Better Measures for Web Ads

Posted by nash on January 17th, 2008 filed in StashBlog

I recently read an article by Josh Chasin (Chief Research Officer at Comscore) in the Washington Post and agreed with much of what he stipulates.  To boil down his research he basically says advertising measurement metrics need to change.  No longer can we rely on the metric of “page views” as to know the true value of advertising.  Many lead websites and pages today incorporate a technology called “Ajax”, which allows data on a page to be updated/changed/refreshed without loading a new page.  So, technically speaking, a consumer could land on one page, stay there all day, and get lots of new information.  A few years ago, in order to get new information, they would have to move from page to page to page, hence the counting of page views as viable measurement metric.

Josh further states that we need to measure “engagement” as this can provide a higher quality than just page views.  Advertisers want to understand what is working and what is not.  That’s why they want the ability to measure engagement and not just page views.  For example, if you are Clorox isn’t is more valuable to know if someone watched a video clip where Clorox branded the viewer than just loaded a page with the video?  Doesn’t that brand impression or engagement have more intrinsic value when measured via engagement vs. page views?  I think so.  The challenge is “how do we effectively measure engagement” when there are so many ways to engage?  It’s all about developing the right metrics that allow advertisers and publishers give the consumer what they want and need.  Maybe instead of traditional CPM based ad models we move to CPE (cost per engagement) models.

I am glad Josh and the team at Comscore are focused on improving web metrics.  It’s hard work but it’s worthwhile work.

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