Signal Tracking
Flywheel steps ④ and ⑤. Publishing content isn’t the goal — knowing what actually works is.
Why you need to track
You’re publishing 3–5 pieces of content every day. That’s 100+ pieces in a month. Which ones brought real customers? Which ones were just noise?
Without tracking, you can only guess. And gut instinct is usually wrong — high-view content doesn’t necessarily drive sign-ups; a post with lots of comments doesn’t necessarily bring paying customers.
My lesson learned: I had a TikTok with 50K views and zero sign-ups. Another one with just 3K views brought in 8 sign-ups. If I’d only looked at view counts, I would have doubled down on the wrong direction. Signal tracking saved me from that mistake.
There’s only one core question when tracking: which piece of content brought real users?
How to track: UTM parameters
UTM is a method of tagging links. When a user clicks your link, the tag tells you: which platform, which piece of content, and which specific link they clicked on to get to you.
Good news: AutoWhisper automatically adds UTM parameters to every piece of content you publish. You don’t need to set this up manually.
A UTM link looks like this:
https://yourwebsite.com?utm_source=tiktok&utm_medium=ugc_video&utm_campaign=your-product&utm_content=idea_42
Breaking it down:
utm_source=tiktok→ came from TikTokutm_medium=ugc_video→ watched a UGC videoutm_campaign=your-product→ for your specific productutm_content=idea_42→ specifically content piece #42
This means every sign-up can be traced back to exactly which piece of content brought them in.
China-based tracking: WeChat enterprise QR codes
If your customers are in China, use WeCom (WeChat Work) channel QR codes for tracking:
How it works: Generate a unique QR code for each “product × platform” combination. When a customer scans it to add you, they’re automatically tagged. You immediately know where they came from.
| Channel QR | Use case | Auto-tag |
|---|---|---|
| Code A | Posts on Xiaohongshu | Xiaohongshu – Your Brand |
| Code B | WeChat Official Account articles | Official Account – Your Brand |
| Code C | Douyin videos | Douyin – Your Brand |
Set it up once, and it runs automatically from there.
Platform-native analytics
Beyond UTM and QR codes, also check the native data each platform provides:
| Platform | What to focus on |
|---|---|
| TikTok | Views, completion rate, shares |
| Views, saves, shares | |
| YouTube | Average watch time, click-through rate |
| Impressions, click-through rate, new followers | |
| X | Impressions, quote reposts |
| Xiaohongshu | Reads, saves, comments |
| WeChat Official Account | Reads, shares, new followers |
But remember: these are all secondary metrics. The only primary metric that matters is how many sign-ups / WeChat adds your content generated.
Signal scoring formula
Every Friday, score each piece of content from the week. No need for precision — order-of-magnitude estimates are fine.
Signal score = (sign-ups × 5) + (WeChat adds × 5) + (shares × 3) + (comments × 2) + (views ÷ 1000)
| Signal | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Sign-up / WeChat add | ×5 | Strongest buying intent — this person actively sought you out |
| Share / repost | ×3 | Indicates endorsement + secondary reach |
| Comment | ×2 | Indicates high engagement |
| View / read | ÷1000 | Base awareness, lowest weight |
Why does view count have the lowest weight? Because 1 million views with 0 sign-ups = wasted effort. 1,000 views with 10 sign-ups = a gold mine. We’re tracking business signals, not vanity metrics.
Friday SOP (30 minutes)
Step 1: Pull the data (10 minutes)
- Open AutoWhisper Analytics and review this week’s performance for each piece of content
- Check the UTM source for new sign-ups — which content brought them in
- If you have WeCom, check the channel QR source for new contacts
Step 2: Score + rank (10 minutes)
Calculate the signal score for each piece of content, then rank them.
| Date | Content title | Type | Platform | Views | Engagement | Shares | Sign-ups | Signal score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3/31 | … | ugc | TikTok | 5.2K | 89 | 12 | 2 | 51 |
| 4/1 | … | story | WeChat OA | 820 | 15 | 8 | 5 | 56 |
Step 3: Mark + decide (10 minutes)
| Signal rank | Mark | Next week’s action |
|---|---|---|
| Top 20% | Green | Tell CMO to double down — generate 2–3 variations next week around the same angle / pain point |
| Middle 60% | Neutral | Keep going |
| Bottom 20% | Red | Pause this angle, try something new |
Then tell Planner your adjustment in AutoWhisper CMO Chat. For example: “Pain point A content performed best last week — double down next week. Pain point C got no engagement — cut it.”
Analyst Agent will also automatically generate similar suggestions. You can adopt them directly, or override them based on your own market judgment.
Monthly trends
At the end of each month, spend an extra 15 minutes on trends:
- Which pain point angle performed best? → Is it a real pain point?
- Which platform had the highest ROI? → Should you invest more there?
- Which content type was most effective? → Should you adjust the CMO’s content type mix?
- Is the total trend of sign-ups / WeChat adds going up or down? → Is the flywheel accelerating or slowing?
Analyst Agent handles all of this analysis for you. But for monthly decisions, I recommend you stay in the driver’s seat — AI reads data precisely, but you understand your market and customers better than any AI.
Common questions
Q: My product just launched and I have no sign-up data yet. What do I do? A: Use secondary metrics (views, engagement, shares) for now. Content that people are watching, commenting on, and sharing is usually not far from converting. Once you have sign-up data, switch to the signal score formula.
Q: I’m not comfortable reading data. What should I do? A: AutoWhisper’s Analytics page shows you which content is performing well (green) and which isn’t (red). Leave the deep analysis to Analyst Agent — you just need to confirm what direction to go.
Q: What if I don’t have time on Friday? A: Minimum viable version: spend 10 minutes reading Analyst’s StrategyBrief and confirming its recommendations. That’s 100x better than doing nothing.
Next step: 工具清单 — Beyond AutoWhisper, what other tools do you need to run this flywheel?