Understanding GS Analytics
A tour of every panel on GS Analytics — what each number means and how to read it.
Reviewed regularly to match the current app.
Overview
Your GS Analytics page is where you see how your poetry is performing — who’s reading it, what they’re engaging with, and how many keep coming back. This guide walks through every section on the page in plain English.
To open it, click your profile photo at the top of any page and choose Analytics.GS Pro members see GS Analytics Pro there instead, which opens the fuller Pro version of the same page.
Top of the page
At the top you’ll see a greeting with your name (“Hi, [your name]”) and a short line reminding you what the page is for: your poetry’s performance at a glance. If you’re on the site’s Rising Poets list this week, a small Rising Poet badge shows your rank (for example, “#4”). Click it to open the Discover Poets page.
Below the welcome banner, next to the GS Analytics title, is a row of buttons: 7d · 30d · 90d · 1y · All. These change the time window for every number on the rest of the page. Click 30d to see the last 30 days, 1y for the past year, and so on. On a free account only 7d and 30d are unlocked; 90d, 1y, and All are part of GS Pro and show a lock until you upgrade.
- Refresh. Reloads the latest numbers if something looks stale.
- Export. Emails you a CSV file of your numbers for the time range you picked.
On a free account, a card below the buttons (“See how your poems are really doing.”) lists what GS Pro analytics add, with See what’s included and Upgrade buttons.
Activity Overview (the six big numbers)
Under the heading Activity Overview, six cards line up in a row. Each shows one total for the time range you picked.
- Poems. How many poems you’ve published in total. Its badge shows how much that total grew in this period.
- Reads. How many times your poems were opened and read.
- Responses. How many responses your poems received, like comments.
- Likes. How many likes your poems got.
- Saves. How many times people saved your poems.
- Shares. How many times your poems were shared.
Each card also shows a percent change “vs previous period” (green if up, red if down). “New” means there was nothing in the period before to compare with.
Your supporters
Under the cards, a strip shows how many credits readers have sent you and from how many supporters. This number is all time, so the time buttons don’t change it. Click See My Patronage for the full record.
Top Performers
Five cards show your best poem for each kind of activity in this period: Most Read, Most Liked, Most Responded, Most Shared, and Most Saved. Click a card to open that poem. A card only shows once a poem has at least one of that activity.
Engagement Summary
This wide panel sits under Top Performers and Top 10 Poems. It shows how your audience is growing.
Across the top of this panel you’ll see icons with numbers:
- Followers — how many people follow you.
- Following — how many poets you follow.
- Growth Score — a score out of 100 for how fast your audience and engagement are growing. Higher means stronger growth.
- Engagement Rate — the share of your readers who like, comment, or save instead of just reading.
- Countries — how many countries your readers come from.
Followers and Engagement Rate show a badge with how much they went up or down since the previous period.
Below the mini-stats is a combined chart. The bars are your Reads month by month; the line on top is your Likes. The side of the chart shows counts in thousands (so “6.2k” means 6,200 reads). This lets you see at a glance whether your reads and likes are growing together (healthy), whether reads are up but likes are flat (people are finding you but not loving the work), or the reverse (a small audience, but very engaged).
The three-dot menu on this panel changes the time range for the numbers across its top (Followers, Growth Score and so on), separately from the buttons at the top of the page. The chart below them doesn’t change. The choices are: Last 7 days · Last 30 days · Last 90 days · Year to date · All time (the last three are part of GS Pro).
Reader Retention
This wide panel sits under the Categories and Poetic Forms charts. It answers one question: how often are readers coming back? It counts signed-in readers only.
A circular gauge shows a large percentage (for example, 67%) and the label “Returning signed-in readers”. This means: of everyone who read one of your poems in this period, what percent had read something of yours before. Higher is better — it means people are coming back for more of your work, not just passing through once.
Below the gauge is a short list of the cities your readers come from most, each with its number of reads and a bar — for example:
- Brooklyn, NY — 72 reads
- The Castro, SF — 35 reads
- Kovan, Singapore — 28 reads
Use this to see where you have a strong local audience worth reaching more directly. If nobody has come back yet, the panel says “No returning readers yet.” This panel has the same three-dot time menu as Engagement Summary.
You may occasionally see an orange “Something went wrong” message here with a Please refresh link. It means the data didn’t load; tap the link to reload the page and try again.
Top 10 Poems
Beside Top Performers is a numbered list of your ten most-read poems in the selected time window.
- Poem — the title (click to open the poem).
- Category — the colored pill shows its main category (Nature, Loss, etc.).
The list is ordered by reads (highest first). Click View All to see all your poems sorted by reads.
Categories
A donut chart breaking down the categories you write in. Each slice is a category (e.g., Loss, Nature, Identity). The center number is your total published poem count. To the right is a legend listing each category with its share (count + percentage). If one slice dominates, your work is concentrated there; a more even donut means you write across many themes. Categories and Poetic Forms cover all your published poems, so the time buttons don’t change them.
Poetic Forms
Same idea as Categories, but for form rather than subject. The two charts sit side by side. Slices are poetic forms (Sonnet, Haiku, Free Verse, etc.), the center shows your total poem count, and the legend shows each form’s count and percentage.
Trophies & Streaks
At the bottom, your Writing Streak and Reading Streak sit on the left. Each shows your current streak, your longest streak, and your next milestone. On the right are the trophies you’ve unlocked, with a count beside the title. Click View All to see every achievement.
Glossary
A few terms and symbols that show up across the page:
- pp — “percentage points.” The difference between two percentages. If your engagement rate went from 8% to 9.1%, that’s a gain of 1.1pp, not a 1.1% gain (which would mean 8 × 1.011 ≈ 8.09%). “pp” is the precise way to describe the change.
- % — percent change versus the previous period. “+22.4%” means 22.4% more than last time.
- k — thousands. “6.2k” = 6,200.
- /100 — a score on a 100-point scale (used only on Growth Score).
- ↑ / ↓ (green/red badges) — direction and size of change versus the previous period.
When to look at what
Rough guide for different questions you might have:
- Is my audience growing? Followers, Growth Score, and the chart in Engagement Summary.
- Which of my poems landed? Top Performers and Top 10 Poems.
- Am I keeping my readers? Reader Retention gauge.
- What do I write most / should I try more variety? Categories + Poetic Forms.
- How is this period vs the one before? The “%” badges on the Activity Overview cards.
Where to go next
If you have questions about any of these numbers or want to suggest a metric we’re not tracking, contact support. For a broader orientation of the platform, head back to the Getting Started category.