What can we learn from those articles that knock it out of the park in the engagement stakes? We asked our Data Labs to do an analysis of articles scoring more than 900 Engagement CPI to see if we could find anything interesting about what makes an article particularly engaging.

Engagement in the smartocto world doesn’t mean how many likes or clicks or shares an article gets (though of course that’s interesting). In our world we look at the quality of time the reader spends with any given article. How long are they reading? Where do they stop? Does the headline put them off? Do they stay on your site? Do they open other articles?

The Study

Methodology

We looked at 18 788 articles published in 15 randomly selected newsbrands between November 2024 and end December 2024. Of these, 7 361 scored more than 900 CPI for Engagement.

Results

  • Median attention time 75 seconds
  • Page depth 2.24 (pages per visit, average)
  • Median read depth 54%
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Put another way, these findings tell us that:

  • You have your audience’s attention for about a minute and a half
  • They only read about half of what you write
  • They open two more articles after the first one

And let’s not forget that this is only true of the best engaging articles. Pay attention! What about those that under perform? With those, people are reading even less than half the way through, give way under than a minute’s attention time, and aren’t that keen to read on past that first article. If we’re seeing room for improvement even within highly performing articles, all the learnings are going to be doubly true for everything else.

Rutger Verhoeven, CMO @ smartocto

Rutger Verhoeven CMO @ smartocto

What should you do with this information?

STRATEGY ONE

Articles with a highly-engaging first minute of attention should do better - don’t bury the lede and ensure you frontload your key points.

STRATEGY TWO

Consider the linked articles and pages - how are they chained together? Can you identify omissions or opportunities?

-> User needs can be your friend here and will help you ensure that the potential points to engage your readers are hit. If the first article is fact-based, perhaps ensuring you delve deeper into explaining the underlying issue might help? Maybe a lighter take would be appreciated? It could even be that you need resources to help readers spring into action somehow. There’s no one right formula, but breadth is your friend.

STRATEGY THREE
Even when attention scores are good, readers on average only read half of your articles. No one enjoys this fact (sorry) but this is information you can work with:

  • Consider value. The most valuable asset you could deliver your readers might be brevity
  • Are people dropping off because the promise of the headline doesn’t match the reality of the article? It might be worth running some A/B headline tests
  • Might a better format be more efficient?
  • Or how about starting to write shorter pieces ?

Further reading & resources

Read this client case about Read Depth

Watch this webinar about why producing less sometimes gives more value

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