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> Use this file to discover available pages before exploring further.
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# Why is tracking important

# Why it's worth tracking how your story performs
You've built your story, published it, and shared the link. Now what? Some people stop right here and hope for the best. But without a look at the numbers, you're working blind. You can't tell whether people are reaching your message, clicking your button, or leaving after the first story block.

That's what tracking is for. It shows you what really happens after you hit publish, so you can make your story better based on what people actually do.

We dive deeper into the **how** with our other articles: which numbers Intractive shows you, and how to set up your tracking system.

## What "performance" actually means
Performance isn't one number. It's the answer to a few plain questions about the people who open your story:
* **Did they show up?** How many people visited, and how many actually started.
* **Did they stay?** How far they got, and where they dropped off.
* **Did they engage?** Whether they clicked a link, filled in a form, or applied.
* **Where did they come from?** Which advertisement, link, campaign, or QR code brought them in.

These are the kinds of questions Intractive's analytics help you answer and show you what's possible once you start tracking.
| **The question you have** | **What the data shows you** |
| ---- | ---- |
| Are people really engaging, or just glancing? | **Engaged sessions** and **content blocks per session** tell you how many people move past the first screen and how much of the story they actually see. |
| Where do people lose interest? | The **flow view** shows the path people take through your story and marks the **drop-off points** where they leave. |
| Is my story leading to action? | **Outbound events** (clicks on your links) and **submissions** (forms filled in) show whether people take the step you wanted: applying, booking, downloading. |
| Which channel brings the right people? | **Inbound channels** and **traffic sources** reveal whether visitors came from an advertisement, link, a QR code, or a website embed, and which campaign worked best. |
| Who is my audience? | Breakdowns by **country, language, device and time of day** show who you're reaching, and when. |

| 💡
Tip: give your links, campaigns and QR codes clear names before you share them. When the data comes back grouped by campaign, a good name is the difference between knowing exactly what worked and staring at a chart you can't read.


## What this looks like in practice
Two examples of how the numbers turn into a decision.

### A recruiter who can't tell which channel is working
You're a recruiter with a hard-to-fill vacancy. You turn it into a story and share it everywhere: a LinkedIn post, a mailing to your talent pool, and a QR code on a poster at a career event. A few weeks in, a handful of applications have come in, but you have no idea which channel is doing the work. So you keep putting time into all three, just to be safe.

**What the data shows.** The LinkedIn post brought in by far the most visitors, but almost none of them applied. The mailing brought fewer people, yet a large share of them filled in the form. The QR code was barely scanned.

**What you do about it.** You stop pouring effort into the LinkedIn post that looks busy but rarely converts, put more behind the mailing, and move the poster somewhere with more traffic, or drop it. Next time you spend your resources where the applications actually come from, and you can show your team exactly why.

### A communication manager losing people halfway through
You've built an interactive story for a company-wide campaign, say, a new way of working everyone needs to understand. The launch looks great: hundreds of colleagues open it in the first week, and you assume the message is landing.

**What the data shows.** In the flow view you spot the problem. Almost half of your visitors leave at the same screen, a long block of text explaining the policy in detail, and never reach the sign-up at the end. The visits told you people were interested; the drop-off told you where you lost them.

**What you do about it.** You cut that screen down, split it into two shorter steps, and republish. The next week many more people reach the end and click through. Same content, same audience, one change guided by what the data showed you.

## Start small
You don't have to track everything at once. Pick one question that matters to you, "Are people finishing my story?" or "Which channel brings the most applicants?", and watch the number that answers it. Add the next one when you're ready.
Good to know: Intractive updates your numbers in near real time, usually within seconds, and you can export them to a CSV file whenever you want to share them or dig deeper. Individual visitors stay anonymous unless they choose to fill in a form.