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Ad Age
While catching up after a recent slough of business trips, I encountered our P.O. Box full of everything from payments (exciting), bills (not so much) and of course, a couple weeks of Advertising Age waiting for me. In the initial skimming of the variety of publications, I was immediately drawn to one particular article: Your guide to who measures what in the online space.
AdAge gives a quick summary for some of the key players in the digital measurement space such as ComScore, Nielsen, Quantcast, Hitwise, Compete and Google’s Ad Planner. For more detail of course, there are numerous forums online, most of which speak to the shortfalls of each.
For most individual site owners and smaller companies, their only choices are systems that are free or low cost such as Google Analytics, Quantcast, Hitwise and Compete, as they give an idea of traffic trends, and even give an idea of the audience make up. However, for agencies and large-scale advertisers, ComScore has been the name associated with measurement, although it brings a hefty price tag along with having numerous issues of its own.
At my company, we are currently analyzing various options, the most asked for by agencies is ComScore. As a private company, we have utilized our ad server (Google/Double Click) combined with actual results, to sign and keep our clients, and we continue to be very successful. Our debate, though, is about how to get to the next level. For mid-size companies, it is a significant decision, not only due to significant costs ($50K+ / year in many cases), but also having confidence in a system where publishers are paying the measuring company to measure their traffic (definitely a conflict there). Some quick things to watch out for:
• ComScore: Significant investment and the measurement is paid for by the publishers. Outside of the general market in the U.S., there are significant questions in accuracy, as major publishers who do not pay do not get measured.
• Nielsen: Perception that it lags due to launching later, and it is also a paid service.
• Quantcast: Accuracy remains an issue as individual sites need to be tagged. It is not as accepted by larger agencies
• Hitwise: Does not provide absolute numbers for the site or audience measurement.
• Compete: Perceived as not as accurate on site or demographic information as ComScore or Quantcast.
• Google’s Doubleclick Ad Planner: While most U.S. agencies use Google/Doubleclick for planning and serving ads, on the measurement side, it is still fighting an uphill battle against ComScore.
There is no doubt that measurement is necessary, and that it is big business, with new players showing up and others trying to move up in popularity. Those with the ad dollars to spend, ultimately control what providers will use. However, as new platforms come out and improve in quality, we can only hope that they remain open to examining the options based on their merit and not just based on what has been accepted before. After all, it is the digital marketplace, and there are always newer and better mousetraps on the horizon.
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