# Measure What You Publish

> Source: https://agilitycms.com/docs/editors/measure-what-you-publish

Publishing is half the job. The other half is finding out whether the content did what it was for, and using that to decide what to write, fix or retire next. This article covers the analytics integrations documented for Agility, what each one shows you, and a simple routine for turning numbers into editorial decisions.

## What you can see, and where

| Tool | What it shows | Where you see it | Who sets it up |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Google Analytics app](/docs/apps/google-analytics) | Site-wide metrics from your GA4 property | The Agility dashboard | An administrator installs the app and connects your Google account |
| Google Analytics page sidebar | One page's active users, new users, page views, average engagement time and bounce rate, plus top traffic sources and a link into Google Analytics | Beside the page editor | Part of the Google Analytics app. See [How We Built the Google Analytics Page Sidebar with Claude](/docs/apps/building-the-google-analytics-page-sidebar-with-claude) |
| [PostHog app (Beta)](/docs/apps/posthog) | Page views, unique visitors, scroll depth, time on page, top pages, referrers and locales; per content item, impressions, scroll depth, time on page, CTA clicks and the pages using it | The Agility dashboard, the content item sidebar and the page sidebar | An administrator installs the app; your developers add tracking to your site |
| [A/B/n testing](/docs/owners-admins/a-b-n-testing-in-agility-cms) | Which version of a component performs better | The PostHog panel on the component, and PostHog itself | Developers set up the component once; editors run experiments after that |
| [Reports](/docs/owners-admins/accessing-reports) | What changed, who changed it, and what's waiting to publish | Reports | Available in Agility |

Reports tell you about your *output*: what you published. Analytics tell you about the *outcome*: what readers did with it. You need both.

## Google Analytics

The Google Analytics app brings your website metrics into the Agility dashboard. It supports GA4: when you install it, you sign in with Google and choose the property to show. If the app was installed before GA4, an administrator can reconfigure it in your instance settings to pick your GA4 property.

The page sidebar answers the question editors ask most: "is *this* page working?" Open a page and its numbers sit beside the editor, so you can check before you change anything.

## PostHog

The PostHog app (in beta) shows analytics in three places: a site-wide dashboard, a sidebar on content items, and a sidebar on pages. The content item sidebar is what makes it different: because it tracks content IDs, it can show how a *piece of content* performs across every page that uses it, not only how a page performs.

It depends on your site sending the right events to PostHog, so your developers set up the tracking first. The app currently works with PostHog US Cloud. See [PostHog app](/docs/apps/posthog) for the details to pass to your developer.

## A/B/n testing

With the PostHog app, you can test versions of a single component (a hero headline, a call to action, a pricing layout) against each other. Each version is a content item you manage in Agility. Once a developer has set up a testable component, starting a new experiment is a content task: you write the variants, then create the experiment from the PostHog panel on the component, which walks you through choosing a template (such as CTA optimization or content engagement), configuring it and reviewing it. Results appear in the same panel and in PostHog.

See [A/B/n Testing in Agility CMS](/docs/owners-admins/a-b-n-testing-in-agility-cms).

## Rules for measuring content

### 1. Decide the question before you look at the numbers

Every piece of content has a job: get sign-ups, answer a support question, rank for a topic, inform customers of a change. Write the job down when you plan the content, and pick the one or two numbers that would show it's working. For a help article, time on page and fewer support tickets; for a landing page, clicks on the call to action.

**Named mistake: the vanity metric.** Page views rise and everyone is pleased, but sign-ups don't move. Measure what the content is for.

### 2. Compare like with like

A page linked from your home page will always get more traffic than one that isn't. Compare a page with its own past, or with similar pages, not with your most popular page.

**Named mistake: comparing a launch week with a quiet week.** Look at the same length of time, and allow for campaigns, seasons and holidays.

### 3. Change one thing at a time

If you rewrite the headline, swap the image and move the button in one go, you won't know which change made the difference. An A/B/n test makes this explicit; even without one, change one element and wait.

**Named mistake: stopping a test early.** A variant that looks like it's winning on day two often isn't. Let the test run until it has enough data, as the A/B/n testing guide explains.

### 4. Write the hypothesis down

Before you change content to improve a number, write what you expect to happen and why. It keeps the review honest and builds a record of what works for your audience.

### 5. Act on what you learn

A number nobody acts on is just a number. Each review should end with decisions:

- **Improve** content that gets traffic but doesn't do its job. Rewrite the summary, the call to action or the opening.
- **Promote** content that does its job but isn't found. Link to it, and check its SEO title and description. See [Managing SEO for Editors](/docs/editors/manage-seo).
- **Merge** pages that compete for the same topic.
- **Retire** content that's out of date and unused. Unpublish it, or set an expiry date on time-limited content from the start. If you remove a page, set up a redirect so links to it still lead somewhere useful. See [Master URL Redirections in Agility CMS: A Complete Editor's Guide](/docs/editors/url-redirections).

## A monthly review routine

1. **Pull the numbers.** Open the analytics for your most important pages and content, and export the **Recent Changes** report to see what was published that month.
2. **Match output to outcome.** For each thing you published, did it do its job?
3. **Find the stale content.** Look for pages with falling traffic and content that hasn't been updated in a long time. An AI assistant can list content by last-modified date for you. See [Audit Your Content with AI](/docs/editors/ai-recipe-content-audit).
4. **Decide.** Improve, promote, merge or retire, and put the work on your calendar. See [Plan an Editorial Calendar with Scheduling and Approvals](/docs/editors/plan-an-editorial-calendar).
5. **Pick one experiment** for next month, if you run A/B/n tests.

## Related articles

- [Google Analytics app](/docs/apps/google-analytics)
- [PostHog app](/docs/apps/posthog)
- [A/B/n Testing in Agility CMS](/docs/owners-admins/a-b-n-testing-in-agility-cms)
- [Accessing Reports](/docs/owners-admins/accessing-reports)
- [A Content Operations Playbook](/docs/editors/content-operations-playbook)