Yandex Zen Read-Through Statistics: How to Check
Every author who earns money from publications on Zen sooner or later faces the same question: why does one article generate income, while another with a similar topic generates almost nothing? The answer usually lies in the numbers that only the author sees, but which are rarely interpreted correctly. Yandex Zen read-through statistics are not just a report for show, but a working tool that shows exactly where the audience is lost and how much money you are losing with them. In this article, we will analyze how to find the necessary sections in the author's cabinet, what read-throughs mean in Yandex Zen in practice, and how to influence the metrics if organic growth is not enough.
What are read-throughs and why are they important?
What are read-throughs in Yandex Zen? In simple terms, they are the number of users who opened a publication and reached its end, rather than closing it halfway. This metric directly affects monetization: ads in articles are shown after the main text, and if the reader does not scroll to the end, the income from that view is not counted. The higher the percentage of Zen read-throughs relative to the total number of openings, the higher Zen's algorithms rate the quality of the publication and the more actively they promote it in recommendations.
In addition to the total number, the platform also calculates the quality of read-throughs – the average read-through time of an article. If a user scrolls through the text in a couple of seconds, it is likely a random scroll, not actual reading, and such a session does not always count towards monetization.
How to view statistics in Zen through the author's cabinet
Let's look at the basic path that every author needs. To understand how to view statistics in Zen, open the profile icon in the upper right corner of the interface and go to Studio – the workspace where all analytical tools are collected. In the left menu, find the Statistics section: by default, the system shows data for the last three months, but the range can be easily changed using the calendar above the table.
Inside the section, there are several tabs, and for analyzing specific materials, you need the Publications tab. It displays a line-by-line list of articles, videos, posts, and galleries with the ability to filter by format. This is where the Zen publication statistics are located, broken down by each individual material, and not by the channel as a whole.
Key metrics of the Publications tab
For articles, a specific set of columns is available, different from videos and other formats:
- Impressions – the number of times the publication appeared in the user's feed
- Openings – actual transitions to the material regardless of the source
- Read-throughs – the number of readers who reached the end of the text
- Average read-through time – how many seconds on average it takes to read
- CTR in feed – the ratio of openings to impressions, showing the attractiveness of the title and cover
Below the table, publications can be checked for comparison of several articles on one graph – this is convenient when you need to understand why one material performed better than another.
Read-through map: where to find and how to read
The Zen read-through map is a visual gradient showing exactly where in the text the audience loses interest and closes the article. It appears in the publications table next to the read-through value, but becomes available only after the material has gained at least one hundred views.
The color of the map changes from green to red: a green area means that most readers reached this part of the text, while red signals a mass exodus of the audience. By clicking on the gradient of a specific publication, you will open a scrollable version of the article with a slider – by moving it, you can easily find the exact paragraph after which attention begins to drop.
A good benchmark is a read-through rate of eighty percent or higher. If the map shows a sharp drop already in the first paragraphs, the problem is most likely in a weak introduction or an ill-chosen text structure, rather than in the article's topic itself.
Hourly statistics: real-time control
Zen hourly statistics is a separate tab in the analytics section that shows the dynamics of metrics for the last forty-eight hours for the twenty most active publications on the channel. This is critical for fresh articles: while regular statistics for old materials are updated once a day, here the data changes almost in real time.
The table can be sorted by different columns – publication date, number of read-throughs, impressions – which allows you to quickly understand whether a new article is gaining momentum or, conversely, losing positions in the feed in the first hours after its release. For authors who publish materials daily, this section becomes the main tool for operational control.
Openings and read-throughs: what's the difference after the update
Since April 2026, Zen has changed the logic of displaying metrics in general publication cards, replacing the Read-throughs metric with Openings in the interface for readers. At the same time, the full funnel – impressions, openings, and read-throughs – has been preserved within the Studio in the analytics section, accessible only to the author.
Openings and Zen read-throughs are now side by side in the table, between the impressions and read-throughs columns. Openings record any transition to a publication, regardless of whether the user came from the feed, search, subscriptions, or social networks, while read-throughs remain a narrower and more demanding metric – the actual completion of reading. The difference between these two figures is your churn rate: the larger it is, the more the audience is lost within the text itself.
How to increase read-throughs in Zen without distorting data
Before moving on to paid tools, it is worth getting the most out of organic methods. Let's look at how to increase read-throughs in Zen by working with the content itself:
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