Letter from Our Sponsor, Datran Media
When I first heard that eMarketer was publishing a study dedicated to online measurement, I got excited, because I felt that the timing couldn’t be any better.
We are witnessing a very interesting period in the industry where advertisers are no longer simply buying media on Web sites to reach a particular audience, but instead are actually targeting users. The explosion of exchanges and behavioral data targeting has suddenly made the term “remnant” important and sexy. Let’s face it, this is not a just a trend, but rather a clear movement towards leveraging the plethora of data that differentiates the Internet from any other form of media. Even when advertisers buy from an individual site, they are now expecting to target specific users with relevant demographics or behavior. Although this appears to be a subtle switch, it actually has a profound effect on the industry, especially when it comes to measurement. Think about it. The measurement tools that exist on the Web today were created to address the desire to determine the most popular sites by attempting to count the number of unique visits to individual sites on a monthly basis. These tools were not really developed to provide valid insights into the user behind the browser.
Perhaps in the early days of the Internet when people were focused on buying homepages or sponsorships, knowing the most popular sports-related Web site was actually relevant. But let me ask you a question, if you are only buying four million unique impressions, does it really matter whether the site reaches 20 or 30 million visitors a month? Although instinctively most of us want to say yes, chances are the answer is no. Advertisers should be shifting from asking what site is the most popular to wondering “who specifically am I reaching?”, “is this who I am intending to reach?” and “what is the impact on my brand?”
Unfortunately the industry is still stuck in a rut over counting methodologies. Yet at the end of the day, the only figures that typically matter come from an advertiser’s third party ad server, as this is what determines the money actually spent on advertising. Until the debate switches from unique user counting to the accuracy and quality of data about the individuals exposed to and interacting with the ad campaign, we will be holding back the potential of the industry. Not to say that the number of monthly visitors isn’t at all relevant to publishers or advertisers, but let’s put that challenge into perspective and focus resources on moving the market forward with the type of audience measurement that today’s marketer truly needs.
I trust that this timely report will give us all a lot of food for thought and we are delighted to be sponsoring it. No one knows exactly what measurement will consist of in five years, but I guarantee it will evolve greatly from what exists today. This study should provide us with not only the current challenges, but also a hint of things to come. Enjoy the report and let the debates begin!
Sincerely,
Scott C. Knoll
SVP Display and GM Aperture Product Group, Datran Media
