CloudFiles converts the file into a PDF and renders it for the client when the link is accessed. It can track pdf opens, number of views, download, total time spent on the file and time spent on every page. Moreover, this information is organized, summarized & presented in a way that makes tracking content performance easy.

In this article we list down the various analytics functions provided by CloudFiles and link to further sub-sections where details of each of these are covered.

The CloudFiles analytics section is your gateway to know your file engagement metrics. The analytics section can be seen on the link details page. You can go to the link details page either by navigating through the content library or by using the Analytics Dashboard. The metrics available in the CloudFiles analytics section are: Total Views, Unique Views, Downloads, Total Time & Page-wise time spent and more.

You can find detailed instructions in our article on Accessing the analytics section. The graphic below provides an overview of analytics.

There are various file engagement metrics available in the CloudFiles tracking section such as Total Views, Unique Views, Downloads, Total Time & Page-wise time spent etc... We provide a basic overview below but details can be found in our article on Tracking metrics in CloudFiles.

Total Views shows the total number of views, including multiple views by the same contact. Unique views are those views accessed through different email/device but counted once. When the document is viewed for the first time on a device it's unique count would increase.

This tracks the total number of times your document has been downloaded. This is incremented when someone specifically clicks on the download button in the top navbar of the viewer.

CloudFiles associates activity of every session with the location where the file was viewed. This location may not be exact since we rely on the viewer's internet provider for the location.

If you have enabled email required, your file viewers will have to enter their email ID and this will show up in the analytics. This also helps club multiple visits from the same email under the same viewer.

This is the aggregate of all the individual "time spent" on your document. This includes all pages, views, sessions etc... This time keeps increasing for your document as more people view it.

CloudFiles tracks the time spent on every page of the pdf / file by the user. This page-by-page analytics can be seen as a column chart on top of the Analytics Modal. CloudFiles also shows the thumbnails of all the pages of the document in the page-wise analytics graph.

CloudFiles provides a comprehensive report of document tracking that can be sliced to get insights through its Analytics session hierarchy. Each view is treated as a single session. The same client may view the file multiple times, creating multiple sessions.

CloudFiles detects, consolidates and presents this information in an easy to understand way. As shown below, by default the analytics modal shows the total time spent and time spent by all users in all their sessions, viewing the file. 

If you click on one of the tiles, you can get the sessions of the particular user. The modal now shows total time spent by this particular user on the tracked file. You can further click on one of these tiles to get per-session information. The modal will show the time spent in one particular session by this user.

More information on analytics drilling can be found in our support article on Drilldown into users, sessions & devices.

To perform advanced file analytics you will need to download the file analytics as an excel file and do simple manipulations in it. In our article on Export Analytics to Excel File we show how the analytics can be exported and what all details are exported by the app.

CloudFiles can send you emails whenever your file is viewed. Additionally, you can also control the frequency of these notifications. You can even enable user and admin settings to auto-set the notification frequency.

Details on how to set these up can be found in our article on Notifications on File Views.

CloudFiles provides a handy little feature which has large repercussions for mass email campaigns. Instead of asking your users to fill in their email in our soft gating email wall, you can provide the person's email along with the link. In such a case, since CloudFiles already knows the email, it logs the analytics against it without showing the wall.

You can find the details here in Adding email parameter to the link.

Using file subscriptions, you can have your viewers subscribe to updates in your files. Whenever the file is updated, CloudFiles send an update email to all your subscribers. This is a great way to keep your audience engaged.

Check how to use this feature in our article on File Subscriptions by CloudFiles.