Outpost Report
Every day, we send you an Outpost Report email that lets you know how many new subscribers you have, how many started paying, donations, how many canceled, and an overview of the action emails we sent on your behalf. These reports are continually expanding to give you a daily view into how your site is performing.
Plausible Analytics
We use Plausible Analytics to measure page views and engagement on your website. It’s like Google Analytics, only they don’t report your data back to a billion-dollar company. They are an independent, successful small company, and our group buying power makes it possible for you to use their services for a fraction of the cost you’d pay if you signed up yourself.
On a pragmatic note, many people now block Google Analytics, which gives you a less-full picture of what’s actually happening on your site, and recent rulings in the EU find that Google Analytics is illegal.
Related: Why is Plausible Analytics better than Google Analytics?
Contextly
We use another cookie-less analytics system for the Luna tier and above called Contextly to provide multiple recommendation modules on your site that give readers ways to read related posts from your site, as well as seeing your most popular and evergreen content. Studies show that when readers read more than one post from a site at a time, they are far more likely to return in the future.
While primarily a recommendations system to help readers read more of your work, Contextly also provides daily and weekly reports to your inbox that give you a sense of how your site is doing generally, what your best-performing posts are, where your traffic is coming from, and even which of your categories are most popular. Many people find that getting a report is far more useful than visiting a dashboard.
Image Credit: "Galaxy Evolution Explorer" NASA/JPL-Caltech