As accountable as the online medium is - there is currently no industry standard for measuring size of audience or “reach” or the online equivalent of a “TARP,” “GRP,” “circulation,” etc. While most will agree that all media measurement systems are flawed in some way, the traditional media have at least agreed on what their mode of measurement is.  While there are some who believe the online/digital medium shouldn’t try to retrofit itself into a comparison with existing (flawed) offline metrics, others believe online/digital won’t see its full potential as an advertising medium until advertisers can compare it alongside other channels they’re familiar with.

There  are increasingly sophisticated systems available to measure “back-end” campaign results – i.e. “did my campaign work?” We still need to answer the question, “how many people will my campaign reach?”  The IAB is working with Nielsen Online in Australia to develop an agreed industry measurement standard.

In the meantime, each publisher or site selling ads decides on a metric to use. As you can imagine, this makes “apples to apples” comparisons difficult for buyers. But it’s reality right now, and it means you need to understand the options for measuring audiences online if you’re buying or selling online advertising.  You need to be able to identify the major types of measurement methodologies and understand the differences, advantages, and disadvantages of each in order to confidently trade online advertising.

Go Back

Comments

Post has no comments.

Post a Comment

Name (optional)

Website (optional)

Email Address (optional)

Please fill in the text in the image in the box below

Your comment