Reader Revenue Manager: Insights and survey data guide

This guide shows how to monitor your publication's performance. It details how to analyse reader churn through cancellation metrics, and configure advanced tracking for reader surveys. This is done within the Publisher Centre and Google Analytics 4 (GA4).

Monitor publication activity

The Activity page in the Publisher Centre serves as a central hub to identify trends and analyse performance metrics.

Access the Activity page

1. Open Publisher Center.
2. Select your publication.
3. Click Reader Revenue Manager.
4. Under 'Menu', click Activity.

The Activity page displays real-time totals for:

• Active members
• New members
• Member cancellations
• Total revenue for subscriptions and contributions

Filter and export your data

You can filter results by time period options like 7, 12, 30, 90 days or all time. You can also filter by payment options, plans or specific product IDs.

To analyse this data externally:

1. On the Activity page, select a time period.
2. At the top right, click Export.
3. Select a Google Drive folder.
4. To generate a Google Sheet with daily numbers for revenue, members and cancellations, click Insert.

Understand cancellation metrics

Reader Revenue Manager automatically displays a mandatory survey when a reader cancels a recurring subscription or contribution. To reduce churn, these metrics help identify seasonal fluctuations, improve offers and adjust content strategies.

Cancellation types

• Voluntary cancellations: This occurs when you choose to end your subscription. A breakdown of reasons like 'Cost-related reasons' and 'I don't use this service enough' is available based on survey responses.
• Involuntary cancellations: This occurs due to circumstances beyond your control, such as expired credit cards or outdated payment information.

Access survey data in Google Analytics 4

Important: Before data collection, you must configure GA4 tracking and custom dimensions. Survey responses can't be retrieved retroactively.

Your setup determines how detailed survey response data passes directly to GA4.

Step 1: Log survey submission events

There are three primary methods to log survey response events.

Setup method	Action required
Site Kit or Google tag (gtag.js)	Automatic: Survey submission events are logged automatically. You only need to register custom dimensions in GA4.
Google Tag Manager (GTM)	Manual: You must manually configure a custom event tag, data layer variables and a trigger.
Enterprise (onResult callback)	Custom: On top of the automatic 'survey submission' event collection, publishers can use the onResult callback. This customises event names and parameters for GA4 or other analytics solutions.

Setup method: Google Tag Manager (GTM)

If you use Google Tag Manager to collect survey responses, you need to configure a custom event tag.

Step 1: Create data layer variables for custom dimensions

1. On the left menu, go to Variables.

2. In the 'User-defined variables' section, click New Variable configuration.
3. Select Data layer variable.

4. In the 'Data layer variable name' field, enter survey_question.

5. At the top, enter a proper variable name.
   • For example, survey_question.
6. Click Save.
7. Repeat steps 2 through 6.
   • In the 'Data layer variable name' field, enter survey_question.

Step 2: Create a GA4 event tag

Create a Google Analytics GA4 event tag for the new custom event.

1. Go to Google Tag Manager.
2. Click Tags New.

3. Enter a name for the tag.
   • For example, GA4 event – Survey submission.
4. Click Tag configuration.

5. Select Google Analytics: GA4 event.

6. Enter your measurement ID.
7. In 'Event name', enter your desired survey event name.
   • For example, survey submission.
8. Click Add parameter.
9. In the 'Event parameters' section, enter the following parameters:
   • Parameter name: survey_question.
     • Select the data layer variable that you created. For example, {{survey_question}}.
   • Parameter name: survey_answer.
     • Select the data layer variable that you created. For example, {{survey_answer}}.

Step 3: Create a trigger

Create a custom event trigger to send the event when survey responses are submitted.

1. In the 'GA4 event' tag, click Triggering.

2. At the top right, click Add .
3. Enter a name for the trigger.
   • For example, Trigger – Survey submission.
4. Click + Custom event.
5. In 'Event name', enter survey submission.
   • Tip: Insert a space between the words 'survey' and 'submission'.
6. Click Save.

Step 4: Publish your changes

At the top right, click Submit Publish.

Step 2: Register custom dimensions in GA4

Even if events are logged automatically, you must manually register the specific data fields as event-scoped custom dimensions in your GA4 property to view detailed answers.

Create event-scoped custom dimensions for the following four parameters:

• survey_question
• survey_question_category
• survey_answer
• Survey_answer_category

If you use the enterprise version of Reader Revenue Manager and customise the event parameters, register the parameters as custom dimensions to find the data in GA4.

Step 3: Get results

To get the data in the Google Analytics console:

1. Go to Reports Business objectives.
2. Click View user engagement and retention Events.
3. Add one of your newly created custom dimensions to the report.
4. Look for the row with an event named 'survey submission'.

To analyse multiple dimensions simultaneously such as pairing questions with specific answers, use the 'Explorations' tool in GA4 or the provided Looker Studio template.

Related resources

• Set up Google Analytics in Tag Manager
• Set up Google Analytics in Tag Manager