Question:
How long will it take for the Heads Up Display to show pin colors (position-relative performance indicators) for new or recently implemented landing pages on my site?
Answer:
Landing pages with recently installed Chartbeat code (or updated page paths) will require some time for positional performance to begin displaying on HUD pins. Depending on the standardization of your site's HTML templates, positional performance should start appearing for most of your story positions after 2-3 weekdays and (separately) 2-3 weekend days.
Additional background and technical details
After installing the Heads Up Display (HUD) on a landing page with recently-implemented Chartbeat code, you may see pins appear without the positional performance coloring. You'll know this is the case if all pins on your page are colored grey, instead of the range of green (overperforming), grey (average performance), and red (underperforming).
Our positional performance for each link is calculated using an exponential moving average. We measure the click-through rate of links based on their XPath (a way of defining the positional hierarchy of elements on a site), and keep a rolling model that incorporates the entire history of performance at that position, with higher weight given to more recently acquired data.
We model positional performance in two ways: per hour, and weekday vs. weekend. We store average CPM (clicks per minute) data for each XPath on your landing page, each hour of the day, and model hourly CPM rates for these positions separately for weekdays and weekends to account for different traffic patterns for each part of the week. The HUD works to populate pin colors by comparing the current CPM of your story positions to previous CPM rates for the same positions during the same time of day and day of the week (weekday vs weekend). For example, a homepage editor viewing a red pin in the HUD at 10:00AM on a Monday knows that this story is underperforming compared to recent performance of articles in this same position at 10:00AM on previous weekdays.
To populate positional performance data, the HUD has to see the relevant XPath two or more times within the respective hour and weekday/weekend grouping. Some sites can regularly rotate through a variety of HTML templates that will alter the XPath, so this can take from a few days to over a week of data collection. For weekends, you will not see any positional performance until at least the second weekend, as the HUD will require three days' worth of weekend data (Saturday, Sunday, and the following Saturday).
Example: If you integrate Chartbeat code on Monday morning at 10:00am, you should see positional performance by Wednesday or Thursday at 10:00am. You will not see positional performance coloring on weekend days until at least the second Saturday (12 days after the Monday integration).