help your community. For example, you might post hourly updates during the height of the crisis to reassure your audience about steps being taken to address the problem.

2. Offer Stability During Unstable Times

When a disaster strikes, your ability to see friends, families, and coworkers suffer. Some people may need to live in a shelter or other temporary housing for a time. This level of disruption can leave people thinking that nothing is certain. This is where your online community hub comes to play.

For example, the meditation app Ten Percent Happier offered a daily meditation experience called “Ten Percent Happier LIVE” during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The fifty-nine-episode live-streamed series for several months in 2020 following the pandemic declaration. Different guests shared their experiences and led guided meditations. This ad hoc digital community experience helped some people cope with the pandemic. 

3. Improve Physical Health Problems Linked To Loneliness

Isolation and loneliness are significant social challenges that are likely to worsen during a disaster. That’s significant because social isolation may cause additional health problems. A 2022 health study examines the health of more than 50,000 women in the US. The research found that: “social isolation and loneliness were associated with increased risk of incident cardiovascular disease among older women in the US.” 

Online community hubs have a role to play in easing loneliness and may help to reduce physical health problems. Beyond the potential health benefits, an online community hub with an interactive live chat can help your audience find mutual support. 

4. Fight Back Against Misinformation

Misinformation is a growing problem in the United States and other countries. 

Researchers have found that misinformation can hurt confidence in the democratic system. The Brookings Institution reports that misinformation has already hurt the United States. Misinformation problems are likely to get worse in social media because Twitter has announced it is “no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy.” To put that policy change in context, new Twitter CEO Elon Musk disbanded the company’s trust and safety board in December 2022.

Fortunately, misinformation can be stopped. The New Mexico government launched a rumor vs. reality website to address misinformation-inspired questions and concerns. Other states like Connecticut and Colorado have recently implemented additional measures to promote confidence and fight misinformation.

Just imagine if people could not access emergency aid because incorrect information spread. Misinformation has already hurt public health. A 2022 study of Florida adults found that “Exposure to misinformation was directly correlated with vaccine hesitancy.” Offering credible, up-to-date information as situations rapidly develop during a crisis can help your audience stay safe.

Building A Community Hub For A Crisis: A Quick Start Guide

When a crisis strikes, speed is critically important. Use the following tips to create (or enhance) an online community hub during tough times.

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1) Identify Your Strengths And Credibility

A single organization can’t be all things to all people, especially in a crisis. For example, a local news outlet may connect deeply with local and state governments and nonprofits. In that case, leverage your strengths in building a crisis hub. For instance, use Arena Live Blog with a list of emergency shelters and tips on accessing relief funds and beyond.

What about concerns and issues that go beyond your organization’s capabilities? The best course is to provide a list of available resources. For instance, the community might need access to emergency housing if their homes are damaged or destroyed. Reach out to government agencies, churches, and other groups to make a list and keep it updated.

2) Enhance Your Community Hub With Trusted Community Voices

Giving voice to trusted community leaders is another way an online community hub can help. Start by looking within your organization. Encourage your best-known news anchors and reporters to focus on crisis reporting. Once your team is engaged, reach out to engage others in the community.

Inviting a broad and representative group of influencers and experts to participate in the online community hub is the next step. Some influencers may need guidance on what messages to share, so connect them with resources. In other cases, your influencers may need more experience communicating with digital communication. 

3) Make Your Hub Desirable For Gen Z and Millennial Audiences

Generation Z and Millennials comprise a large proportion of the US population. Engaging these digital natives is vital if your online community hub will thrive. The following best practices will help you to get started:

Offer A Social Media Style Experience

It is estimated that 60% of American Gen Z consumers use social media to shop. A crisis isn’t the same as shopping. However, there is still competition for attention. Make sure your hub offers an interactive experience for your audience. With Arena Live Chat, you can use chat experiences where your audience can interact publicly, send private messages and react to posts.

Use Short Videos

Short video content is one reason why TikTok has exploded in popularity. Creating short, focused videos with credible information during a crisis is a powerful way to connect with Millenials and Generation Z. 

Offer Mobile Payments For Fundraising

During a disaster, your audience may want to help to support this need. Support this desire by making your website supports mobile payments. A recent UK survey found that most Gen Z consumers abandon physical wallets instead of digital wallets. If you partner with charitable organizations and nonprofits during a crisis, make it easy for your audience to buy on mobile devices.

For additional insights on connecting effectively with these large demographics, see other posts:

The Fast Way To Build Your Online Community Hub

When a crisis strikes, your audience needs access to a trustworthy online community quickly. There is no time to optimize settings and technology for days or weeks. You need a fast digital solution that can easily integrate into your website. Arena Live Chat and Live Blog are the perfect solutions. You can install these tools on your website in minutes. You can have a live blog up and running in less than an hour with updates. Learn more about building your digital community with Arena.