Comments on: Comscore Struggles to Stay Relevant http://www.thinkmulticultural.com/2008/01/25/comscore-struggles-to-stay-relevant/ Advertising in the multicultural mainstream Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:01:24 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Josh Chasin http://www.thinkmulticultural.com/2008/01/25/comscore-struggles-to-stay-relevant/comment-page-1/#comment-2175 Josh Chasin Sat, 26 Jan 2008 16:57:05 +0000 http://www.thinkmulticultural.com/2008/01/25/comscore-struggles-to-stay-relevant/#comment-2175 Here's the thing. We at comScore aren't actually measuring the Internet, which is essentially, as senator Ted Stevens so eloquently put it, "a collection of tubes." What we endeavor to measure is people and the behavior they exhibit. It is people who see ads, look at pages, buy products. Sure, everything that happens online can be measured and tracked-- everything, unforunately, except the last two feet of the funnel. The last two feet is the distance between the screen and the user. Was that click by the same user I saw before, showing up with a new cookie, or is it a new user? Is it a man or a woman? How old is he (or she)? What other websites does s/he visit? How is my ad campaign doing in reaching that consumer? All of these things require knowing that person out there, the last two feet. And none of them can be dealt with "in here," online inside the most measurable medium. that is why people measurement-- which is to say, panels-- will remain an indispensible part of the online metrics equasion. I deal with the research directors at the major publisher websites every day. For the most part these folks understand that Web Analytic data-- the site centric metrics that measure every click-- are simply not measuring people; at best they measure unique unduplicated cookies. Bots, spiders, cookie deletion, tabbed browsing, US versus international traffic, visitation from multiple computers-- all these things serve to drive "Unique" counts generated from site centric data to be 200%, 300% or more higher than the counts of actual different people logging those hits. Happily, Internet media researchers understand this. Even the IAB seems to get it now, as their pending document on reach definitionswill make clear. Web Analytic (site centric) data and panel data live side by side and both inform business decisions in different ways. But no one says, "I'm switching from comScore to Omniture," because these two things are two different animals. Thanks for reading. If you don't already subscribe to Mediapost's Online Metrics Insider (where these and other topics get a regular airing), I'd urge you to. Cheers. --josh-- Here’s the thing. We at comScore aren’t actually measuring the Internet, which is essentially, as senator Ted Stevens so eloquently put it, “a collection of tubes.” What we endeavor to measure is people and the behavior they exhibit. It is people who see ads, look at pages, buy products.

Sure, everything that happens online can be measured and tracked– everything, unforunately, except the last two feet of the funnel. The last two feet is the distance between the screen and the user. Was that click by the same user I saw before, showing up with a new cookie, or is it a new user? Is it a man or a woman? How old is he (or she)? What other websites does s/he visit? How is my ad campaign doing in reaching that consumer? All of these things require knowing that person out there, the last two feet. And none of them can be dealt with “in here,” online inside the most measurable medium. that is why people measurement– which is to say, panels– will remain an indispensible part of the online metrics equasion.

I deal with the research directors at the major publisher websites every day. For the most part these folks understand that Web Analytic data– the site centric metrics that measure every click– are simply not measuring people; at best they measure unique unduplicated cookies. Bots, spiders, cookie deletion, tabbed browsing, US versus international traffic, visitation from multiple computers– all these things serve to drive “Unique” counts generated from site centric data to be 200%, 300% or more higher than the counts of actual different people logging those hits. Happily, Internet media researchers understand this. Even the IAB seems to get it now, as their pending document on reach definitionswill make clear.

Web Analytic (site centric) data and panel data live side by side and both inform business decisions in different ways. But no one says, “I’m switching from comScore to Omniture,” because these two things are two different animals.

Thanks for reading. If you don’t already subscribe to Mediapost’s Online Metrics Insider (where these and other topics get a regular airing), I’d urge you to.

Cheers.

–josh–

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