For years, publishers have been told to “follow the data.” But what if the data is misleading—or worse, misunderstood?
That was the central theme of a recent E&P Magazine webinar featuring three media industry leaders focused on smarter analytics: Bridget Sibthorp-Moecker, Director of Audience at BLOX Digital; Kyle Rickhoff, Founder of Align Simple; and Reilly Kneedler, Chief of Staff at Wick Communications. Together, they shared how cutting through the clutter of traditional metrics can unlock new revenue, deepen audience loyalty, and help newsrooms better fulfill their mission.
The myth of metrics: Why analytics aren’t always insight
“The biggest lie,” Rickhoff said plainly, “is that publishers use their analytics at all.” He wasn’t being cynical—just realistic. According to him, most publishers look at metrics like page views or traffic without truly using them to drive decisions.
“When they talk about traffic, it’s usually a signal that there’s a bit of education and data maturity that needs to happen,” Rickhoff explained. “They’ll try to go through and pick a thing like pages per user, then a viral story blows up their numbers, and suddenly the whole management team is arguing over whether things are working.”
Instead of drowning in dozens of disjointed KPIs, Rickhoff encourages publishers to focus on a few core indicators. “Start with the total number of people interacting with your brand—social, site, email, everything. Then look at frequency: how often they’re coming back. And finally, are they staying long enough to engage or convert?”
It’s simple, but not easy. That’s why Rickhoff—who consults for publishers nationwide—builds simplified analytics dashboards that align with a business’s specific goals.
From page views to conversions: Redefining the funnel with BLOX NXT
While Rickhoff focuses on clarity, Sibthorp-Moecker is building a system to bring that clarity to every newsroom, regardless of size or sophistication. BLOX Digital’s new platform, BLOX NXT, is designed to merge content management and subscription intelligence into a single, actionable view.
“We want to help you shift from a one-size-fits-all funnel to more dynamic, personalized journeys,” she explained. “Casual readers and loyal readers behave differently. You shouldn’t treat them the same.”
One example is BLOX’s emphasis on two underutilized metrics: meter stop rate and conversion rate. “Meter stop rate is how many people see your subscription offer. Conversion rate is how many of those people actually convert,” she said. “These percentages matter whether you’re a large paper or a small nonprofit. They show how effective your strategy is—regardless of paywall type.”
In one case study, a BLOX publisher discovered that many of their conversions were coming from “formers”—people who had subscribed in the past. “They were seeing the same low intro offer as new users,” Sibthorp-Moecker explained. “By switching to a win-back offer, they saw an immediate revenue lift.”
In the trenches: How Wick is embedding analytics into daily decisions
Wick Communications was one of the early adopters of BLOX NXT. For Kneedler, the value goes beyond the dashboards—it’s about getting analytics in front of the people who need them most.
“Back to Kyle’s point about people not looking at analytics—one way to get them to do it is to put it where they’re actually working every single day,” Kneedler said. “When it’s embedded in the CMS, they don’t have to bookmark another site or check an email they’ll ignore. It’s right there when they’re publishing.”
Kneedler, who previously served as Wick’s digital audience editor, has seen a cultural shift firsthand. “At first, I had to convince editors and reporters why analytics mattered. Then they started coming to me, saying, ‘How did that story do? I thought it was a good one—did it convert?’ That’s the shift you want.”
The news they want vs. the news they need: Editorial integrity and metrics
It’s the eternal newsroom debate: Should you cover what drives engagement—or what serves the public good?
Kneedler offered a thoughtful analogy. “I always say, put the ‘capital J’ journalism on an island. We’re going to do it, whether it gets zero views or a million. But for the rest of the content, we should listen to the community. Analytics help us understand how people want to be served.”
Rickhoff agreed, but emphasized the need for goals. “If it’s important, it should be interesting. So how are you presenting that investigative piece? What labor hours are going into it, and what do you expect in return—subscriptions, impact, engagement?”
He added, “You’ve already filtered your editorial priorities just by choosing what to cover. The next step is experimentation. Let your audience tell you what resonates, instead of just repeating what worked two years ago.”
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Loyalty, churn, and habit: Building sustainable audience value
According to Rickhoff, habit is “the foundation of a sustainable audience.” He encourages publishers to adopt recency-frequency-value (RFV) models: “When did they last come to your site? How often do they come? What’s the value of those interactions? Even headline scanners have value—they’re engaged at some level.”
Kneedler uses those insights to drive action. “We do a lot of off-platform marketing—boosting stories, promoting newsletters, even advertising on Bing and Yahoo because we’re seeing high conversion rates there. We also push data directly to editors and reporters, so it’s not just a wall of numbers. We talk through it.”
He recalled a recent case where a newsroom pushed breaking news harder, but their average pages per user dropped. “If you only look at that one metric, it looks bad. But what really happened is we brought in more top-of-funnel users—people who could convert later.”
Unified data, real results: What BLOX NXT delivers
BLOX NXT goes beyond simplified analytics. One of its most powerful tools is a single customer view, which Sibthorp-Moecker demonstrated using a mock profile for “Marty McFly.”
“This pulls all the data we have on one user—subscription history, lifetime value, engagement signals, churn risk—all in one place,” she said. “It’s incredibly efficient for audience teams and customer service. No more jumping between tabs.”
It’s all about action. “We want your data to be more than something you observe,” she added. “It should inform decisions that improve revenue, retention, and engagement.”
What assumptions should publishers break?
As the webinar wrapped, Blinder posed one final question to each panelist: What’s one assumption about data or audience that publishers must challenge?
Sibthorp-Moecker didn’t hesitate: “That the data you’re looking at tells the whole story. Some people fixate on one metric and lose context. Others track too many metrics and miss what really matters. We want to unify that data and make it actionable.”
Kneedler called out the editorial assumption that newsrooms always know what’s best. “Assuming the community doesn’t need to be consulted—either through analytics, surveys, or town halls—is a mistake. We often say ‘we covered that story last year,’ but most of your community didn’t see it.”
Rickhoff offered a broader challenge: “There’s this idea that investigative journalism doesn’t have a business case. I disagree. Let’s start measuring impact—changes in policy, laws, public behavior—as part of our success metrics. That’s real value.”
He also warned against flattening your user base into meaningless aggregates. “All users are not equal. Someone coming in from an Instagram story is not the same as a loyal e-edition reader. If you’re not building personas and tailoring experiences, you’re leaving revenue on the table.”
Next steps and final call to action
As the discussion came to a close, Sibthorp-Moecker offered a simple path forward: “Download our free white paper. It’s got a lot more detail on everything we talked about. And visit us at BLOXdigital.com. You can learn more or request a demo of BLOX NXT. We’d love to show you what it can do.”
For publishers trying to make sense of their data, the message was clear: You don’t need more dashboards. You need the right ones—and a strategy that turns insight into action.
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