A step-by-step walkthrough of Throughline, from first login to client report.
Two things to do before you can measure anything.
The first time you log in, name your agency to create its private workspace. You get an invite code to share with colleagues, or you can join your team with a code from a teammate. Everything you add, from campaigns to journalists, is seen only by your agency.
Shown automatically on first login
Click New Campaign and fill in one page: the client, the campaign name, the announcement date, the spokesperson and your messaging document. Throughline reads the key messages from the document when you save, in the document's own words; any word it added is underlined so you can change it. Is the campaign about a spokesperson's comments at an event rather than an announcement? Switch on Count articles that quote the spokesperson, so reports on other subjects that quote them count too.
Home → New Campaign
If there is no release or briefing note, bring the coverage in first. Throughline reads every quote from your spokesperson, groups them into the points they kept making, and you choose which to keep as the key messages. The pages say they were taken from the coverage, so they show how faithfully each point travelled, not whether it was the one you planned. If the event has already happened, the sidebar marks AI check: before as skipped and moves you straight to Online coverage.
Campaign → Set up (when there is no messaging document)
Record where things stand before your news goes out.
Throughline writes questions from your key messages: some ask about your client by name, some ask about the topic without naming them. It puts each to ChatGPT and Gemini with live web search, keeps every answer word for word, and records whether your message was there and whether your client came up at all. This is the picture you compare against later. You can read and change the questions before the first check.
Campaign → step 2, AI check: before
Switch on Track pitches on the Set up page. On the Pitches page, paste the link to the Google Sheet your team keeps (or upload it as Excel or CSV) and every journalist on it is added and marked pitched. Each journalist joins your agency's contacts once and is reused by every later campaign, so next time you pick them from the list instead of typing them again. Mark interviews as they happen: coverage that came from an interview is credited separately.
Campaign → Pitches (when switched on)
Coverage arrives, and you see what it carried.
The Add coverage box gives three ways in. Paste one article's link. Bring in a coverage list your team has made: paste the Google Sheet link or upload the Excel file, and Throughline reads the links behind the headlines and adds every article. Or press Find coverage and Throughline searches the web and keeps what is about your announcement, listing anything it left out with the reason. Every article is read and scored against your key messages.
Campaign → step 3, Online coverage
See how each article carried your messages: lifted word for word, rewritten in the journalist's own words, or mentioned in passing, with the matched sentences behind each call, plus the tone of each piece toward your client and your spokesperson's quotes. Disagree with a call? Override it. Articles that came in before the key messages are scored as soon as you add them.
Step 3, Online coverage → Coverage Analysis
About a week after the announcement, once coverage has landed, run the check again. Throughline sets the new answers beside the earlier ones, message by message, so you can see what changed.
Campaign → step 4, AI check: after
Turn the results into something they can open, and keep what you learned.
Create a read-only link your client can open without an account: a summary of the coverage, how it carried your messages, and what the AI assistants say.
Campaign → step 5, Report → Share Report
Every journalist you pitch or follow is in one list. Open a name to see everything they wrote in your coverage, newest first, with how closely each piece carried your messages, its tone, and an overall score, plus the campaigns you pitched them on.
Home → Journalists
That's the whole flow. Inside a campaign, the sidebar shows the five steps (Set up, AI check: before, Online coverage, AI check: after, Report) and marks the next one; your journalists are one click from the home page. You can come back to this guide from the home page at any time.
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