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smartocto

Score7.5 out of 10

12 Reviews and Ratings

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What is smartocto?

Smartocto creates smart editorial analytics: analytical tools for newsrooms and content creators, to track and analyse the performance of the content they publish online. Its goal is to make data actionable, because content creators are not data analysts. They need data that's easy to interpret and attractive to look at.

Analysing content performance consists of two things: keeping an eye on what's happening now, and learning from what happened yesterday. That's why the solution offers both real-time insights, historical reporting tools and predictive insights.

Smartocto's founders worked in public media themselves and they created the tools that they themselves wanted and needed. From their offices in Nijmegen, The Netherlands and Novi Sad, Serbia Smartocto aims to help media companies be the best they can be. Whether it's changing audiences, business and revenue models or content strategies, this tool was designed to support all aspects of online publishing actively.

Key features and functionality of the product
The combination of real-time performance insights and historical evaluation reports makes predictive analysis possible, and offers publishers the ultimate toolbox for content publication and optimisation. The features are all designed to support the process from story commissioning up to post-publication optimisation. Stories are followed from start to finish, no matter what platform they're published on.

features include:
  • Customisable Bigscreen dashboard for real-time insights
  • A/B testing possibilities for both story headlines and intros
  • Smart notifications that offer suggestions for improvement and give reminders
  • Insights for timing and publication strategies on different channels
  • Comprehensive reports that evaluate performance on many different levels (story, topic, and author)
  • AI-driven features to optimise your newsroom's performance.

The value of smartocto
Smartocto aims to make data actionable, attractive and easy to understand for storytellers, publishers and content creators. This editorial analytics system was designed especially for the media industry and the challenges they face when it comes to reader loyalty, new business and revenue models, publishing on multiple channels and platforms, and digital transformation. We help these companies to adopt data-informed workflows, with
  • Real-time insights and dashboards
  • Historical reports and specialised compound metrics
  • Notifications that tell you when to take action
  • Machine learning that predicts the best way out for every story

Categories & Use Cases

Media

Realtime and smart notifications
Historical insights
Customisable Bigscreen
Realtime A/B testing of headers and lead-in texts

1 / 4

Reviews

What users are saying about smartocto.
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Very good alternative to Google Analytics

Joe BarronView profile
Content Manager in Marketing at Cognism (201-500 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We used smartocto at Cognism to measure our blog performance, gain insights into our readers' behaviour and look at our content writers' performance.

Pros

  • Provides detailed stats on overall blog performance
  • Shows which blog topics resonate with readers
  • Measures individual blogs against key performance metrics

Cons

  • Could have more powerful SEO features
  • Feels like the tool hasn't been updated in a while - could do with new features

Return on Investment

  • Impacts for us were more intangible - knowing which topics resonated with our readers

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Google Analytics

Other Software Used

Google Analytics, Ahrefs, Google Search Console

Editorial Analytics tool for a newsroom of any size

Feda KulenovicView profile
Data and Digital Transformation Manager at Internews (BMAP FORWARD) (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We couldn't be more satisfied with smartocto. We have been testing smartocto for more than 2 years now and I have been actively using it for more than 1 year now as an editor of a small website dedicated to media professionals in the region of Western Balkans. In cooperation with smartocto's regional staff we have been implementing their insights solution to 16 other regional media partners in our efforts to improve their editorial data driven decision making processes. Even though most of our media partners have been using some other widely available and free products they had trouble using it in their decision-making processes as they are not adapted for use in media. So far our partners who have been using this product longer have been more than satisfied and they started using it in their newsrooms on a daily basis to make better decisions for future work. Secondly, regional smartocto staff has been more than helpful because they are familiar with the needs of local media partners, and they are also fluent in at least one of the major regional languages. We chose this product because it fulfills the needs of different size newsrooms ranging from small to large.

Pros

  • UI is simple and understandable.
  • Great personal and customized support
  • Data relevant for content production professionals
  • GDPR compliant
  • Technical support

Cons

  • CPI is sometimes harder to understand but once you do it is of great help for business strategy
  • Video content analysis could be improved but it is sufficient enough.

Most Important Features

  • Number of visitors for article specific content
  • Quadrant
  • Topics
  • Reports that are easily customizable

Return on Investment

  • It had a positive ROI in terms of support they provide and custom based approach to all our media partners
  • Readiness to find solutions to any type of question we might have

Alternatives Considered

Google Analytics

Great choice for newsrooms of all sizes!

Heather BudrevičienėView profile
Editor in Chief at DailyCoin (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

smartocto provides our newsroom with invaluable insights into what our readers care about and how they interact with our content. From decisions on what topics to cover to providing great feedback about the performance of individual authors, smartocto is a key tool for building our content strategy.

Pros

  • Slices data into pieces that are understandable and actionable
  • Provides better insights into scroll depth
  • Makes content auditing simpler

Cons

  • UX could use some improvement

Most Important Features

  • URL specific traffic tracking
  • Content groupings
  • Reports

Alternatives Considered

Google Analytics

Other Software Used

Google Analytics

Smarter with smartocto

Melle DrentheView profile
Digital Content Manager at Mediahuis (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use smartocto in our newsroom to optimise our content performance. In principal we have all the data that we need to help us with this process ourselves, but the huge advantage that smartocto offers is that the relevant data is pushed to the end-user at the exact moment that he/she/they can make a difference. So for optimising our short-term performance, what can we do now to immediately become better at what we do, smartocto is indispensable.

Pros

  • Providing actionable data the moment that you need it
  • Providing a clear and easy to use UX
  • Very flexible when it comes to the configuration for your particular business

Cons

  • Some small UX things

Most Important Features

  • The way it provides and pushes the data to our end-users

Return on Investment

  • A huge positive impact on our social media performance. Our Facebook engagement almost doubled

Alternatives Considered

IO Technologies

Other Software Used

Anaconda, Spyder, Google BigQuery

Using SmartOcto in the newsroom

Roy WassinkView profile
Insight Manager at dpg Media (5001-10,000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Smartocto for real-time dashboarding and advice to editors on how best to bring articles to the attention of our readers through various publication channels. All our online editorial offices in the Netherlands and Belgium work with Smartocto on a daily basis. We also use Smartocto Tentacles to test our headlines (which approach produces the most loyal readers).

Pros

  • Real-time recommendations on articles best brought to the attention of readers
  • Comparisons of articles on section, title and multi-title level of quantitative, but also more qualitative metrics.
  • Headline testing.

Cons

  • New feature development: testing images would make a great addition.

Most Important Features

  • Headline testing
  • Waves dashboards
  • Action advice

Return on Investment

  • Culture change: editors are more aware of the use of data in the workplace.

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