Compare Over Time report

Ever wonder how posts compare in their first week, first month, or first three months after being published? With the Compare Over Time report, select up to 20 posts and compare their performance over time, even when publication dates are different. Alternatively, select one or more authors (or author groups), plus a given publication date range, and see the performance of each author’s posts at specific periods after publication.

By seeing how posts or authors compare over a period, you can set expectations for performance. You can also adapt promotional strategies to bring new or existing content to a broader audience.

When creating a Compare Over Time report, one of three key metrics can be used: page views, visitors, or conversions. The default time periods after publication to compare are 3 days, 7 days, and 30 days — you can also add a custom time period for comparison between 1 and 90 days.

Follow Parse.ly’s guide to creating reports to create a new Compare Over Time report.

Use cases

• Quickly identify the top performing post over a set period among similarly themed posts.
• Determine how an author’s posts published within a certain time have performed during key periods after publication.
• Analyze the effectiveness of strategies and experiments, answering questions such as:
  • “Did changing the featured image on one post compared to others with a similar theme attract more visitors?”
  • “Did having the subscription module in the middle of a post result in higher conversions compared to having it at the bottom of other posts?”
• Look for trends among top-performing content to replicate success.