Pickr Insights

Getting to know the reader is the same as getting to know the buyer, but access to this information often comes from resources that aren’t available to every company. Think surveys, market research, testimonials, and other forms of research that can cost big.

Publishers often have a treasure trove of information that can prove valuable, but it’s usually private and accessible only to the people working at that publisher. Other sources with access to similar data is typically guesstimated or cookie-based, which in turn can still be a giant guess.

Pickr is trying something different, and is opening up access to data sets about its users, albeit in totally sanitised way.

We call it “Pickr Insights”, and it’s an evolving program of data insights available for brands, marketers, and PR houses to see what we see in our analytics, and may help paint a better picture of what readers are looking for in stories.

What is Pickr Insights?

A dashboard available to paying premium supporters of Pickr, “Insights” is our way of keeping the lights on while retaining full independence. We’re using data as the reward for supporting independent Australian technology journalism, and it’s this data that could make sense of what users are looking for when they search for products and stories.

The Pickr Insights dashboard provides access to Pickr’s Google Analytics data, which is anonymised, but provides information about popular stories in the system in a searchable way.

You can look for specific titles, brands, and topics, and view segmentation data about them, covering reader ages, gender, devices used, and interests of the user, dependent on what’s being tracked by Google. Our Insights dashboard also shows popularity of the topics from a geographical point of view, and the average view time.

Depending on the article, you may be able to glean insights about the pages in question, providing reader research from an entirely organic source: readers of the website.

What sort of stories can this information tell?

Explaining how to use data in marketing is like asking someone for a recipe in how to make a good dinner: there are hundreds of possible great ways and hundreds more that are less great.

We won’t tell you how Pickr Insights data can be used, but some examples could include:

Own-brand research

What’s resonating with readers? Get a gauge of views and the amount of time being spent by readers, plus where in Australia is seeing the most users of your brand from Pickr.

Competition research

If you’re competing with a big brand, and trying to gauge places to run advertising in, a geographical segmentation look-up could provide a glimpse of where readers already are, as well as the ages, gender, and devices they’re using.

Why are we doing this?

Data like this is typically left behind closed doors, but as part of our aim to keep Pickr independent, we’re offering the information as part of brand patronage, as a sort of “thank you” and reward for helping support independent journalism.

While other websites focus on branded and sponsored content, or even ambassadorships that can influence the content, Pickr aims to be entirely independent.

We believe there’s a place for great technology journalism supported by method, research, and excellent writing. While we maintain strong relationships with companies to build stories, we don’t believe they should necessarily have a say in the outcome of those stories.

In short, Pickr is independent Australian journalism, and plans on staying independent.

However, neither running a website nor creating content for that website is free. Content costs money, as does hosting it. As such, we’re trying something, turning to companies who can support our efforts.

Very little in this world is free, and we’re not immune to that. We don’t expect free money from companies, so we’ve invested in Pickr Insights to build a system brands can use to learn about their readers in an anonymised way.

How much does Pickr Insights cost?

For $400 per month (which equates to an investment of less than $5K per year), brands and other organisations can support Pickr and gain access to Pickr Insights.

To learn more about Pickr Insights and the options available, please contact the editor at leigh@pickr.com.au.

We have plans to grow Pickr Insights and what it can track over time. If successful, our plan is to turn the platform into something more useful for the community.