Insights shows how your writing and your conversations are going. Each card starts with one sentence that says what the numbers mean. The chart or list below it gives the detail. Every chart has a "Show as table" button with the same numbers.
When it refreshes#
The page shows what Pressmark already knows the moment you open it. It then reads your public archive and the public comments on your recent posts in the background, and the cards update when that finishes. "Updated" at the top says when the numbers were last worked out. Press Refresh to read again. Pressmark also refreshes once a day with your morning queue. Reads stay within the read budget and stop when you pause Pressmark.
The cards#
- Engagement quality this week: conversations you started, replies you received and readers who came back. Depth counts for more than volume, so this card comes first.
- Reach per follower: each recent post's likes, comments and restacks per thousand followers, drawn against your own median. A post marked as underperformed reached less than half your median. Without a follower count it shows plain totals instead.
- Best days and times: the day and hour where your posts got the most likes and comments, with a confidence in words. Confidence is low under three posts, medium from three and high from six.
- Who engages most: the readers who comment most, and those who came back to comment on more than one post.
- Cadence and streak: posts per week over the last 26 weeks and your current run of weeks with a post.
- Backlog runway: how many ready posts you have ahead, and how many weeks they cover at your chosen pace.
- Content mix: your library by series and by length.
- Engagement over time: the last twelve calendar months, counted by when each post went out.
- Top posts and topics: your most engaging posts and any topic that recurs among them.
- Actions taken and suggested: what Engage suggested in the last 30 days and what you acted on.
- Replies that led to a follow back: among writers you replied to, how many you marked as following you back.
- Goal progress: how you are doing against the goals you ranked in Settings.
A card with nothing to show says what will fill it and links to the place where you do it.
What the numbers can and cannot tell you#
- Until you connect your Substack account, everything comes from public data: your public archive, public like, comment and restack counts, and public comments. Opens, subscribers and paid conversions are not included.
- Reach per follower is a proxy. It compares likes and comments, not how many people saw a post.
- Counts are not causes. Pressmark can say that Tuesday posts did better; it cannot say Tuesday was the reason.
- With few posts, a pattern can be chance. Read low confidence as a hint to keep publishing, not a rule.
- Follow backs only count when you mark them yourself on Growth.