As you may know, Substack recently put this announcement at the top of every newsletter publisher's dashboard:
We have corrected a bug in view calculations that was causing email opens to be double-counted, so view counts may appear lower than you’re used to. Open rate was unaffected by the bug and remains unchanged.
Am I unhappy? Nah, I knew the numbers on my newsletter were wrong. Granted, it was nice seeing the larger numbers, but ultimately it's on me to get the numbers up by bringing in new subscribers. Thanks for the article.
Really concerned about this. I’ve lost half of my subscribers and all my recent postings at same time I’ve been getting these messages. I sent a help message and haven’t received an answer—no surprise.
I'm sorry to hear that. I read a discussion today in which a couple of people said that Substack support was taking a few days to reply. I hope they get back to you soon and fix the problems you've encountered.
It’s a pretty bad bug. At the end of the day, it didn’t affect me too much personally, but if you can’t trust your analytics then what’s even the point in having them? I’m just hoping the bug is related to Substack doing some work to actually improve their analytics.
The bug didn’t bother me as much as the size of the font that arrived in my subscribers’ inboxes. It was so small! Much smaller than normal. I received a few complaints about. Not sure what happened.
Hmm, I wonder if it happened during a particular period of time, or to publishers using a particular font style? One possibility: Substack has recently made changes to the text editor -- maybe they made a change and then made another one when they learned about this issue? Anyway, I'll be on the lookout for a recurrence of the problem.
The bug is back
I'm very unhappy! Each week I was amazed and my page views. To find out they were all wrong is a real disappointment.
nope. i focus on the open rate and subscriber growth/churn.
Am I unhappy? Nah, I knew the numbers on my newsletter were wrong. Granted, it was nice seeing the larger numbers, but ultimately it's on me to get the numbers up by bringing in new subscribers. Thanks for the article.
Bugs happens. This issue didn't change my perception about substack in any way.
It made me kinda sad. I don't have huge viewing numbers, so to see them go down after bit of an uptick in the last couple of months was not cool.
Bugs happen and I’m not too upset about that but it’s better to know the truth. So we weren’t hitting so far out of the park? Keep it going.
We were Barry Bonds, but now we're **checks internet** aha, Duane Kuiper (one career home run). I'm a fan of baseball metaphors. 🙂
Welp. Back to the batting cages.
Really concerned about this. I’ve lost half of my subscribers and all my recent postings at same time I’ve been getting these messages. I sent a help message and haven’t received an answer—no surprise.
I'm sorry to hear that. I read a discussion today in which a couple of people said that Substack support was taking a few days to reply. I hope they get back to you soon and fix the problems you've encountered.
I didn't even notice until I saw the announcement. I don't honestly know if my views went up or down.
I'm glad I didn't know!
Hasn’t impacted my open rates, but the views always seemed suspect at those levels.
I wondered about that. It bugged me. want to explore it more
Pour one out for our imaginary viewers, and egos.
It's so hard to say goodbye to early February.
It’s a pretty bad bug. At the end of the day, it didn’t affect me too much personally, but if you can’t trust your analytics then what’s even the point in having them? I’m just hoping the bug is related to Substack doing some work to actually improve their analytics.
The bug didn’t bother me as much as the size of the font that arrived in my subscribers’ inboxes. It was so small! Much smaller than normal. I received a few complaints about. Not sure what happened.
I hadn't heard about that issue. When did it happen?
It was over the past week. I haven’t changed my fonts or anything but the emails were incredibly small to read.
I had it last week when I was sending out test emails. Even as someone who’s nearsighted, it’s small.
Hmm, I wonder if it happened during a particular period of time, or to publishers using a particular font style? One possibility: Substack has recently made changes to the text editor -- maybe they made a change and then made another one when they learned about this issue? Anyway, I'll be on the lookout for a recurrence of the problem.