State of Local

ClickZ.com’s Kate Kaye provides a useful 2007 summary of the hot issues surrounding Web metrics.  Kaye nails it when she says that mere “baby steps” were taken by analytics firms to catch up with the rapidly progressing widget- and AJAX-infused Web.  When you boil it down, there were three highlights in 2007.  And, as I see it, three key issues exist in 2008. 

First, the highlights. 

In March, comScore announced its new visits metric.  The firm claimed that metrics like page views were “diminishing in significance” due to new technologies, which is hardly accurate.  When sites spend money upgrading their dynamic content serving capabilities, they need to understand how consumers are clicking around.  KPIs are getting more complicated, but none is truly diminishing.  (Well, cookie visitor counts might be doomed.)

In April, things got nasty when IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg slammed comScore and Nielsen Online (then Nielsen//NetRatings) for using an outdated panel sample methodology producing counts two to three times lower than IAB client server logs.  Rothenberg called for “a solid and transparent foundation for audience measurement,” and urged comScore and Nielsen to undergo independent audits by the Media Ratings Council.

Highlight #3 was in July, when Nielsen came out with its “total minutes” metric, heralded (by Nielsen) as the “best measure of online engagement.”  But, as anyone who’s ever done site redesign research will tell you, lingering visitors are often confused, angry visitors.  When its first rankings had AOL (with its omni-present IM window) dominating the uber-efficient Google, I wasn’t left feeling like Nielsen had mastered the evaluation of engagement.

Net net, 2007 was a year of frustration.  Now for the three lingering problems in 2008.   

Issue #1: Panels unsatisfactorily measure the at-work audience and smaller Web sites.  To be tracked at work by Nielsen and comScore, panelists need to install software to monitor each and every browser.  IT executives aren’t too keen on this.  As a result, the all-important work audience is drastically underrepresented.  This hurts smaller sites the most, as the tiny panel causes violent swings in visitor counts.  Local media properties, anticipating a deluge of ad dollars in ‘08, are already clamoring for better accuracy.  A boiling point is near.

Issue #2: Standards do not exist in terms of what to count as a “page view.”  If only there were a clear distinction between what should and shouldn’t be called a page view.  Rather, it’s a nasty, inconsistent blur.  Someone in a high place needs to step in and start making some rules.  If industry groups like the 4As, MRC, IAB and OPA can’t get it done, the federal government should take a shot. Site managers can track every mouse-over and thumbnail click they want for internal purposes, but those marketing claims need to be vetted somehow.

Issue #3: The gap between internal tracking systems and syndicated panel measurements is too large to close. Ever.  It just ain’t gonna happen as long as one is using cookies, and the other panels.  It takes a few hours to manipulate your code en route to a few extra million “page views” to your WebTrends or Omniture counts.  On the flip slide, Nielsen and comScore are focusing on visits and time spent, ignoring the pink AJAX elephant in the room.  You know how you have one thermometer on the side of the house, one in your car, and the one that flashes outside the bank?  It’s sorta like that. 

I wish I had a more encouraging picture to paint, but things are going to get uglier before they get clearer.  The bottom line is that the single-source, single-metrics world of old media is never returning.  Web publishing executives and advertisers need to pressure the heck out of metrics firms to strive for consistency.  But to succeed in this space, it is imperative that you embrace the variety, understand how to interpret it all, and learn to leverage the nuances.