There’s a big change happening on Calaméo in 2021. That’s right—our new and improved “2021” viewer theme has launched. Find out everything you need to know about the “2021” theme!
What is the “2021” theme?
The “2021” theme is a new viewer interface for your publications on Calaméo. It should look familiar: we’ve based “2021” on the classic “Default” option. But the new theme offers you lots of improvements. First and foremost, our tech team has rebuilt the viewer for maximum comfort, usability and efficiency. You’ll notice that browsing is smoother, close reading is easier and—of course—that your publications look great.
What’s new?
Here are just a few of the updates you’ll enjoy in the “2021” theme:
More space for your documents in the viewer
Publisher’s choice of Book, Slide or Scroll mode
Improved navigation tools
Helpful Index mode to access thumbnails at a glance
Larger, streamlined buttons and icons
Intuitive zoom controls
New “Made with Calaméo” viewer watermark
Cohesive mobile experience
We think you’ll find “2021” simple to use, with the great features you’re used to like in-text search, custom logos and direct downloads. Check out an example below to see the new theme in action!
Can I still use the classic Calaméo themes?
If you are a PREMIUM or PLATINUM user, you can continue to use the classic Calaméo themes with your publications. To select a theme, go to the Design tab of your publication’s properties. Next, choose the theme you wish to use from the drop-down menu. Finally, click the green “PUBLISH” button to save your selection.
BASIC users do not have access to the classic Calaméo themes. However, BASIC users are free to define Book, Slide or Scroll mode for their publications in the “2021” theme.
What about changing the background?
Changing the viewer background is a feature exclusive to our PREMIUM and PLATINUM plans. As a result, BASIC users may not modify the background color or image in the “2021” theme.
PREMIUM and PLATINUM users should see no disruption to their existing publications and customization elements. You can make use of your custom logos, backgrounds and viewer themes as usual! For those planning to choose “2021” for upcoming publications, it’s important to be aware that your logo will be automatically resized in this theme. Therefore, we recommend using a horizontal version of your logo, in .PNG format with a transparent background.
Please note that BASIC users will no longer be able to display custom backgrounds for their publications.
What else do I need to know?
We’re delighted to be bringing the “2021” theme to all of our users and we hope that you find it modern, practical and fun. While you’re getting to know the new theme, please let us know if you have any questions or concerns! You can write to us at contact@calameo.com or visit our Help Center to submit a request. Plus, stay tuned for details about more changes coming to viewer themes right here on Calaméo.
Compared to printed material, digital communications have a lot of advantages. For one thing, they’re great if you want to go paperless. For another, it’s a lot easier to add a GIF to an online newsletter than to a piece of paper. But a truly revolutionary business advantage is the ability to track analytics for your digital publications.
Because analytics are so important, it can be intimidating to get started. If you’re wondering how to follow your Calaméo publications’ statistics, this is the guide for you! From the very basics to best practices, we’ll cover everything you need to know about analytics on Calaméo.
First of all, you might be wondering what exactly we mean by “analytics”. Although the word has been around a long time, it’s become much more popular since 2000. That’s because analytics specifically refers to examining and getting insights from data. Since the early 2000s, businesses have adopted digital technologies and enjoyed access to huge amounts of new data. Analytics help them understand and use that data.
As a result, analytics are increasingly important to all kinds of businesses. For Calaméo users, your online publications generate lots of great data. In this guide, we’ll show you how to find Calaméo analytics and the most valuable takeaways for your digital content.
How to use your Calaméo analytics
Good news: Viewership statistics are available for every Calaméo user. (Another reason why digital publishing on Calaméo is best in class!) However, the type of information that you can see will depend on whether your account is BASIC, PREMIUM or PLATINUM. Here’s a handy chart of available data for each plan:
Lifetime statistics
The easiest way to get to your publications’ analytics is by going to the Statistics tab in your Calaméo account. To start, make sure you are logged into your account. Next, display the top navigation bar. Click on the Statistics section.
In this section, you will find an overview of your account’s lifetime statistics. In other words, you can check the total number of views for all of your publications combined. Plus, you’ll see other interesting lifetime data in this section depending on your account type.
For all accounts, several features let you explore more about your publications’ viewership. Scroll down to:
Change the time period displayed
Drill down into key statistics like Clicks and Downloads
Discover other useful dimensions like Device, Source and Countries
Publication statistics
However, note that the Statistics tab provides info about all publications associated with your account. To track data for individual publications, you will need to go to the Publications tab of your account.
Find the publication you want to investigate and click the arrow. In the drop-down menu that opens, choose “View statistics”.
You can now explore the available data for just the selected publication.
Finally, PLATINUM users may connect their Calaméo accounts to Google Analytics. This powerful feature lets you integrate Calaméo data directly into your existing web analytics set-up. For more information, consult our all-new Google Analytics tutorial.
💡 TIP: Want to see how using Calaméo with Google Analytics works for your business? Request your PLATINUM Demo today and test this exclusive feature for two weeks—absolutely free.
Identifying KPIs for your publications
After you’ve had a chance to explore your Calaméo statistics, it’s time to consider which analytics are the most important for your publications. Because the goal of analytics is to generate useful insights, deciding what information interests you is a major step. Or to put it another way, you’ll want to choose key performance indicators to follow.
Define business goals
To start, spend some time thinking about the main business goals associated with your online publications. Your specific goals will be unique, but here are a few common examples:
Growing awareness of your company, programs or services
Building a loyal audience for your brand and publications
Generating leads for your sales and marketing strategies
Increasing online revenue through your e-commerce operations
Different KPIs can help you measure progress on each one of these goals. For instance, publication views are a good indicator of awareness. On the other hand, the number of pages viewed and reading time better show your audience’s engagement. Download data may match how many leads came from a publication. And link clicks to your online store reveal what appeals to your shoppers.
Most of all, think about the information that matters to you. If you hope to expand your international reach, country data might be a top KPI to track.
Set KPIs and benchmarks
Select two to four KPIs for your publications, then gather the first set of data. This will give you a sense of where you are now in relation to your goals. Then, pick benchmarks for your KPIs to get a sense of where you want to be going. For example:
Awareness — 500 views / month
Leads — 25 downloads / month
International reach — 10% of views and downloads from Canada
Once you’ve finished identifying KPIs for your publications, take a look at our advice for ways to boost your results!
Tips to optimize performance
Since we began Calaméo all the way back in 2008, we’ve learned a thing or two about what works in digital publishing. Although there’s no guaranteed, easy trick for success, these simple tips are a good place to start.
Views
Beyond having great content, an unbeatable strategy for getting more views is to share your publications widely. Make it easy for your audience to discover your online publications! With Calaméo, you can:
Both of these analytics point to the level of engagement that viewers have with your publications. First, the number of page views tells you how much of your publication was opened per view. That is to say, did your audience view your publication past page one? Or all the way to the last page?
Next, reading time tells you how long audiences spent viewing your publication. Views with longer reading times and more page views suggest higher engagement than shorter reading times and fewer page views. And higher engagement means a bigger impact!
In recent years, offering content for download has become a key content marketing strategy. But even if you’re not focused on generating leads, direct downloads make for great user experience. When your audience gets to keep a copy of your publication, they can return to it anytime—even offline.
Here are a few effortless tips for boosting your results:
The click-through rate, or CTR, reveals how many viewers click the interactive links in your Calaméo publications. (More specifically, it calculates a percentage: the number of times a link was clicked divided by the number of times the relevant page was displayed.) Your advanced Calaméo statistics track the number of clicks and CTR for every link in your publications. Best of all? You can filter to focus on external, video, audio or Shopping links.
Although sharing to social media networks isn’t as big as it used to be, shares are still a good way to reach new audiences. That’s why our publication viewer includes a handy share button! But did you know that Calaméo’s PLATINUM statistics have detailed sharing data? See where, when and how your publications were shared from the viewer.
Now that you’ve gotten familiar with Calaméo’s analytics, chosen KPIs to track and optimized your publications, you can sit back and relax! To get started with analytics, most of the hard work happens at the beginning. However, there are a few important best practices to keep in mind for the future.
Be consistent.
Since you already know what information interests you, make sure you stay focused on consistent KPIs over time. Whether weekly, monthly or quarterly, collect the same stats on a regular schedule. Then, identify trends.
Be organized.
If you have access to limited statistics on Calaméo, you may wish to transfer your analytics to a separate document for tracking. Don’t misplace this data—analytics are especially useful to understand long-term trends.
Be flexible.
As time goes on, you might find that the KPIs you’re following are not connecting to your goals the way you expected. In that case, press pause and explore what isn’t working. You can rethink and adjust how you use analytics tools moving forward.
And there you have it—our complete guide to analytics on Calaméo! We hope you enjoy diving into insights and data about your digital publications. Have questions? You can write to us anytime at contact@calameo.com.
We are excited to announce that a brand-new issue of CALAMEO Magazine is now online!
For our second issue, we decided to take on a subject that a lot of people are thinking about this time of year: travel. We love travel publications on Calaméo and getting to know destinations all around the world, so we devoted this issue to vacations, staycations and adventure. Check out some of our favorite reads, learn how changing travel trends impact digital publishing and more.
Be sure to take a peek around the viewer—it’s all decked out in the custom Skin we made just for the magazine.
💡TIP: Missed the first issue? Browse CALAMEO Mag #1 now!
We’re especially proud of our global community here at Calaméo and hope that our users everywhere will enjoy this latest issue of CALAMEO Magazine. Happy reading!
Where in the world are you reading CALAMEO Magazine from? Tag us on Twitter @calameo and let us know!