How to Optimize Your Web Content

Content Publishers are pushed to be on the front lines of user behavior and interest research. Which shows or apparel brands have your users been interested in recently? What types of occupations do your users hold? At Quantcast, we want to help you answer those questions and find your next content hit.

Below is a guide on a few ways to use your Quantcast data to optimize what you write and ensure you’re delivering engaging content to the right audiences.

Here’s what we’re covering:

• Demographics: Do you know the basic attributes of your users? Look at the Demographics report to find age, children per household, education status, income levels, and other demographic insights.

• Audience Grid: What are your users’ offline behaviors and interests? Use your Audience Grid reports to dive deeper into where your users’ interests lie.

Demographics

Demographics gives you the basic information of who your audience is and ultimately who you need to write for. We cover age, children per household, education status, income levels, and other demographic insights of your users.

Here’s how we define each metric:

• Composition – The percentage of this property’s total audience that meets the given specific demographic criteria.

• Index – This compares the audience composition of the property to the entire Internet, using a baseline of 100.

Looking at the screenshot above, the site composition is 50% male and 50% female.

However, the Index compares your site audience to the entire internet. According to the screenshot above, your site has an index of 103 for male and 97 for female. These are calculated by taking (your composition / internet composition) × 100. 

*The actual equation is slightly more complicated, with adjustments made to factor in confidence intervals and ensure higher reliability.

Based on these calculations, your site over-indexes for males and under-indexes for females. The site attracts more males than there are in the general Internet population.

Use your Demographics to answer:

• Are your users young, middle-aged, or older adults? Middle-aged users may be more likely to understand current trends, while older adults may be looking for more serious content. Understanding the age makeup can help determine your writing style, the topics you cover, and even how you market your site.

• Are your assumptions about your audience correct? Approximately 40% of traffic to the website Jezebel is male, even though its tagline is “Celebrity, Sex, and Fashion for Women”. Validate your audience’s characteristics with the Demographic report and ensure your content strategy aligns with who your readers are.

Audience Grid Reports

Beyond demographic groups, you’re probably also wondering what are your users interested in: what cars they drive, what shows they watch, what brands they buy, and others.

To brainstorm themes to cover next, we provide Audience Grid data which includes Browsing Interests, Shopping Interests, Brand Affinity, Media Interests, and Business & Occupation. We gather and report on these measurements through partnerships with leading third-party providers.

Click through the tabs to view different interests and select data sources for different breakdowns.

Use Audience Grid to answer:

• Is there a topic you’re missing out on? Find out how likely your users are to be health fanatics, sports fans, or clothing shopaholics.

• Do your users have children? What are their financial behaviors? These metrics can have a huge say in which topics are more or less relevant for their lifestyle. Use both Audience Grid data and the Demographic report together to get the best view of who your users are.

SEE YOUR DATA