Content consumption
11 cards on this board
4 × KPI1 × funnel1 × trend1 × retention1 × distribution3 × table
Metrics on this board
Content views · Readers · Completion rate · Engagement rate · Completions · Subscriptions
Content & media analytics Who finishes, who subscribes, and who is a bot?
The content template follows a piece from first open through progress to completion, then to like, share, follow and subscribe. Articles, video, audio and courses share one model and are split by content type.
- Completion, not just views
- 197+ bot rules and an AI-crawler channel
- Author or channel as a group
Content views
418,200
▲ 9.4%
Readers
96,400
▲ 6.1%
Completion rate
36%
▲ 2.2 pts
Engagement rate
12%
▲ 0.6 pts
Views and completions
Content viewsCompletionsJanMarMayJulSepNov
The problem
Three things page views hide
A view is the start of a read. Everything that matters happens after it.
Views are not reads
A piece opened by 10,000 people and finished by 900 looks the same as one finished by 6,000. Completion rate separates them.
Watch: Completion rate
Crawlers inflate the audience
AI assistants and scrapers can be a third of hits. Bot rules remove them; the AI-crawler channel shows what they fetched.
Watch: Human vs all traffic
Subscriptions are not tied to content
Subscribe arrives from billing without the piece that drove it. The subscribe funnel holds content_view → complete → subscribe.
Watch: Subscribe conversion
Template metrics
Sixteen metrics from view to churn
Consumption, engagement, subscription and churn. Names match the console after install.
| Metric | Definition | Format | Dashboards |
|---|---|---|---|
| Content views | TOTALS(content_view) | Number | Content consumption |
| Readers | UNIQUES(content_view) | Number | Content consumption |
| Views per reader | TOTALS(content_view) / UNIQUES(content_view) | Number | — |
| Completions | TOTALS(content_complete) | Number | Content consumption |
| Completion rate | TOTALS(content_complete) / TOTALS(content_view) * 100 | Percent | Content consumption |
| Average time on content | PROPAVG(content_complete.duration) | Duration | — |
| Engagements | TOTALS(like) + TOTALS(comment) + TOTALS(share) + TOTALS(favorite) | Number | Content consumption |
| Engagement rate | (TOTALS(like) + TOTALS(comment) + TOTALS(share) + TOTALS(favorite)) / TOTALS(content_view) * 100 | Percent | Content consumption |
| Shares | TOTALS(share) | Number | — |
| Follows | TOTALS(follow) | Number | Content consumption |
| Subscriptions | TOTALS(subscribe) | Number | Content consumption Subscriptions and revenue |
| Subscribers | UNIQUES(subscribe) | Number | — |
| Subscription revenue | PROPSUM(subscribe.price) | Currency | Subscriptions and revenue |
| Subscribe conversion | UNIQUES(subscribe) / UNIQUES(content_view) * 100 | Percent | Subscriptions and revenue |
| Pay-per-piece revenue | PROPSUM(paid_content_unlock.price) | Currency | Subscriptions and revenue |
| Unsubscribes | TOTALS(unsubscribe) | Number | Subscriptions and revenue |
Metric names and formulas come from the industry pack. TOTALS counts events, UNIQUES counts people, PROPSUM adds up a property. Every figure on this page is sample data.
Dashboards the template installs
Each dashboard is a set of cards: KPIs, funnels, trends, retention, distributions and breakdown tables. Edit, duplicate or share them after install.
Subscriptions and revenue
9 cards on this board
4 × KPI2 × funnel1 × trend1 × distribution1 × retention
Metrics on this board
Subscriptions · Subscription revenue · Subscribe conversion · Unsubscribes · Pay-per-piece revenue
Funnel
View, progress, complete, on the same piece
The completion funnel holds content_id, so a reader who opens one article and finishes another does not count. The window is one day.
Completion funnel
1-day windowContent view
2,400
Content progress
1,248
Content complete
674
Hold on the piece
hold_prop keeps the funnel on one content_id. It answers how far people get in this piece, not in the site.
Split by content type
content_type separates article, video, audio and course. Completion for a 40-minute video and a 600-word post should not share a benchmark.
Thirty days to subscribe
The subscribe funnel runs view → complete → subscribe over 30 days, so you see which pieces finished readers before they paid.
Also in the pack
- Subscribe funnelContent view → Content complete → Subscribe · 30-day window
- Engagement funnelContent view → Like / Comment / Favourite → Share · 7-day window
How teams use it
What newsrooms and creators set up first
Depth, author performance, membership and the crawler ledger.
Use case 1
Rank pieces by completion, not views
content_progress fires at 25, 50 and 75 percent; content_complete at the end. The consumption board shows which pieces hold readers and how long they stay.
- Completion rate and average time per piece
- Time-on-content distribution
- Scroll heatmap on the article template
Example scenario: The most-viewed piece finished at 22%. The most-finished one had a third of the views and seven times the subscriptions. It moved to the homepage.
Pieces by completion
Last 7 days| Piece | Views | Completion | Avg time | Subs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The ledger of AI crawlers | 18,400 | 58% | 6:12 | 94 |
| Why your UV never matches | 24,100 | 41% | 4:48 | 71 |
| Weekly briefing #41 | 31,600 | 22% | 1:50 | 12 |
| Interview: the data desk | 9,800 | 63% | 8:04 | 48 |
| Product update, October | 12,200 | 35% | 2:36 | 9 |
Use case 2
Keep crawlers out of the audience
Five layers of bot rules filter user agents, headers, client signals, ASN and request rate. AI assistants get their own channel so you can see what they fetch without counting them as readers.
- Human vs all traffic toggle on every report
- AI-crawler channel: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and more
- robots.txt and llms.txt compared with actual hits
Hits by agent class
Last 7 days
Use case 3
Connect a subscription to the piece that earned it
subscribe comes from billing with plan and price. The subscribe funnel and the revenue board show which content types and authors bring members, and who unsubscribes with which reason.
- Subscribe conversion and revenue by content type
- Unsubscribe reasons: price, content, unused
- Retention after subscribing, weekly
Subscribe funnel
30-day windowContent view
2,400
Completion
1,248
Subscribe
674
Use case 4
Rank authors and channels fairly
group=author attaches every view, completion and follow to the author or channel. The ranking compares completion and follows, not just volume from the homepage slot.
- Author ranking: views, completions, follows
- Engagement funnel: view → like / comment / favourite → share
- Share channel as a property
Author ranking
Last 30 days| Author | Views | Completions | Follows | Compl. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data desk | 84,200 | 38,100 | 1,240 | 45% |
| Markets | 112,600 | 31,400 | 860 | 28% |
| Culture | 46,900 | 24,800 | 1,410 | 53% |
| Newsletter team | 58,300 | 19,700 | 390 | 34% |
Analytics × Chat
Turn a finished read into a member conversation
A reader who finished two pieces and reached the paywall is in the live list. The context card shows what they read and how far. The invite offers the plan, not a generic greeting.
- Invite on paywall view after a completion
- Context: pieces read, completion, referrer, AI-assistant source
- AI answers plan and billing questions from your help pages
Example scenario: Readers who got a paywall invite after a completion subscribed at 9.1%, versus 4.2% for the paywall alone.
Reader context
- Page
- /subscribe · 48 s
- Read today
- 2 pieces · both completed
- Source
- ChatGPT · cited link
- Device
- iPhone · Safari
- Visits
- 5 in 30 days
- /ai-crawler-ledger
- /why-uv-never-matches
- /subscribe
yoursite.com/subscribe
TC
Jo · Membership
Thanks for reading both pieces to the end! The annual plan is two months free this week. Any question about what members get?
Events
Twelve events, four required
Reading events from the snippet; subscribe, unlock and unsubscribe from your billing system with the order number as insert_id.
| Event | Name | When to send | Required properties | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
search | Search | When a site search is submitted; results count if available. | query | Web Mini-program App |
content_viewRequired | Content view | When a piece opens; content_type is article, video, audio, course, live or post. | content_idcontent_type | Web Mini-program App |
content_progress | Content progress | At 25, 50 and 75 percent read or played; percent rounded. | content_idpercent | Web Mini-program App |
content_completeRequired | Content complete | At the end of the piece; duration in seconds for this session. | content_id | Web Mini-program App |
like | Like | When a reader likes a piece. | content_id | Web Mini-program App |
comment | Comment | When a comment is posted; length optional. | content_id | Web Mini-program App Server |
share | Share | When the share button is used; channel is wechat, moments, weibo, link or other. | content_id | Web Mini-program App |
favorite | Favourite | When a piece is saved. | content_id | Web Mini-program App |
follow | Follow author | When a reader follows an author or channel. | author_id | Web Mini-program App |
subscribeRequired | Subscribe | From your server after payment; plan, price and is_renewal; insert_id = order id. | planprice | Server |
paid_content_unlock | Pay per piece | From your server when a single piece or course is bought. | content_idprice | Server |
unsubscribe | Unsubscribe | From your server on cancellation, with plan and reason. | — | Server |
Event names, required properties and sources come from the pack. Events marked Server must be sent from your backend; use insert_id to de-duplicate orders and invoices.
Scenarios
Two publishers, two surprises
Illustrative scenarios, not reviews.
The first thing TapCub showed me was that 31% of our “visitors” were crawlers. Our completion rate didn’t drop; it had never been that high. Now the numbers I report are numbers I trust.
EW
E. W.
Content lead · online publication
ChatGPT is our third-largest source now. We only know because AI assistants get their own channel instead of hiding under direct.
TN
T. N.
Audience editor · media site
Illustrative scenarios written from the user’s point of view. Not real reviews.
FAQ
Questions about this solution
Still have a question?
Chat with the team behind TapCub — we usually reply within a few hours on business days.
What does the content template install?
Twelve events, sixteen metrics including completion rate, engagement rate, subscribe conversion and subscription revenue, three funnels and two dashboards: Content consumption and Subscriptions and revenue.
Does one content_id fit articles and video?
Yes. content_view carries content_type, so one event set covers article, video, audio, course, live and post. Break any metric down by type.
How are crawlers detected?
Five layers: user agent, headers, client signals, ASN and request rate, 197+ public rules. AI assistants are grouped in their own channel so they can be read, not just removed.
Can I see which pages AI assistants fetch?
Yes. The AI-crawler channel lists agents and pages, and compares robots.txt and llms.txt with real hits.
Where does subscription revenue come from?
subscribe and paid_content_unlock are sent from your billing system with price and plan. Renewals set is_renewal so new and recurring revenue are separate.
Can authors see only their own numbers?
Share a dashboard filtered to group=author. The author sees their pieces, completion and follows without access to the rest.
Get started
Install the content template
Paste the snippet, send content_progress and content_complete from your article template, and connect billing for subscribe. Completion rate shows the same day.
- 12 events
- 16 metrics
- 3 funnels
- 2 dashboards
Free plan included. WordPress and Ghost plugins available.