How to Track Pitch Deck Views
After sharing a pitch deck with investors, prospects, clients, or other business contacts, you may naturally wonder what happened next.
Was the presentation viewed? Did people return to it? Which slides received the most views? How far did viewers progress through the presentation?
Tracking pitch deck views can provide additional information about what happens after a presentation is shared. Instead of knowing only that you sent the deck, presentation analytics can help you understand how the hosted presentation was viewed.
Why Track Pitch Deck Views?
When you send a PowerPoint or PDF presentation as an ordinary email attachment, you may have very little information about what happens to the presentation afterward.
The recipient might review the entire pitch deck, look at only the first few slides, return to it several times, or never open the file. The attachment itself generally does not give you that information.
When a pitch deck is hosted online using a service that records presentation activity, you can potentially learn considerably more about how the deck is being viewed.
1. Track the Total Number of Pitch Deck Views
One of the simplest and most useful presentation metrics is the total number of views.
A view represents an occasion when the hosted pitch deck was viewed. Tracking total views therefore gives you a basic measure of how much viewing activity the presentation has received.
Total views should not be confused with the number of viewers. The same viewer may view a presentation more than once, so the number of views can be greater than the number of viewers.
2. Track the Number of Viewers
In addition to total views, it can be useful to have an indication of how many viewers have accessed the presentation.
This helps distinguish between repeated viewing activity and the size of the audience that has accessed the pitch deck.
For example, a presentation with substantially more total views than viewers may be receiving repeat visits from members of its audience.
3. Look for Returning Viewers
Returning viewer information can add another dimension to pitch deck analytics.
If someone returns to a hosted presentation after previously viewing it, that repeat activity may be worth knowing about.
A return visit does not prove that someone intends to invest, purchase, or take another particular action. However, it can provide additional context about how the presentation is being used.
4. Track Views for Individual Slides
Presentation-level statistics tell only part of the story. Slide-level analytics can provide additional information about activity within the pitch deck itself.
Tracking the number of views for individual slides can help reveal which parts of a presentation were viewed most frequently and which received fewer views.
This can be especially useful when evaluating whether viewers are progressing through the entire pitch deck or whether viewing activity decreases before they reach later sections.
5. Examine Average Viewing Time by Slide
The amount of time associated with individual slides can provide another useful perspective on presentation activity.
Average viewing time summarizes the average number of seconds associated with views of a particular slide.
Comparing average viewing times may help identify slides that receive more or less viewing time than others, although the numbers should always be interpreted carefully.
6. Consider Median Viewing Time
Average viewing time can sometimes be heavily affected by an unusually long viewing session.
For example, a viewer might leave a presentation open while answering a telephone call, attending to another task, or simply walking away from the computer. That can produce an unusually large viewing-time measurement.
Median viewing time provides another way to examine the data. Rather than being calculated in the same way as an average, the median represents the middle value when viewing times are arranged in order.
Looking at both average and median viewing times can therefore provide more context than relying on either measurement alone.
7. Look at Total Viewing Time for Individual Slides
Total viewing time provides another way to evaluate slide activity.
Instead of focusing on the typical duration of a single view, total seconds can show the accumulated viewing time associated with a slide across its views.
When considered alongside the number of views, average seconds, and median seconds, this can provide a more complete picture of activity associated with different slides.
8. Identify the Top and Bottom Slides
A presentation analytics dashboard may summarize slides that appear at the top and bottom of the viewing data.
This can make it easier to compare slide activity without manually examining every slide in a presentation.
These comparisons can raise useful questions. Why is one slide receiving substantially more viewing activity? Why are viewers reaching one part of the deck but not another? The analytics cannot answer those questions by themselves, but they can help you identify where to look.
9. Track How Many Slides Are Viewed per Session
Another useful measurement is the number of slides viewed during a presentation viewing session.
If a pitch deck contains many slides but the typical viewing session includes only a small number of them, that may be useful information when reviewing the structure and length of the presentation.
Both average slides viewed per session and median slides viewed per session can provide useful perspectives on how far viewers tend to progress through the deck.
10. Examine Presentation Session Duration
Session duration provides information about the amount of time associated with a presentation viewing session.
Average session duration can provide an overall measure, while median session duration can help provide context when unusually long sessions affect the average.
As with slide viewing time, session duration should not automatically be interpreted as the amount of time someone was actively concentrating on the presentation.
What Can Pitch Deck Viewing Data Tell You?
Taken together, pitch deck viewing statistics can help answer practical questions such as:
- How many times has the pitch deck been viewed?
- How many viewers have accessed it?
- Are viewers returning to the presentation?
- Which slides receive the most viewing activity?
- Which slides receive the least viewing activity?
- How much viewing time is associated with individual slides?
- How many slides are typically viewed during a session?
- How long are presentation viewing sessions?
None of these measurements can tell you exactly what a viewer is thinking, but together they can provide considerably more context than simply knowing that you sent someone a presentation.
Be Careful About Interpreting Viewing Time
Viewing-time statistics can be valuable, but they should not be treated as a perfect measure of attention.
A long viewing time might mean that someone was carefully studying a slide. It could also mean that the presentation remained open while the viewer was doing something else.
This is one reason it can be useful to consider several measurements together rather than drawing a conclusion from a single statistic.
Analytics Provide Evidence, Not Mind Reading
It is important not to confuse presentation activity with a viewer's intentions.
Someone returning to a pitch deck several times may be interested in the opportunity, but the analytics alone cannot establish why that person returned.
The best use of pitch deck analytics is to treat them as additional information that can be considered alongside conversations, emails, questions, meetings, and other interactions with your audience.
How to Track Pitch Deck Views With PitchDeckHost.com
PitchDeckHost.com combines online presentation hosting with viewing analytics.
After uploading and sharing a supported presentation, a logged-in PitchDeckHost.com user can view an analytics dashboard containing information about presentation activity.
The dashboard includes Total Views, Viewers, and Returning Viewers, along with Top Three Slides and Bottom Three Slides. Slide statistics include Average Seconds, Median Seconds, Total Seconds, and Views.
PitchDeckHost.com also provides Pitch Viewing Session Data, including the total number of slides in the pitch deck, average and median slides viewed per session, and average and median session duration.
These measurements can help you understand what happened after your presentation was shared while still recognizing that analytics cannot determine exactly what an individual viewer was thinking.
Learn About Pitch Deck Hosting
Related Pitch Deck Resources
You may also find these PitchDeckHost.com resources useful:
What Are Pitch Deck Analytics?
Pitch Deck vs. Email Attachment
How to Share a Pitch Deck With Investors
How to Send a Pitch Deck to Investors
Visit the complete Pitch Deck Resources section for additional articles about creating, designing, sharing, and tracking pitch decks and other business presentations.