Pub Talk
By Rob Yoegel
About Rob
Rob Yoegel takes an active role in North American Publishing Company's online efforts including content, sales, marketing, usability, functionality and vendor relations as Vice President, e-Media. Rob works directly with publishers and editors in developing a consistent strategy from print to online.
A former journalist, Rob has been involved in Internet strategies since 1996 serving as an associate editor of Target Marketing magazine, where he regularly contributed articles related to the Internet, including e-commerce, Web site design/development, e-mail, fulfillment, customer service and marketing integration. He also spent one year as publisher of PhillyTech Magazine, a regional technology magazine published by Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. E-mail him at ryoegel@napco.com or call (215) 238-5344.
Media Vent
On the 'Power of Print' Campaign
Mar 5, 2010The campaign claims to target advertisers, shareholders and industry influencers. Well listen up, my friends, because you just insulted them...
What Exactly is 'Publisher's Own Data?'
I've never been impressed when publishers report Web site traffic using tools like Alexa, Compete.com or Quantcast. Anyone who uses these products for anything but a friendly way to compare one Web site against a competitor has little or no place in this business.
One step below them are the folks who still rely on "Publisher's Own Data" to tout their Web site's unique visitors, total visits or page views. I can imagine the call from a battered and bruised print executive asking his technology team to make his Web site numbers look as good as they can.
When an advertiser, a vendor or a business partner has a good reason to ask about our Web site traffic, I tell them.
Of course no one reports "hits" any more, right? And these same publishers are surely removing internal site traffic, as well as visits from spiders and bots just as any reliable Web site analytics application does automatically-or at least I hope so.
The new year also brought an end to the season of editing media kits and looking at ones from our competitors. Still present in a lot of them are the three words so many people have just become accustomed to using: "Publisher's Own Data." Why not use: "This crap is completely made up," instead.
This past week Mediaweek published an article about an initiative to move print advertising more toward the way television audiences are measured in order to provide some accountability to advertisers regarding their readership.
As print folks scramble to find ways to compete with a quantifiable online audience, I only hope that someone eventually will find a common and accepted way for publishers to accurately report Web site traffic.
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LOL! Sorry .. I should have clarified that I wasn't arguing with you ... it was just a figure of speech ... and probably not a very good use of one. Ya know I'm a huge fan of yours. Have fun in NYC.
Thanks, Eric. Likewise... and a good argument never hurts!
Rob, I'd make the argument that web site metrics (page views, uniques, visits, time on site, pages per visit, etc.) don't have ANY substantial meaning to an advertiser. An advertiser very rarely buys the total traffic of a web site during a given time period ... very rarely does the advertiser's creative show up on every page of the site for every visitor, every day during the time period they purchase. For online advertising, what really matters is IMPRESSIONS ... for my money, how many times will my ad be seen by the right qualified people?
While I'm a big fan of full disclosure and applaud BPA for their efforts on web metrics, at the end of the day, general web metrics are interesting but do not represent the value of what advertisers really are buying.
The use of the word "argument" intrigued me, Eric. Upon further review, I'm not sure if you're arguing with me after all! Your insight is always thought-provoking and I certainly agree that ad impressions are the baseline metric to help advertisers understand their investment. Take care, buddy. Missing you in NYC.
For more on BPA's position on audits and analytics go to http://tinyurl.com/yzxqmh5.
In short, each has an important place in online measurement but analytics were never intended for the trading of advertising.
Good points Rob. The BPA Interactive tool was created with those same thoughts in mind--to provide buyers of online media with an evaluation tool that compares apples-to-apples audited web traffic BEFORE they buy. We also recently put together position piece that outlines this converation a bit more in depth. Check it out at BPAWW.COM.
Nice suggestion. About time someone looks at the real issue instead of following the current business establishments status quo on how reality is measured.
Popularity, articles, click-thru, and mostly importantly, real data, like subscriptions, sales, etc.
That should be some of the benchmarks to determine value traffic, not just passer-by traffic. Do people stop, and get out, and come inside.
There is enough commuters in this world on the Internet.
Thanks Mike (and Julie) for taking the time to write. Keep coming back for more and feel free to continue to share your ideas and thoughts.
So right on. Customers get dazzled by bs analytics because they don't know the right questions to ask. I'd love to see GA become the standard to protect the customer. I know BPA wants to be the one. But until agencies demand it, and as long as 3rd party tracking gives agencies the #s they want, customers will find it hard to compare.
So what web traffic tool do you suggest?
Karen,
At the least, all publishers should use Google Analytics. It's free and with some tweaks/filters, can be a very effective tool. I would just make sure you confirm all the preferences regarding data sharing.
Some sites with a lot of traffic, especially on the consumer-side, may use Omniture or other similar tools. I would just want them to help me justify the expense.
Thanks for writing!
I believe BPA is leading an appropriate charge with their Nielsen Online measurement tool.
This allows publishers to report independently audited web traffic numbers, as they have always done in print.
However, I believe wider adoption of the tool depends on advertisers and agencies recognizing that publisher-reported numbers drawn from their analytics software (like Omniture, Webtrends, etc.) are not audited figures.
So let's beat the drums, design the t-shirts, and get the word out: Analytics ain't audits!
Niel, Thanks for writing. I've written in this blog in the past about BPA's and Nielsen's efforts. There is actually some good things coming out of that partnership.
You hit the nail on the head though. Analytics are not audits and until advertisers and agencies do demand some sort of consistent auditing practices, publishers will still be creative with their numbers.
Great post... thanks again for reading and contributing!