Michelle Foster, a media expert from Newsgain (USA) and Jason Lambert, a consultant on the digital media held the training.

The participants familiarized with online metrics and learned about using statistics to improve content and attract audience on different platforms.

The trainers showed examples how other countries with tiny media markets do apply this knowledge.

Additionally, the training participants learned the needs of advertisers and their expectations from digital media.

Media companies today ignore research and data at their own peril. It’s no longer a secret sauce, it is part of our core being – and – largely transparent.

The digital world has changed everything and has made it possible to know specifically who watches what, and when, and how often … and enables advertisers to target them directly, Foster said.

Training participants devoted a lot of their time to practical assignments working of Google Analytics accounts they manage analysing metrics of their newsroom websites and accounts in social networks.

Aigul Adzhieva, the head of the NTS channel’s Entertainment Department and training participant noted that within three days she received a lot of useful information for her further work.

Each day of the training was an intense one. We worked with data and completed practical assignments. We immediately started implementing new knowledge and skills working with Google Analytics.

Before we published stories on our channel, but we never did any audience research. We didn’t use audience coverage and engagement metrics on YouTube, she said.

According to Aigul Adzhieva, now NTS media outlet analyzes when and what audience is watching. We see disaggregation of our audience on gender and age, as well as to define when audience quit watching a particular video.

She regrets now that the lack of the knowledge hampered them using available tools to understand their audience better. And after the training, they intend effectively use acquired skills to create engaging content for wider audience trying to monetize it.

Dilbarkhan Alimova, the POLIKLINIKA’s editor –in-chief said:

We used Google Analytics before, but mostly we looked at overall site traffic as many parameters were not fully clear to us.

During the training, we learned how to use metrics to get more detailed indicators of content quality and audience volume, learned to analyze the data.

Now we know who and how many minutes watched and when left the site, which publications are most popular, from which regions our subscribers are, and what devices they use for visiting our site.

Alimova said, 86% of the audience is using mobile devices to access their website. Information about audience allows the editorial team have a better focusing on the readers’ interests.