# Understanding Your Stats Source: https://support.exposure.co/en/articles/13281668-understanding-your-stats/ ## **Accessing Your Stats** 1. Sign in to your Exposure account 2. Click **Stats** in your dashboard sidebar, or visit `/stats` Your stats page shows real-time data about your views, traffic sources, and subscriber growth. * * * ## **What’s on the Stats Page?** ## **Summary Cards** At the top of your stats page, you’ll see four key metrics: - **Total Views** — Combined views across all your stories and your profile page - **Story Views** — How many times people viewed your individual stories - **Site Views** — Visits to your profile page and homepage - **New Subscribers** — People who signed up for your email updates (if you have subscriptions enabled) Each card also shows how you’re doing compared to the previous period (e.g., “+12.5%” means you got 12.5% more views than last month). ## **Best Day** We highlight your best day in the selected time period, so you can see when your content really resonated with your audience. ## **Views Today** A real-time counter showing how many views you’ve received so far today. * * * ## **How Views Are Counted** **A view is counted each time someone loads one of your stories.** Here’s what you should know: ✅ **What counts as a view:** - Any visitor loading your story page - Return visitors coming back to read again - Views from any source (social media, search, direct links) ❌ **What doesn’t count:** - Your own views (we don’t count when you view your own stories) - Bots and automated crawlers - Preview or staging environments Views are tracked in real-time, so the data you see is always up-to-date. * * * ## **Understanding Referrers** Referrers show you _where_ your traffic is coming from. This helps you understand which platforms and sources are driving the most visitors to your work. ## **Common Referrer Types**

Source

What It Means

Direct Traffic

Bookmarks, typed URLs, email clients, and visits where no referrer is available

Google

Google Search, Google Discover, and other Google properties

Twitter / X

Links from Twitter posts, including t.co shortened links

Facebook

Posts from Facebook, the mobile app, and Messenger

Instagram

Bio links, stories, and post links

LinkedIn

Posts, articles, and direct messages

Exposure

Traffic from Exposure's Discover page or other Exposure sites

RSS

Feed readers like Feedly, Inoreader, NewsBlur, etc.

**Pro tip:** If you see a lot of “Direct Traffic,” it often means people are bookmarking your stories or clicking links in emails! * * * ## **Top Stories** The Top Stories section shows your best-performing content for the selected time period. You can sort by: - **Views** — Most-viewed stories first - **Interactions** — Stories with the most likes first Click **Load More** to see additional stories beyond the initial list. * * * ## **Subscriber Growth** If you have email subscriptions enabled, you’ll see a **Subscriber Growth** chart showing your cumulative subscriber count over time. Orange dots on the chart mark when you published new stories, so you can see how publishing affects your subscriber growth. * * * ## **Optimal Story Insights** Based on your top-performing content, we analyze what photo count and word count tends to work best for _your_ audience. This feature looks at your top 20 performing stories and calculates weighted averages—stories with more views have more influence on the recommendation. **Note:** You’ll need at least 5 published stories with views for this feature to appear. If you’re just getting started, keep publishing and check back! * * * ## **Choosing a Time Period** You can view your stats over different time periods:

Period

What You'll See

7 Days

Last week's performance

30 Days

Last month's performance (default)

90 Days

Last quarter's performance

1 Year

Full year overview

* * * ## **Stats by Plan** Different plans have access to different stats features:

Feature

Pro

Pro Plus

Business

30-day stats view

✅

Top referrers

✅

Top stories

✅

Key metrics chart

✅

Extended time periods (7d, 90d, 1yr)

❌

✅

CSV export

❌

✅

Optimal story insights

❌

✅

Subscriber growth chart

❌

✅

Period comparison percentages

❌

✅

Priority support

❌

✅

**Ready to unlock more stats?** [Upgrade your plan]() * * * ## **Exporting Your Stats** Pro Plus and Business users can download their stats as a CSV file for deeper analysis in Excel, Google Sheets, or any spreadsheet app. **To export:** 1. Select your desired time period 2. Click the **Export CSV** button Your export includes: - Daily breakdown of views - Subscriber counts - Top referrers - Summary totals * * * ## **Frequently Asked Questions** ## **Why don’t I see my own views counted?** We filter out your own views to give you accurate data about your actual audience. When you’re logged in and viewing your own stories, those views aren’t recorded. ## **Why are some referrers showing as “Direct Traffic”?** Direct traffic includes: - People who bookmarked your site - Links clicked in emails or messaging apps - Typed URLs - Any visit where the browser didn’t send referrer information Many email clients and privacy-focused browsers don’t send referrer data, so these visits appear as “Direct.” ## **How often are stats updated?** Stats are updated in real-time! As soon as someone views your story, it’s counted. ## **Why do referrers show all-time data instead of period-specific data?** For performance reasons, referrer data shows your all-time traffic sources. This gives you a complete picture of where your audience comes from without slowing down the stats page. ## **The “Optimal Story” section isn’t showing up. Why?** You need at least 5 published stories with views for this feature to appear. Keep publishing and building your audience! * * * ## **Need Help?** If you have questions about your stats or notice something unexpected, reach out to us at [hello@exposure.co](). We’re happy to help! * * * ## Need help? Use the [Exposure contact form]().