Read time 9 min
Level Intermediate
Prerequisites A Story with some pitching, bookings or coverage activity
In a nutshell: Story Performance is the analytics view for one Story -- six tabs (ACTIVITY, OVERVIEW, OUTPUTS, QUALITY, MEASUREMENT, IMPACT) that walk the AMEC Barcelona ladder from activity to outcomes. Read the CQI on QUALITY (35% outlet tier, 35% sentiment, 30% message), the Campaign Success Score on MEASUREMENT (25% CQI, 25% coverage, 25% KPIs, 25% completion), and let the IMPACT tab show you what actually changed. For the cross-campaign picture, NewsWire Analytics is the page.
What you will learn
- What Story Performance is for -- a single-Story analytics view that walks the Barcelona ladder.
- The six tabs and what each one tells you.
- The OUTPUTS sub-tabs (Conversion Funnel, Pitching, Engagements, Interviews, Coverage Detail, Reach, Social) and how they fit together.
- How to read CQI on QUALITY and the Campaign Success Score on MEASUREMENT.
- When to switch from Story Performance to NewsWire Analytics for the cross-campaign picture.
The mental model
Story Performance answers "how is this one Story tracking?" -- a read-only analytics layer that summarises what other pages have produced. Open it from the TRACK menu. On Acme PR Corp's Globex Wellbeing Index 2026 it surfaces the running CQI, the Success Score build, and the impact figures as the launch fortnight unfolds.
Six tabs walk the AMEC Barcelona ladder from activity to outcomes:
- ACTIVITY -- the recent-activity stream and Story context (the landing tab).
- OVERVIEW -- headline numbers at a glance: coverage volume, social, engagements, interviews, audience reach.
- OUTPUTS (BP4) -- what went out and what came back. Split into sub-tabs.
- QUALITY (BP5) -- how good the coverage was.
- MEASUREMENT (BP6) -- the scores: Success Score, ProofScore, KPI progress.
- IMPACT (BP7) -- what changed as a result.
The BP badges on the tabs tie each one to a Barcelona Principle -- outputs, quality of outputs, measurement, impact -- so you can see exactly where you are on the measurement ladder as you read.
OUTPUTS, sub-tab by sub-tab
OUTPUTS is the busiest tab. Each sub-tab answers a specific question about the Story's outreach and reception:
- CONVERSION FUNNEL
- How the pitch turned into coverage -- with the email open rate for the pitching that drove it.
- PITCHING
- The outreach picture: top journalist engagement, emails pitched by date, outlets pitched, outlet types pitched, regions pitched.
- ENGAGEMENTS
- NewsWire activity for the Story -- asset pickups (engagements) and the leads they generated.
- INTERVIEWS
- Bookings made and interview syndications -- the broadcast side of the Story.
- COVERAGE DETAIL
- The coverage itself, broken down by outlet and by region.
- REACH
- Audience reach: cumulative reach, reach by region, reach by date.
- SOCIAL
- The Story's social footprint -- social mentions and top mentions once social tracking is configured for the Story.
Reading QUALITY, MEASUREMENT and IMPACT
- QUALITY tab
- The headline is the CQI -- the Coverage Quality Index, weighted 35% outlet tier, 35% sentiment, 30% message pull-through. A second card breaks quality down by outlet size, so you can see whether your strong scores came from tier-1 nationals or specialist trade press. Sentiment and message components come from your monitoring analysis -- coverage logged without analysis run yet will show as awaiting score on the breakdown.
- MEASUREMENT tab
- Home to the Campaign Success Score, weighted 25% CQI, 25% coverage, 25% KPIs, 25% completion. Alongside it: a ProofScore measurement card, KPI progress against the targets you set on the Story, a campaign vs company average comparison so you can see how this Story performed against your house norm, and a KPI scorecard table laying it all out.
- IMPACT tab
- The outcomes layer -- what the Story actually changed. This is the top of the Barcelona ladder, above outputs, above quality of outputs, above the headline measures. Where measurement asks "did we land?", impact asks "did it move anything?".
Story Performance and its neighbours
Three analytics surfaces, each tuned to a different scope:
- Story Performance
- One Story, deep analytics, six tabs walking the Barcelona ladder. Read-only. The page you reach for when the question is about one campaign.
- NewsWire Analytics
- Cross-campaign pitching and NewsWire-download performance. The page you reach for when the question spans your portfolio -- which journalists pick up most, which outlets engage, how pitching effectiveness is trending across Stories.
- Campaign Builder > ACTIVITY
- The per-Story activity log embedded in the build page -- a running record of what was done on that Story, alongside the BRIEF, OBJECTIVES, MEDIA RELEASES and the rest. Story Performance's ACTIVITY tab is the landing screen of the analytics page; the Campaign Builder one is the workspace context.
Try this: Open Story Performance on a Story that has had pitching and a couple of pieces of coverage. Start on OVERVIEW for the headline numbers. Go to OUTPUTS > CONVERSION FUNNEL to see how the pitch converted, then PITCHING > "emails pitched by date" to see when the push happened. Switch to QUALITY and read the CQI -- check the by-outlet-size breakdown to see where the score is coming from. Then MEASUREMENT for the Success Score and KPI scorecard. Finally, open NewsWire Analytics and notice it is showing every Story together -- a different question, a different page.
Frequently asked
- Where do I see one Story's numbers?
- Story Performance -- tabs ACTIVITY, OVERVIEW, OUTPUTS, QUALITY, MEASUREMENT, IMPACT.
- Where do I see every Story together?
- NewsWire Analytics, the cross-campaign view of pitching effectiveness and NewsWire downloads.
- What is the difference between this ACTIVITY tab and the one in Campaign Builder?
- Both show a Story's activity. Story Performance's ACTIVITY is the landing screen of the analytics page. Campaign Builder's ACTIVITY is the workspace context inside the editable build page. Same data, two surfaces for different jobs.
- A piece of coverage is not contributing to the CQI -- why?
- The sentiment and message components come from the monitoring analysis. Coverage just logged will show on the volume side immediately and pick up the quality components once the analysis runs.
- How should I read the OVERVIEW figures with a client?
- Headline OVERVIEW numbers are useful for a quick read. The substantive measures sit one tab deeper: CQI on QUALITY and the Campaign Success Score on MEASUREMENT -- both anchored in the AMEC Barcelona framework.
- What are the BP4 / BP5 / BP6 / BP7 badges?
- They link each tab to a Barcelona Principle -- outputs, quality of outputs, measurement, impact -- so you always know where on the ladder you are reading.
Key takeaways
- Story Performance is the single-Story analytics view: ACTIVITY, OVERVIEW, OUTPUTS, QUALITY, MEASUREMENT, IMPACT.
- OUTPUTS sub-tabs: Conversion Funnel, Pitching, Engagements, Interviews, Coverage Detail, Reach, Social.
- QUALITY surfaces CQI (35% tier, 35% sentiment, 30% message). MEASUREMENT surfaces the Campaign Success Score (25/25/25/25) plus ProofScore, KPI progress and the campaign-vs-company-average benchmark.
- For the cross-campaign picture switch to NewsWire Analytics; for the in-flight activity log inside the build page use Campaign Builder > ACTIVITY.
- BP4-BP7 badges map every tab to a Barcelona Principle so you read each number with the framework in view.
What to read next
- Bookings & Coverage -- where the interview and coverage data behind OUTPUTS and QUALITY is captured.
- NewsWire Analytics -- the cross-campaign pitching and download view.
- Reporting -- turning these numbers into a client deliverable.