webanalytics : Message: Re: [webanalytics] Re: Nielsen NetRatings Switch-Off to Time on Site

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Nielsen NetRatings Switch-Off to Time on Site

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From jim@... Wed Jul 11 22:19:48 2007
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From: "Jim Novo" <jim@...>
Subject: Re: [webanalytics] Re: Nielsen NetRatings Switch-Off to Time on Site
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X-eGroups-Approved-By: dbl421 <dylan.lewis@...> via web; 12 Jul 2007 05:19:26 -0000

> This reminds me. With all the attendant fuss about "engagement"--
> apparently directly tracable to a speech by Jim Stengel (P&G) at the
> 4As 3 years ago where he predicted "In 20 years we'll be posting (doing
> TV post-buy analysis) on engagement."-- I'm wondering what folks here
> think engagement actually is/means? How do you define the concept of
> engagement...

Let's not forget that Nielsen / comScore have business models that are
pretty rare, and if their customers put enough pressure on them to provide a
metric they are going to do it. This has happened before - see cable TV:

http://blog.jimnovo.com/2007/06/12/media-measurement/#behave

The broad reason this is happening is a lot more important than the metric
itself, we're talking about increasing the accountability of display
advertising here. Personally, I think the agency / publishing complex is
seeing a breakdown in the value of display advertising, with clients pushing
back on the value of the spend, see:

http://blog.jimnovo.com/2007/06/08/banners-brand/

So this action by Nielsen / comScore may be about trying some new metrics to
base display buys on, in the hope that the media will then become more
effective. Don't forget the success criteria for display media is different
from what many of us deal with, correct? They're not looking for "action",
they are looking for "exposure". Time spent works for this.

In fact, exposure or time spent is a more "normal" measurement stick for
media; print being the big exception. So another part of this is (I think)
is saying that web display advertising is less like print, more like radio /
TV, which I happen to agree with. You could argue that Cume Quarter Hours
(from radio) is a much better metric to measure what they are trying to
measure than time on site, for example. Think about the attention span for
terrestrial radio and the behavior that goes with it and you could argue web
behavior - as far as display ads go - is much the same. Cume Quarter Hours
is in fact an "engagement metric" but on a gross (not individual) scale -
the "rolling average" of listeners during a 15 minute period.

Makes sense to me for radio, makes sense to me for any medium where
attention / engagement tends to be fragmented and the audience is "roiling".
Just like when we tried to convince Nielsen that Cume Quarter Hours were a
better measurement for HSN's TV audience (see 1st link above). And none of
this changes web analytics in terms of visitor behavior; we're talking
exposure here - awareness / intent - not behavior.

So, with that backdrop, to get to the engagement question, what you have to
ask yourself first is this: what is it you are measuring when you are
measuring engagement - **no matter what metric you are using**?

I would argue engagement represents Future Value or Potential Value - the
likelihood of further value creation by a visitor / customer. It's a
generic prediction of sorts - the more "engaged" someone is, the more likely
they are to pay attention to an ad (in the Nielsen case), visit again,
purchase again, complete the B2B sales process, whatever value creation
exists for the site. In the case of display advertising / Time on Site,
this certainly makes sense, given how quickly a visit can take place. How
can you even see an ad if you are there for 3 seconds?

If you start with engagement = potential value to advertiser / site in the
future, then you start down a very important new path, one I think simply
reflects the maturation of the medium. It's a move from a quantity based
metric to a quality based metric, which is common in media buying. In fact,
it's pretty much the underlying story of the "Behavioral Targeting" folks in
display advertising, right?

Even though I would (personally) argue Behavioral Targeting does not target
"behavior" as such, they are targeting "engagement with a topic", and this
results in better yield for the display space on all sides - publisher and
advertiser. If they could, I'm sure publishers would turn all their
inventory into behaviorally targeted space, since it seems to always be sold
out at a premium. And that's because visitors who are "engaged with a
topic" have higher value than those who are not - a value in the future,
which **converts to a value in the present** when an action is taken.

In other words, the further down the "funnel" you are, the more "engaged"
you are, and the higher your potential value. You could argue visitors who
are searching for something specific are even further down the funnel, are
more engaged, and have even higher potential value.

Engaged = potential or future value = more likely to create value in the
future

That said, if you believe this fundamental engagement = future value model
to be true, you must choose a metric to measure it that comes the closest to
representing a "store of value" in the visitor / customer. For Nielsen,
that is probably Time on Site - at least until they can get new technology
running or there is pressure from clients to come up with something better.

As a measure of media power or "weight", I still think Cum Quarters would be
even better than time on site - remember, these display buyers don't really
care about individuals, they care about the "force" they can exert against a
target - similar to GRP's offline. A rolling average like Cum Quarter hours
seems more likely to provide that idea - and it is daypartable, which
perhaps is why they don't want to go there...

So, what does "engagement" mean to you - not a specific metric, but as a
concept? Why should you care about it, where is the value creation you get
by measuring it?

Jim Novo
jim@...
Web Site: http://www.jimnovo.com
Blog: http://blog.jimnovo.com/

Wed Jul 11, 2007 7:35 pm

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Hello Judah, I just currently read the article you did with Marketing Sherpa discussing the challenges of Web 2.0 application and what features get the best...	Leslie Chacon leslie_chaco...	Jul 12, 2007 5:21 am
... Let's not forget that Nielsen / comScore have business models that are pretty rare, and if their customers put enough pressure on them to provide a metric...	Jim Novo jimnovo2	Jul 12, 2007 5:19 am
Josh, Why does "measuring audiences to ad supported media" on the web need to be "one or the other?" Would a Name Media agree? Linden/Second Life?...	Judah Phillips judahphillips	Jul 13, 2007 12:55 am
Jim, Incredible post--I think am going to become a very frequent reader of your blog as soon as I press the send button. However, it might be useful to point...	dhs1986@... jakesmitty007	Jul 13, 2007 12:57 am
... don't care, as we won't be able to measure! It's "Apparent" because they've done something on the site, or paid attention, or interacted with the site, or...	Jim Novo jimnovo2	Jul 13, 2007 1:00 am
I think the answer is yes. Media occupy space, or transpire over time (or, to be fair, both.) I'm not sure I can imagine an advertising medium which does...	Josh Chasin joshchasin	Jul 13, 2007 12:36 pm
In this case, I think you'll like the direction comScore is going... can't say more yet. --josh-- ... From: kam.rafique My view is that rather than use page...	Josh Chasin joshchasin	Jul 13, 2007 12:36 pm
... Judah, man, you know I love ya and think you're a very smart guy, and I agree with what you are saying - at the site level. But I don't think that's the...	Jim Novo jimnovo2	Jul 13, 2007 8:21 pm
If Jim does not work for Nielsen, he probably should... :) ... [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]...	Michael Rohde duckpubs	Jul 14, 2007 9:22 pm
Hi Josh, Exactly, both. I'd argue that the companies I mentioned may be better measured on space, not time. But realistically both ontologies of measurement...	Judah Phillips judahphillips	Jul 16, 2007 4:01 pm
Hello Jim, Y'know I share the love and respect. I also hear ya loud and clear about the differences in understanding the impact of a duration metric on...	Judah Phillips judahphillips	Jul 17, 2007 1:18 am
Thanks Leslie. :) I'm glad to hear you found it helpful and/or thought provoking. Cheers, Judah [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]...	Judah Phillips judahphillips	Jul 17, 2007 1:20 am
... Sure, let's stipulate these panels have all kinds of measurement problems as it is, which is part of the reason for going through the audits. It could be...	Jim Novo jimnovo2	Jul 17, 2007 7:11 pm
Judah, For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure that (in contrast to javascript-based web analytics systems), the audience measurement services are able to capture...	dhs1986@... jakesmitty007	Jul 17, 2007 7:16 pm
Sometimes this can be known, and other times it must be assigned via an edit rule. It depends on the activity that truncates the duration. If it was a user...	jchasin@... joshchasin	Jul 18, 2007 6:07 am

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