If your data could talk, what stories would it tell? Would its narrative be compelling? What would you do to ensure your data's best stories weren't lost among all the numbers? These are the questions publishers need to consider as they differentiate between simple data collection and true data storytelling.

There are rich and fascinating stories to be told by campaign data, stories that deliver genuine insights into the reader journey, and how someone goes from never having heard about a brand to actually considering it. But if we are going to find those stories, we need to move beyond blunt performance metrics and focus instead on key mid-funnel metrics, highlighting the impact of campaigns on brand perceptions.

Most marketers, for their part, are drowning in data but starving for truly compelling stories that provide insights capable of informing decision making.

We all know the industry is obsessed with measurement and metrics. And we know that publishers want to be as useful to brands as they can possibly be. Why, then, do so many campaigns still fail to move the needle? I'd suggest it is because they are not finding, and acting upon, the right stories in the data.

What makes a good story?

We all know a good story when we hear one, but it is easy to forget the precise ingredients. Think of children listening to a book before bed, or friends riveted by an anecdote, what are the details they hang on? It's not grinding amounts of description, or subplots that lead nowhere; it's twists, revelations and magical bits of insight that make everything else make sense.

Brands may be more serious-minded than children at bedtime or friends in the pub, but they aren't that different, they want to be compelled, fascinated and illuminated by the stories their data tells them. They want the human angle. And that means storytelling with less of the fluff, and more of the magic. Don't just report; also say why it matters.

What does this mean for those attempting to draw good stories out of the data at their disposal? Publishers, for instance, may want to tell the story of why a campaign was worth running, and why a few intelligent tweaks might make it even more impactful next time.

1. Swap numbers for narratives

Publishers who are accustomed to simply reporting numbers should think instead about the story. "We delivered X million impressions" might be a typical sales line, but that doesn't make it interesting, or even meaningful. The narrative advertisers actually want to hear is how their advertising has changed the way people think about their brands.

2. Start with the impact, not the data

Brands want to know how to make things happen. Instead of leading with "CPMs were 20% below benchmark," go with "we shifted brand consideration by 15% among your target audience." Then use the underlying metrics to explain how that happened. I always tell publishers to think of their reports like a good story: there's a setup (the challenge), some tension (what we discovered), and a resolution (how we solved it).

3. Connect it to the world

Smart publishers know how to connect their campaign performance to what's happening in the world, turning engagement metrics into meaningful insights about attention and brand recall. They're not just telling you what happened last month; they're using patterns in their data to predict what's most likely to work next time. Not just "here's what we delivered," but "here's what we think will happen, and why." In other words: "here's where the story is going next."

4. Make the data human

At the root of it all, advertising is about trying to make people feel things, and take action as a result. Brands want to feel things too, which is the whole reason we are talking about data storytelling. So publishers need to explain what their campaigns achieve in human terms. It might be great news, for instance, that time-on-page increased by 40%, but what does that mean on a human level? If it means that readers were so engaged that they spent nearly three minutes with the story the brand was telling, then that is a story a brand is going to be interested in hearing.

Storytelling is important, but you can tell a better story if you have better data. And it should be collected for every campaign, not just the large or successful ones. Continuous, consistent measurement ensures that the data is as comprehensive and accurate as possible, which in turn provides more context and enables richer storytelling.