I'll echo Neil's statement, that metrics are only valuable if they

meet business goals or industry needs.



The shift from page views to time spent per site does provide a valid

solution for measuring RIAs in an attempt towards equalizing

measurement practices. Yet, the value is somewhat diminished for sites

that seek to provide a rapid web experience. Time spent may be a

valuable measure for media and entertainment sites, yet an online

retailer who can quickly usher a customer through the site resulting

in a conversion doesn't necessarily value that metric. This is similar

to why Google has dropped in the new time spent rankings, because they

seek to expedite the discovery process.



Companies need to evaluate audience measurement metrics based on the

goals of their unique online properties and those metrics may not

always align.



John





--- In webanalytics@yahoogroups.com, "Neil Mason" <nmason@...> wrote:

>

> Hi there,

>

>

>

> It feels like it's almost back to the future on this one...

>

>

>

> Back in 2002 NetRatings acquired a European based audience measurement

> company called NetValue. One of the main metrics NetValue produced (that

> the others didn't) was "Total Duration" ie the total amount of time that

> people spent on a website, on the grounds that this was a better measure

> of user engagement. Their philosophy was that people needed to think

> about online media in the same way as offline media - obviously they

> were a bit ahead of their time....

>

>

>

> I'm not a Jim, Eric or Avinash but this is obviously going to change the

> way that people think about the medium. In one way it may help us move

> towards a measurement standard in our industry as the page view has

> always been a bit of a dodgy metric. There will still be reconciliation

> problems between audience panels and web analytic systems as total

> duration will still be dependent of the definition of a session length

> etc etc. At the end of the day when you are looking for standards, it's

> inevitable that you will always be playing to the lowest common

> denominator and so it's going to be sub-optimal. What's right for one

> industry is unlikely to be right for another.

>

>

>

> Cheers

>

>

>

> Neil

>

>

>

> ________________________________

>

> From: webanalytics@yahoogroups.com [mailto:webanalytics@yahoogroups.com]

> On Behalf Of romanojon

> Sent: 10 July 2007 19:59

> To: webanalytics@yahoogroups.com

> Subject: [webanalytics] Nielsen NetRatings Switch-Off to Time on Site

>

>

>

> Hey everyone,

>

> I just read a PDF located at the following address:

>

> http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_070710.pdf

> <http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_070710.pdf>

>

> From what I gather, it seems that due to the increasing pervasiveness

> of applications based in AJAX and other media driven applications

> contained within a single page, Nielsen has taken to using the primary

> metric of Time on Site.

>

> Does anyone have any opinions on this or can anyone tell me how this

> affects them? For us, not having any relationship with NetRatings,

> and very limited involvement with what people would consider Web 2.0,

> I have no perspective on the magnitude of this announcement. Judah

> always preaches 'Context' and I agree with him on that. So, having

> said that, is this transition slightly premature in that it only

> applies as a major measurement of top sites in addition to their

> traffic for engagement, or is it something so big that I just can't

> conceive of it yet?

>

> I realize there is virtue and value to measuring the attention span of

> the user. I see it as a margin to shoot for in terms of presenting

> useful options on the site. In the event that we would add numerous

> videos or instructional content, I would expect its useful in knowing

> how long people like their videos to keep feeding them things which

> conform to their expectations. Beyond that, and as for using as a key

> metric on which to base performances, I still see it as subordinate.

>

> Maybe Jim, Eric or Avinash have some insight on this or can lend some

> wisdom here?

>

> Sincerely,

>

> Daniel W. Shields

>

> http://danalytics.blogspot.com <http://danalytics.blogspot.com>

>

>

>

>

>

> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

>

I would argue that advertising-- all of it-- exists in either time or

space.  Print has a spatial construct, broadcast a temporal one.

Advertising media pretty much have to be based on the atom of space or

the atom of time (newspaper advertisers buy a half a page of space; TV

advertisers buy thirty seconds of time.)  Measuring audiences to ad-

supported media (a different field from WA, but with overlap) needs to

be based on one or the other, and I would argue that ultimately time is

a better construct than space for Internet audience measurement.



----- Original Message -----

From: John Lovett <jlovett@...>

Date: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 9:34 am

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

Site

To: webanalytics@yahoogroups.com



> I'll echo Neil's statement, that metrics are only valuable if they

> meet business goals or industry needs.

>

> The shift from page views to time spent per site does provide a valid

> solution for measuring RIAs in an attempt towards equalizing

> measurement practices. Yet, the value is somewhat diminished for sites

> that seek to provide a rapid web experience. Time spent may be a

> valuable measure for media and entertainment sites, yet an online

> retailer who can quickly usher a customer through the site resulting

> in a conversion doesn't necessarily value that metric. This is similar

> to why Google has dropped in the new time spent rankings, because they

> seek to expedite the discovery process.

>

> Companies need to evaluate audience measurement metrics based on the

> goals of their unique online properties and those metrics may not

> always align.

>

> John

>

>

> --- In webanalytics@yahoogroups.com, "Neil Mason" <nmason@...> wrote:

> >

> > Hi there,

> >

> >

> >

> > It feels like it's almost back to the future on this one...

> >

> >

> >

> > Back in 2002 NetRatings acquired a European based audience

> measurement> company called NetValue. One of the main metrics

> NetValue produced (that

> > the others didn't) was "Total Duration" ie the total amount of

> time that

> > people spent on a website, on the grounds that this was a better

> measure> of user engagement. Their philosophy was that people

> needed to think

> > about online media in the same way as offline media - obviously they

> > were a bit ahead of their time....

> >

> >

> >

> > I'm not a Jim, Eric or Avinash but this is obviously going to

> change the

> > way that people think about the medium. In one way it may help

> us move

> > towards a measurement standard in our industry as the page view has

> > always been a bit of a dodgy metric. There will still be

> reconciliation> problems between audience panels and web analytic

> systems as total

> > duration will still be dependent of the definition of a session

> length> etc etc. At the end of the day when you are looking for

> standards, it's

> > inevitable that you will always be playing to the lowest common

> > denominator and so it's going to be sub-optimal. What's right

> for one

> > industry is unlikely to be right for another.

> >

> >

> >

> > Cheers

> >

> >

> >

> > Neil

> >

> >

> >

> > ________________________________

> >

> > From: webanalytics@yahoogroups.com

> [mailto:webanalytics@yahoogroups.com]> On Behalf Of romanojon

> > Sent: 10 July 2007 19:59

> > To: webanalytics@yahoogroups.com

> > Subject: [webanalytics] Nielsen NetRatings Switch-Off to Time on

> Site>

> >

> >

> > Hey everyone,

> >

> > I just read a PDF located at the following address:

> >

> > http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_070710.pdf

> > <http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_070710.pdf>

> >

> > From what I gather, it seems that due to the increasing

> pervasiveness> of applications based in AJAX and other media

> driven applications

> > contained within a single page, Nielsen has taken to using the

> primary> metric of Time on Site.

> >

> > Does anyone have any opinions on this or can anyone tell me how this

> > affects them? For us, not having any relationship with NetRatings,

> > and very limited involvement with what people would consider Web

> 2.0,> I have no perspective on the magnitude of this announcement.

> Judah> always preaches 'Context' and I agree with him on that. So,

> having> said that, is this transition slightly premature in that

> it only

> > applies as a major measurement of top sites in addition to their

> > traffic for engagement, or is it something so big that I just can't

> > conceive of it yet?

> >

> > I realize there is virtue and value to measuring the attention

> span of

> > the user. I see it as a margin to shoot for in terms of presenting

> > useful options on the site. In the event that we would add numerous

> > videos or instructional content, I would expect its useful in

> knowing> how long people like their videos to keep feeding them

> things which

> > conform to their expectations. Beyond that, and as for using as

> a key

> > metric on which to base performances, I still see it as

> subordinate.

> >

> > Maybe Jim, Eric or Avinash have some insight on this or can lend

> some> wisdom here?

> >

> > Sincerely,

> >

> > Daniel W. Shields

> >

> > http://danalytics.blogspot.com <http://danalytics.blogspot.com>

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

> >

>

>

>

Hi Daniel,



I can't really answer your questions, but I would like to ask you a

question:



I like the idea of using time on site for videos, etc. to find out

what the optimal attention span of your average website visitor

could be (or it's range).



"(...)and as for using as a key metric on which to base

performances, I still see it as subordinate."



Why do you consider page views a better indicator than time spent on

the site (I assume that's what you mean?)? just curious







--- In webanalytics@yahoogroups.com, "romanojon" <daniel@...> wrote:

>

> Hey everyone,

>

> I just read a PDF located at the following address:

>

> http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_070710.pdf

>

> From what I gather, it seems that due to the increasing

pervasiveness

> of applications based in AJAX and other media driven applications

> contained within a single page, Nielsen has taken to using the

primary

> metric of Time on Site.

>

> Does anyone have any opinions on this or can anyone tell me how

this

> affects them?  For us, not having any relationship with NetRatings,

> and very limited involvement with what people would consider Web

2.0,

> I have no perspective on the magnitude of this announcement.  Judah

> always preaches 'Context' and I agree with him on that. So, having

> said that, is this transition slightly premature in that it only

> applies as a major measurement of top sites in addition to their

> traffic for engagement, or is it something so big that I just can't

> conceive of it yet?

>

> I realize there is virtue and value to measuring the attention

span of

> the user. I see it as a margin to shoot for in terms of presenting

> useful options on the site. In the event that we would add numerous

> videos or instructional content, I would expect its useful in

knowing

> how long people like their videos to keep feeding them things which

> conform to their expectations. Beyond that, and as for using as a

key

> metric on which to base performances, I still see it as

subordinate.

>

> Maybe Jim, Eric or Avinash have some insight on this or can lend

some

> wisdom here?

>

> Sincerely,

>

> Daniel W. Shields

>

> http://danalytics.blogspot.com

>

I think page views is an OK measure of engagement.  I think bounce

rate is better, and time on site, should the methods by which Nielsen,

or anyone arrive at this, be clearly defined, may be great for

engagement.



In my capacity, I use time on site and path length, as well as page

views, to try to gauge the users potential attention span. This gives

us an idea of how to build strategy to test.  In other words, X

percent of the users who come to page Alpha by keyword string 'Y' see

two pages after that and never convert.  As x is an overwhelming

majority, we should tweak the contents to present these people with

clearer options associated with widgets 1,2,3,and 219 (an upsell).



Like I said in the post, I don't have a problem with the measurement

of 'Time on Site' when it refers to what was described.  It seems

viable to things like MySpace, YouTube, or any other site dominated by

some level of social media.  I just don't see it making any sense to

US to make decisions of engagement based on this.  I'll qualify this

by saying that producing this measurement still seems a little shakier

  than collecting via a tag in a raw tally versus inferring a time of

engagement based on actions or lack thereof.



This, then, is the reason why I possibly fail to see the magnitude and

  prefer the means we have at this point.



By the way, I was not limiting my inquiry to ONLY Avinash/Eric or Jim.

  Anyone who feels they could add to our understanding is welcome to

hit me up both on the board or in a direct email. Thanks for the

responses so far.



Sincerely,



Daniel W. Shields

Web Analyst

CableOrganizer.com



http://danalytics.blogspot.com













--- In webanalytics@yahoogroups.com, "nevertrustab" <patriccc@...> wrote:

>

> Hi Daniel,

>

> I can't really answer your questions, but I would like to ask you a

> question:

>

> I like the idea of using time on site for videos, etc. to find out

> what the optimal attention span of your average website visitor

> could be (or it's range).

>

> "(...)and as for using as a key metric on which to base

> performances, I still see it as subordinate."

>

> Why do you consider page views a better indicator than time spent on

> the site (I assume that's what you mean?)? just curious

>

>

>

> --- In webanalytics@yahoogroups.com, "romanojon" <daniel@> wrote:

> >

> > Hey everyone,

> >

> > I just read a PDF located at the following address:

> >

> > http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_070710.pdf

> >

> > From what I gather, it seems that due to the increasing

> pervasiveness

> > of applications based in AJAX and other media driven applications

> > contained within a single page, Nielsen has taken to using the

> primary

> > metric of Time on Site.

> >

> > Does anyone have any opinions on this or can anyone tell me how

> this

> > affects them?  For us, not having any relationship with NetRatings,

> > and very limited involvement with what people would consider Web

> 2.0,

> > I have no perspective on the magnitude of this announcement.  Judah

> > always preaches 'Context' and I agree with him on that. So, having

> > said that, is this transition slightly premature in that it only

> > applies as a major measurement of top sites in addition to their

> > traffic for engagement, or is it something so big that I just can't

> > conceive of it yet?

> >

> > I realize there is virtue and value to measuring the attention

> span of

> > the user. I see it as a margin to shoot for in terms of presenting

> > useful options on the site. In the event that we would add numerous

> > videos or instructional content, I would expect its useful in

> knowing

> > how long people like their videos to keep feeding them things which

> > conform to their expectations. Beyond that, and as for using as a

> key

> > metric on which to base performances, I still see it as

> subordinate.

> >

> > Maybe Jim, Eric or Avinash have some insight on this or can lend

> some

> > wisdom here?

> >

> > Sincerely,

> >

> > Daniel W. Shields

> >

> > http://danalytics.blogspot.com

> >

>

----- Original Message -----

From: romanojon <daniel@...>

> I think page views is an OK measure of engagement.  I think bounce

> rate is better, and time on site, should the methods by which Nielsen,

> or anyone arrive at this, be clearly defined, may be great for

> engagement.



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...



The ARF definition of engagement is, "Turning on a prospect to a brand

idea."  I haven't bought into that one quite yet.



--josh--

At 08:09 AM 7/11/2007, jchasin@... wrote:

>-- I'm wondering what folks here think engagement actually is/means?

>How do you define the concept of

>engagement...



While I wouldn't go all the way to "poppycock" I do

spout off about Engagement in this podcast:

http://tinyurl.com/yv7zwy



>The ARF definition of engagement is, "Turning on a prospect to a brand

>idea." I haven't bought into that one quite yet.



ANA, AAAA, ARF

          Engagement is turning on a prospect to a

          brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context



Jeremiah Owyang

          Engagement indicates the level of authentic involvement,

intensity, contribution, and ownership



Eric Peterson

          Engagement is an estimate of the degree and depth

          of visitor interaction on the site against a clearly

          defined set of goals





    ------------------------------------------------------

eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit

Washington D.C., Oct 14-17

http://www.emetrics.org

San Francisco - London - Dusseldorf - Stockholm



WAA Base Camp

http://www.emetrics.org/waabasecamp/

July - August 2007

Los Angeles - Boston - Chicago - New York - Washington DC



Gurus of Marketing Optimization

http://www.emetrics.org/gomo/

July - August 2007

Los Angeles - Boston - Chicago - New York - Washington DC

------------------------------------------------------------

    Jim Sterne <jsterne@...>

    http://www.targeting.com +1-805-965-3184

    Chairman, http://www.WebAnalyticsAssociation.org





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Thanks Jim



I've been able to simplify it down to how it matters to web folks:



Engagement is "Apparent Interest"



While it's been argued that one can be engaged and never measured, I

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 even a casual gesture.



--- In webanalytics@yahoogroups.com, Jim Sterne <jsterne@...> wrote:

>

> At 08:09 AM 7/11/2007, jchasin@... wrote:

> >-- I'm wondering what folks here think engagement actually is/means?

> >How do you define the concept of

> >engagement...

>

> While I wouldn't go all the way to "poppycock" I do

> spout off about Engagement in this podcast:

> http://tinyurl.com/yv7zwy

>

> >The ARF definition of engagement is, "Turning on a prospect to a brand

> >idea." I haven't bought into that one quite yet.

>

> ANA, AAAA, ARF

>          Engagement is turning on a prospect to a

>          brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context

>

> Jeremiah Owyang

>          Engagement indicates the level of authentic involvement,

> intensity, contribution, and ownership

>

> Eric Peterson

>          Engagement is an estimate of the degree and depth

>          of visitor interaction on the site against a clearly

>          defined set of goals

>

>

>    ------------------------------------------------------

> eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit

> Washington D.C., Oct 14-17

> http://www.emetrics.org

> San Francisco - London - Dusseldorf - Stockholm

>

> WAA Base Camp

> http://www.emetrics.org/waabasecamp/

> July - August 2007

> Los Angeles - Boston - Chicago - New York - Washington DC

>

> Gurus of Marketing Optimization

> http://www.emetrics.org/gomo/

> July - August 2007

> Los Angeles - Boston - Chicago - New York - Washington DC

> ------------------------------------------------------------

>    Jim Sterne <jsterne@...>

>    http://www.targeting.com +1-805-965-3184

>    Chairman, http://www.WebAnalyticsAssociation.org

>

>

> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

>

I noticed in Omniture's Knowledge Base a list of plugins (ID 1411),

among which is one called getTimeToComplete. I like the idea of building

my own engagement metrics around specific processes and funnels that

we've got on our site. So while generic Time Spent on Site metrics are

useless for us, I can see  value in benchmarking the Time Spent between

Package Selection and Purchase.











________________________________



From: webanalytics@yahoogroups.com [mailto:webanalytics@yahoogroups.com]

On Behalf Of Jim Sterne

Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 9:41 PM

To: webanalytics@yahoogroups.com; webanalytics@yahoogroups.com

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

Site







At 08:09 AM 7/11/2007, jchasin@... <mailto:jchasin%40nyc.rr.com>

wrote:

>-- I'm wondering what folks here think engagement actually is/means?

>How do you define the concept of

>engagement...



While I wouldn't go all the way to "poppycock" I do

spout off about Engagement in this podcast:

http://tinyurl.com/yv7zwy <http://tinyurl.com/yv7zwy>



>The ARF definition of engagement is, "Turning on a prospect to a brand

>idea." I haven't bought into that one quite yet.



ANA, AAAA, ARF

Engagement is turning on a prospect to a

brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context



Jeremiah Owyang

Engagement indicates the level of authentic involvement,

intensity, contribution, and ownership



Eric Peterson

Engagement is an estimate of the degree and depth

of visitor interaction on the site against a clearly

defined set of goals



------------------------------------------------------

eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit

Washington D.C., Oct 14-17

http://www.emetrics.org <http://www.emetrics.org>

San Francisco - London - Dusseldorf - Stockholm



WAA Base Camp

http://www.emetrics.org/waabasecamp/

<http://www.emetrics.org/waabasecamp/>

July - August 2007

Los Angeles - Boston - Chicago - New York - Washington DC



Gurus of Marketing Optimization

http://www.emetrics.org/gomo/ <http://www.emetrics.org/gomo/>

July - August 2007

Los Angeles - Boston - Chicago - New York - Washington DC

----------------------------------------------------------

Jim Sterne <jsterne@... <mailto:jsterne%40targeting.com> >

http://www.targeting.com <http://www.targeting.com>  +1-805-965-3184

Chairman, http://www.WebAnalyticsAssociation.org

<http://www.WebAnalyticsAssociation.org>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]











[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

My definition of engagement-- quoted in media guru Erwin Ephron's newsletter--

is:



"That ineffable quality possessed by all advertising judged after the fact to

have worked."



--josh--





   ----- Original Message -----

   From: Jim Sterne

   To: webanalytics@yahoogroups.com ; webanalytics@yahoogroups.com

   Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 11:41 PM

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





   At 08:09 AM 7/11/2007, jchasin@... wrote:

   >-- I'm wondering what folks here think engagement actually is/means?

   >How do you define the concept of

   >engagement...



   While I wouldn't go all the way to "poppycock" I do

   spout off about Engagement in this podcast:

   http://tinyurl.com/yv7zwy



   >The ARF definition of engagement is, "Turning on a prospect to a brand

   >idea." I haven't bought into that one quite yet.



   ANA, AAAA, ARF

   Engagement is turning on a prospect to a

   brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context



   Jeremiah Owyang

   Engagement indicates the level of authentic involvement,

   intensity, contribution, and ownership



   Eric Peterson

   Engagement is an estimate of the degree and depth

   of visitor interaction on the site against a clearly

   defined set of goals



   ------------------------------------------------------

   eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit

   Washington D.C., Oct 14-17

   http://www.emetrics.org

   San Francisco - London - Dusseldorf - Stockholm



   WAA Base Camp

   http://www.emetrics.org/waabasecamp/

   July - August 2007

   Los Angeles - Boston - Chicago - New York - Washington DC



   Gurus of Marketing Optimization

   http://www.emetrics.org/gomo/

   July - August 2007

   Los Angeles - Boston - Chicago - New York - Washington DC

   ----------------------------------------------------------

   Jim Sterne <jsterne@...>

   http://www.targeting.com +1-805-965-3184

   Chairman, http://www.WebAnalyticsAssociation.org



   [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]











[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi. I can understand why Nielsen has moved to a "time spent on site"

metric, but for our sites it would still need an extra dimension such

as event monitoring to tell us if a browser is spending 5 minutes

reading content on one page or 5 minutes with a number of

clicks/transactions/page views throughout the site.



I'm not sure how you can rank a site by time spent on site.



My view is that rather than use page views which is outdated, we should

focus on "events".

An event would allow us to monitor activity within flash or any ajax

application even if the URL in the browser never changes. We could do

this through measuring clicks, video markers even page views etc...



This would provide us with an overall picture of engagement.



...and all this should relate to our and our customers objectives. But

would this be useful to Nielsen, probably not?

I just read the chapter on rich internet applications in Avinash's

book again..and it seems to me that he's very bullish on the future

of RIAs. He also writes it'll take time, but obviously sees more

than great potential in them for the web..and I think he also

mentions that there aren't yet any reliable methods for tracking

this stuff and explains what the problems with pageviews in this

case is.



Of course I can't speak for him, but after reading this chapter in

his book, I get the impression that he'll embrace the fact that

somebody is trying to introduce a way to track such applications

(just thought I should mention this as you asked what Jim, Eric and

him thought about this..and those are some of the thoughts from his

book)



--- In webanalytics@yahoogroups.com, "romanojon" <daniel@...> wrote:

>

> Hey everyone,

>

> I just read a PDF located at the following address:

>

> http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_070710.pdf

>

> From what I gather, it seems that due to the increasing

pervasiveness

> of applications based in AJAX and other media driven applications

> contained within a single page, Nielsen has taken to using the

primary

> metric of Time on Site.

>

> Does anyone have any opinions on this or can anyone tell me how

this

> affects them?  For us, not having any relationship with NetRatings,

> and very limited involvement with what people would consider Web

2.0,

> I have no perspective on the magnitude of this announcement.  Judah

> always preaches 'Context' and I agree with him on that. So, having

> said that, is this transition slightly premature in that it only

> applies as a major measurement of top sites in addition to their

> traffic for engagement, or is it something so big that I just can't

> conceive of it yet?

>

> I realize there is virtue and value to measuring the attention

span of

> the user. I see it as a margin to shoot for in terms of presenting

> useful options on the site. In the event that we would add numerous

> videos or instructional content, I would expect its useful in

knowing

> how long people like their videos to keep feeding them things which

> conform to their expectations. Beyond that, and as for using as a

key

> metric on which to base performances, I still see it as

subordinate.

>

> Maybe Jim, Eric or Avinash have some insight on this or can lend

some

> wisdom here?

>

> Sincerely,

>

> Daniel W. Shields

>

> http://danalytics.blogspot.com

>

No,



I do not like the time spent on site metric for 2 reasons. 1, it's

hard to get accurate. 2, it's all about value of engagement.



1) Typically time spent on 1 page visits as well as exit pages are

calculated differently amongst analytics solutions. So even if Nielsen

gets this right, it will not correlate with the data in web analytics

solutions.



Also tabbed browsing allows multiple pages (tabs) to be open at the

same time. At work, I have an email and calendar tab open all day and

I switch between them all the time. As more web apps become available,

I see this metric favoring business applications.



Finally if it did favor web applications, speed is of paramount

importance as it relates to productivity. So for an email application,

the faster you can access and read emails, the more work you can

complete. In Nielsen's metrics, shorter time = worse rating, which is

wrong.





2) It's not about amount of engagement, it's the value of that

engagement. Think about offline retailers. A shopper might spend an

hour in that store, but the most valuable time to the retailer are the

5 minutes spent paying for the item. Online we have the same

convention. A visitor might have many pageviews, but it's the invoice

pageview or thank you page that we assign the conversion. The reason

being certain engagements are more valuable than others.



For Nielsen, I feel time on site is an attempt to distinguish

themselves from their competition (comscore, Hitwise, compete...) on

how they rank "leading" sites.



But for the web analyst on this forum, I would argue it's more

important to make sure your site delivers value to your visitor's

needs. As well as measuring the value and impact the site has on the

overall business.



-nick













--- In webanalytics@yahoogroups.com, "romanojon" <daniel@...> wrote:

>

> Hey everyone,

>

> I just read a PDF located at the following address:

>

> http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_070710.pdf

>

> From what I gather, it seems that due to the increasing pervasiveness

> of applications based in AJAX and other media driven applications

> contained within a single page, Nielsen has taken to using the primary

> metric of Time on Site.

>

> Does anyone have any opinions on this or can anyone tell me how this

> affects them?  For us, not having any relationship with NetRatings,

> and very limited involvement with what people would consider Web 2.0,

> I have no perspective on the magnitude of this announcement.  Judah

> always preaches 'Context' and I agree with him on that. So, having

> said that, is this transition slightly premature in that it only

> applies as a major measurement of top sites in addition to their

> traffic for engagement, or is it something so big that I just can't

> conceive of it yet?

>

> I realize there is virtue and value to measuring the attention span of

> the user. I see it as a margin to shoot for in terms of presenting

> useful options on the site. In the event that we would add numerous

> videos or instructional content, I would expect its useful in knowing

> how long people like their videos to keep feeding them things which

> conform to their expectations. Beyond that, and as for using as a key

> metric on which to base performances, I still see it as subordinate.

>

> Maybe Jim, Eric or Avinash have some insight on this or can lend some

> wisdom here?

>

> Sincerely,

>

> Daniel W. Shields

>

> http://danalytics.blogspot.com

>

The time spent metric isn't really new. Nielsen NetRatings (and ComScore) have

been reporting various time spent metrics for years - time spent has always been

a very important metric for media and community sites. If you're competing for

an agency ad buy with a site that attracts the same or greater number of

visitors a month, it's a good way to show that your audience is more engaged and

more valuable that that of your competitors.



As you rightly point out IMO, it's not as useful for an ecommerce site, a search

engine, etc.



My take on this for what it's worth--as both a longtime NetRatings and a

ComScore client--is that this is largely a PR move intented to counter

ComScore's similar announcement earlier this year that it was going to begin to

rank sites by total visits instead of page views for the same reason (i.e. that

the page view is "dead" due to RIAs). I personally think the whole thing is more

than a little overblown, but others might disagree.



David



-------------- Original message --------------

From: "chika_bowow" <chika_bowow@...>

No,



I do not like the time spent on site metric for 2 reasons. 1, it's

hard to get accurate. 2, it's all about value of engagement.



1) Typically time spent on 1 page visits as well as exit pages are

calculated differently amongst analytics solutions. So even if Nielsen

gets this right, it will not correlate with the data in web analytics

solutions.



Also tabbed browsing allows multiple pages (tabs) to be open at the

same time. At work, I have an email and calendar tab open all day and

I switch between them all the time. As more web apps become available,

I see this metric favoring business applications.



Finally if it did favor web applications, speed is of paramount

importance as it relates to productivity. So for an email application,

the faster you can access and read emails, the more work you can

complete. In Nielsen's metrics, shorter time = worse rating, which is

wrong.



2) It's not about amount of engagement, it's the value of that

engagement. Think about offline retailers. A shopper might spend an

hour in that store, but the most valuable time to the retailer are the

5 minutes spent paying for the item. Online we have the same

convention. A visitor might have many pageviews, but it's the invoice

pageview or thank you page that we assign the conversion. The reason

being certain engagements are more valuable than others.



For Nielsen, I feel time on site is an attempt to distinguish

themselves from their competition (comscore, Hitwise, compete...) on

how they rank "leading" sites.



But for the web analyst on this forum, I would argue it's more

important to make sure your site delivers value to your visitor's

needs. As well as measuring the value and impact the site has on the

overall business.



-nick



--- In webanalytics@yahoogroups.com, "romanojon" <daniel@...> wrote:

>

> Hey everyone,

>

> I just read a PDF located at the following address:

>

> http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_070710.pdf

>

> From what I gather, it seems that due to the increasing pervasiveness

> of applications based in AJAX and other media driven applications

> contained within a single page, Nielsen has taken to using the primary

> metric of Time on Site.

>

> Does anyone have any opinions on this or can anyone tell me how this

> affects them? For us, not having any relationship with NetRatings,

> and very limited involvement with what people would consider Web 2.0,

> I have no perspective on the magnitude of this announcement. Judah

> always preaches 'Context' and I agree with him on that. So, having

> said that, is this transition slightly premature in that it only

> applies as a major measurement of top sites in addition to their

> traffic for engagement, or is it something so big that I just can't

> conceive of it yet?

>

> I realize there is virtue and value to measuring the attention span of

> the user. I see it as a margin to shoot for in terms of presenting

> useful options on the site. In the event that we would add numerous

> videos or instructional content, I would expect its useful in knowing

> how long people like their videos to keep feeding them things which

> conform to their expectations. Beyond that, and as for using as a key

> metric on which to base performances, I still see it as subordinate.

>

> Maybe Jim, Eric or Avinash have some insight on this or can lend some

> wisdom here?

>

> Sincerely,

>

> Daniel W. Shields

>

> http://danalytics.blogspot.com

>









[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Time-based metrics have utility in context of user needs, site objectives,

and goals.  As a stand-alone metric for comparing overall performance or

engagement across different sites that fulfill different informational,

navigational, or transactional needs, I think it's misleading and easily

fooled.  On many sites rich media or AJAX functionality are only small

components of a site's overall web experience.



More importantly, I also don't immediately see how "total time online"

*directly* ties to revenue, like the page view.



That said, a rich media "event" has a time-basis that should and can be

measured using current technology.



Of course, even if we don't agree or have serious concerns about

applicability or relevancy of this metric as an overall barometer for

"engagement," I do applaud Neilsen for using their brand to highlight new

media/Web 2.0 measurement issues.





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I agree with John and Neil that time metrics, like any metric, are

mainly important when given meaning and they have little meaning

until you correlate them to success, failure, or something actionable.



As an advertiser, if my boss went nuts and required me to use a

site's Time per Visit or Time per Page to determine my spend without

a correlation between those and conversion, my gut instict would be

be to shy away from both long and short times.  Short because it

might indicate high bounces or just because viewers might not have

time to perceive my ads.



I'd stay away from very long times for an even larger variety of

reasons. A high per page time means that, unless my ad floats, the

viewer has spent most of the time /not/ perceiving my ad. A high on

site time might indicate the site is /too/ engaging or sticky, say a

game, so the viewer is unlikely to notice or click ads. Or that the

site is the kind you leave open in a tab in the background all day,

like gmail.



Either way, Neilsen(or someone) will need to show both that time

correlates to "value" and that it does so better than the pageview or

the visit.



--

Brian Monaghan

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 ROI. My company

still hasn't moved entirely on the ever so moving train, but this article is a

great references of tracking one's campaigns.



Link below if anyone else was interested:



http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=30038





Judah Phillips <judahphillips@...> wrote:                                 

Time-based metrics have utility in context of user needs, site objectives,

  and goals.  As a stand-alone metric for comparing overall performance or

  engagement across different sites that fulfill different informational,

  navigational, or transactional needs, I think it's misleading and easily

  fooled.  On many sites rich media or AJAX functionality are only small

  components of a site's overall web experience.



  More importantly, I also don't immediately see how "total time online"

  *directly* ties to revenue, like the page view.



  That said, a rich media "event" has a time-basis that should and can be

  measured using current technology.



  Of course, even if we don't agree or have serious concerns about

  applicability or relevancy of this metric as an overall barometer for

  "engagement," I do applaud Neilsen for using their brand to highlight new

  media/Web 2.0 measurement issues.



  [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]













---------------------------------

Sick sense of humor? Visit Yahoo! TV's Comedy with an Edge to see what's on,

when.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

> 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/

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? Milliondollarhomepage.com?

Google?



Judah





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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 out that the big agencies are major

NetRatings and ComScore clients and many of their online buyers at least up

until fairly recently came from a TV background or were right out of college.

This meant that they did not understand--or at least could not convey to their

clients--the concepts you outline below with respect to the fragmentation of

display ads across a given site. They instead considered a website buy in the

same way in which they evaluated a cable television channel buy: with reach and

frequency metrics.



In other words, they were applying the broadcast ad model to the web, which as

anyone on this list knows, doesn't make very much sense. I don't know how much

this has changed, but if the broadcast upfronts are any indicator, they haven't

very much.



For an ad-supported site, engagement (as defined by time spent, page views per

visitor, visits/visitor, or whatever you fancy) only means what the ad

agencies--representing brand advertisers--think it should mean, except to the

extent that it can serve, albeit rather tenuously, as a measure of quality of

exposure to the brand as opposed to quantity as you write below.



As we probably all agree, "engagement" for ad-supported websites needs to be

defined and established in a way that is directly tied to the goals of the

client. While as a couple of other posters point out, it's unlikely that a "one

size fits all" approach would be appropriate, IMO the real problem is getting

the big players on both the agency and the client side to fundamentally

understand the medium.



David





-------------- Original message --------------

From: "Jim Novo" <jim@...>

> 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/









[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

> I've been able to simplify it down to how it matters to web folks:



> Engagement is "Apparent Interest"



> While it's been argued that one can be engaged and never measured, I

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 even a casual gesture.



Right.  It's really not worth measuring something if you can't take any

action of it, and to be worth taking action on, it has to have some kind of

measurable value.  Otherwise, there is no point in measuring it.



But, "done something" or "paid attention" are actions without a *time*

element, and I don't think you have "engagement" on an action alone.  If so,

you are saying there is no difference between someone who paid attention for

30 minutes and someone who paid attention for 30 seconds; no difference

between someone who posted last month and someone who has not posted in a

year.  Is that really true?  I don't think so.



Time can be used to describe the duration of an action, and also can be used

to describe how long it has been since an action.  Both describe how

involved someone is with the action, how engaged they are.



Engagement has to capture this idea of "being involved", or it's not really

any different from all the other stuff people currently measure.  It has to

capture the idea that someone who is involved is more valuable than someone

who is not involved.  And the reason is this: someone who is more involved

is more likely to create value for the company *in the future* than someone

who is less involved.



The value of having this knowledge is not very hard to imagine, at least it

shouldnt be hard to imagine for marketing people.



Nielsen / comScore didn't make a change like this for the heck of it, there

is something driving it, and that means the agency / media buying complex.

The money, in other words.  And that money, collectively, is probably smart.

In this case, I think there is pressure to get on with applying the same

standards to web media as are applied to other electronic media.



At this point, "duration" is probably the best these folks can do with the

time variable, and for the advertising business, it's not hard to imagine

longer duration = greater potential for ad effectiveness.  Whether that is

true or not remains to be seen, but it makes sense, especially since "time"

is used in the measurement of other electronic media - it's a standard.

That doesn't mean I'm endorsing "duration" as an engagement metric for your

business, it just means duration is appropriate for the display ad model.



If someone who is involved is more valuable than someone who is not

involved, there are a lot of good reasons to measure engagement, the primary

one being Management cares more about the future than they do about the

past, because they can "do something" about the future.   As an analyst, if

you start reporting on the future - predicting - as opposed to reporting on

the past, people are really going to pay attention.



Predicting the value of Content, Widgets, Products, Campaigns - that is a

capability Management will be quite interested in, I think.  Because they

can "do something" based on those predictions.



So, for example, using the other time metric, "time since", you can measure

these areas for engagement value:



1.  Content Areas

2.  Widgets

3.  Products

4.  Campaigns



Which content areas, widgets, products, campaigns create visitors /

customers who remain engaged?  Which do not?



Then within each area, rank the different assets according to which ones

produce the most engagement.  And the reason you want to do this?  Because

engagement represents the creation of future value to the company, and this

value can be measured over time just like the value of any other asset.  You

want to increase investment in areas that create involvement, and decrease

investment in areas that do not.



The content producing the highest engagement should get the highest

investment, the campaign producing highest engagement should get highest

investment, and so forth.  It's prediction of ROI, as opposed to backward

measurement of ROI.  And as the future plays out, you can measure the

accuracy of your prediction and optimize.  It's really no different than all

the other "optimization" work people analyze every day.



Here is an example using social media.  Say you have a bookmarking site and

the number of accounts and total bookmarks and so forth is rising (volume),

but the percentage of dormant accounts (say, no activity for 2 months) is

rising more rapidly.  At some point, the dormancy issue overpowers the

volume issue and the site starts to spiral downward in volume.  You can

predict this downward spiral will happen by looking at the "time since"

metric and try to take action before it's too late.



Most people look at volume as a measure of popularity and growth and by the

time volume starts dropping, it is already too late to save the site.  The

audience *has already* dis-engaged.  The engagement drops off before the

traffic volume does, and that is why enagagement is predictive and directly

addresses future value.



I'm sure you can all think of various start-up sites where this is happening

right now based on what friends are saying and general buzz on the boards,

and you think to yourself "they're not going to be around in 2 years".



You made a prediction.  You didn't need any fancy metrics, just a sense of

engagement.  If you asked these friends "how long it has been" since they

interacted with these sites, they would probably say "a while".



If we want engagement to be a measure that has value and is actionable,

there has to be a time element.  Otherwise, it's just counting events that

take place, and we already collect a ton of that information.



If we want to create something valuable out of engagement, it can't be just

a more complex version of what we already have - visitor did this, did

that - it has to address a new dimension of the behavior - how engaged are

they in the action, how likely are they to do it again?



Jim Novo

jim@...

Web Site: http://www.jimnovo.com

Blog: http://blog.jimnovo.com/







--- In webanalytics@yahoogroups.com, Jim Sterne <jsterne@...> wrote:

>

> At 08:09 AM 7/11/2007, jchasin@... wrote:

> >-- I'm wondering what folks here think engagement actually is/means?

> >How do you define the concept of

> >engagement...

>

> While I wouldn't go all the way to "poppycock" I do

> spout off about Engagement in this podcast:

> http://tinyurl.com/yv7zwy

>

> >The ARF definition of engagement is, "Turning on a prospect to a brand

> >idea." I haven't bought into that one quite yet.

>

> ANA, AAAA, ARF

>          Engagement is turning on a prospect to a

>          brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context

>

> Jeremiah Owyang

>          Engagement indicates the level of authentic involvement,

> intensity, contribution, and ownership

>

> Eric Peterson

>          Engagement is an estimate of the degree and depth

>          of visitor interaction on the site against a clearly

>          defined set of goals

>

>

>    ------------------------------------------------------

> eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit

> Washington D.C., Oct 14-17

> http://www.emetrics.org

> San Francisco - London - Dusseldorf - Stockholm

>

> WAA Base Camp

> http://www.emetrics.org/waabasecamp/

> July - August 2007

> Los Angeles - Boston - Chicago - New York - Washington DC

>

> Gurus of Marketing Optimization

> http://www.emetrics.org/gomo/

> July - August 2007

> Los Angeles - Boston - Chicago - New York - Washington DC

> ------------------------------------------------------------

>    Jim Sterne <jsterne@...>

>    http://www.targeting.com +1-805-965-3184

>    Chairman, http://www.WebAnalyticsAssociation.org

>

>

> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

>

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

neither.



   ----- Original Message -----

   From: Judah Phillips

   To: webanalytics@yahoogroups.com

   Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2007 10:28 AM

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





   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? Milliondollarhomepage.com?

   Google?



   Judah



   [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]











[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In this case, I think you'll like the direction comScore is going... can't say

more yet.



--josh--





   ----- Original Message -----

   From: kam.rafique

   My view is that rather than use page views which is outdated, we should

   focus on "events".

   An event would allow us to monitor activity within flash or any ajax

   application even if the URL in the browser never changes. We could do

   this through measuring clicks, video markers even page views etc...



   This would provide us with an overall picture of engagement.



   ...and all this should relate to our and our customers objectives. But

   would this be useful to Nielsen, probably not?











[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

> Time-based metrics have utility in context of user needs, site objectives,

> and goals.  As a stand-alone metric for comparing overall performance or

> engagement across different sites that fulfill different informational,

> navigational, or transactional needs, I think it's misleading and easily

> fooled.  On many sites rich media or AJAX functionality are only small

> components of a site's overall web experience.

>

> More importantly, I also don't immediately see how "total time online"

> *directly* ties to revenue, like the page view.



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 issue.



Let me suggest we all push the reset button on this topic for a second and

look at it from the perspective of the Nielsen / comScore / agency complex.

From the point of view of *their* business model, just like you would look

at the analytics for your own site based on your own model.



Kick this discussion up to a macro perspective.



Right at the top, let's be clear that we are talking about a change in the

way web sites are **ranked*, correct?  This has nothing to do with actual

execution, it is simply a ranking system.  All they are saying is it makes

sense to them - and does anybody think this was done without supporting data

of some kind? - to rank web sites by duration of visit as opposed to page

views.  That's it.  They're not saying anything about how to analyze a site,

how you should analyze your site, etc.



They are changing a ranking system, and they have decided it makes more

sense to rank sites by "quality" as opposed to "quantity", by "engagement

with the media" as opposed to "velocity of the media".  On the face of it,

if I am a buyer of display media, this makes sense, because I want to buy

"weight", not velocity.  I can't get weight from a 3 second visit, or if 50%

of the visits are 1 page visits.  Think about it.  Frequency or velocity

misrepresents the value of the media.



So let's drill into what this idea looks like in the real world.  If I am

buying media for a global packaged goods company, I'm not thinking about

sites except for a very few instances.  I'm buying tonnage across networks

online and offline - TV, radio, magazine, web.



I need a thesis of some kind when I'm doing this to have any rigor at all -

I want to reach a certain type of audience, with a certain level of

repetition, etc.  I reach certain people with certain repetition and I

achieve "weight" that translates into awareness / trial that translates into

sales.



Whether you believe in that model or not, that's the way it is done, because

they can only work with the data they have.  They don't have granular

information, and they don't really need it, because their own models show

that **it works**, over and over.  You buy X audience weight, you get Y

results.  You can confirm that with market tests and scanner data.  The

model works.



So you're this buyer, and you are looking at the web.  You know there is

audience on the web you want to reach.  But the current media buying model

doesn't work, your media mix models tell you that when you buy weight on the

web *as it is currently defined** nothing happens - there are no incremental

sales.  Awareness, OK maybe, (if there is a way to prove that isn't really

coming from the TV), but no sales.



So the display ad buying model that works everywhere else in electronic

media is broken for the web.  You start to think about it, talk to people

about it, and you think, hey wait a minute, in every other electronic media,

we look at duration.  Duration is a - admittedly weak - proxy for

engagement, and we all know it's not "accurate", but it is precise.  Precise

because it is always wrong in exactly the same way.



Then you start thinking about the behavior, visits to web sites.  And it

strikes you that a lot of this activity is simply not really conducive to

the idea of "weight", because there is no substance to it.  It's a lot of

thrashing around  and so forth, and in many cases, people don't even see the

ads because they are not really "engaged with the page", if you know what I

mean.



And that's probably why we can't get any weight on the web, because the

whole Frequency side of the equation is screwed up.  Frequency on the web is

not the same as Frequency on TV or Radio - it's different.  The Web is

different, as the chant always goes, right?  So let's admit that?



Frequency on the web is busted, it's not the same as Frequency on TV or

Radio.  So we have to compensate for that, we have to weed out the thrash

that is low value.  One way to do that is to use duration as a proxy for

Frequency, a different way to measure engagement.



We know people are generally "engaged" listening to radio or watching TV at

some level.  Sure, there is a ton of noise in that, but like I said, it is

always wrong in the same way.  It's consistent.  The average percentage of

people going to get a beer during the TV ads is always the same.  The fact

they do this doesn't really matter, only the consistency of outcome for the

media buyer and his or her boss matters.



I buy X weight, I get Y sales.



This idea of using duration as a "screen" is fundamentally no different than

excluding one page visits in key metrics, or excluding robots and spiders,

or any of the other things we do in web site analysis to get cleaner data

out of a really dirty dataset.  It's a filter.



Now, you start to think about the future, and you think about mobile, and

in-game, and all the social networks that think they are going survive off

display ad revenue, and whatever else is coming down the line.  And you

think to yourself, look, the more interactive the environment, the more this

matters, because there can be all kinds of thrashing around in these other

media too.



All kinds of opportunity for an "impression" that isn't really an

impression, because the visit is too quick, or it is too focused on a task.

These quick hits are like 1 page visits, they lack weight, they shouldn't be

counted.



But now back to the reality of executing.  There is no way I can analyze all

of this, I can't possibly manage a network on a global basis that is looking

at all these reasons a web site analyst can come up with why I'm not

measuring things correctly.  I need a damn standard, something I can use

globally at the macro level across all these platforms that gives me some

sense of "weight" that I don't get with Frequency in an interactive medium.

And the easiest and most precise - though incredibly inaccurate - standard I

can come up with to do that is duration.



It is universal, it is stable.



And I need the most stable thing I can get, because I need to plug it into

models and try to figure out how to buy weight, how to impact sales.



I need a least common denominator representation of engagement, to tell me

that there is at least a chance in hell visitors saw my ad.  And I can use

this LCD to create a ranking system that - on a macro basis, with a lot of

noise, but consistent error - tells we where I am most likely to find

"weight".



Does the above make any sense at all to you folks?



Jim Novo

jim@...

Web Site: http://www.jimnovo.com

Blog: http://blog.jimnovo.com/

If Jim does not work for Nielsen, he probably should... :)



On 7/13/07, Jim Novo <jim@...> wrote:

>

>   > Time-based metrics have utility in context of user needs, site

> objectives,

> > and goals. As a stand-alone metric for comparing overall performance or

> > engagement across different sites that fulfill different informational,

> > navigational, or transactional needs, I think it's misleading and easily

> > fooled. On many sites rich media or AJAX functionality are only small

> > components of a site's overall web experience.

> >

> > More importantly, I also don't immediately see how "total time online"

> > *directly* ties to revenue, like the page view.

>

> 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 issue.

>

> Let me suggest we all push the reset button on this topic for a second and

>

> look at it from the perspective of the Nielsen / comScore / agency

> complex.

> From the point of view of *their* business model, just like you would look

>

> at the analytics for your own site based on your own model.

>

> Kick this discussion up to a macro perspective.

>

> Right at the top, let's be clear that we are talking about a change in the

>

> way web sites are **ranked*, correct? This has nothing to do with actual

> execution, it is simply a ranking system. All they are saying is it makes

> sense to them - and does anybody think this was done without supporting

> data

> of some kind? - to rank web sites by duration of visit as opposed to page

> views. That's it. They're not saying anything about how to analyze a site,

>

> how you should analyze your site, etc.

>

> They are changing a ranking system, and they have decided it makes more

> sense to rank sites by "quality" as opposed to "quantity", by "engagement

> with the media" as opposed to "velocity of the media". On the face of it,

> if I am a buyer of display media, this makes sense, because I want to buy

> "weight", not velocity. I can't get weight from a 3 second visit, or if

> 50%

> of the visits are 1 page visits. Think about it. Frequency or velocity

> misrepresents the value of the media.

>

> So let's drill into what this idea looks like in the real world. If I am

> buying media for a global packaged goods company, I'm not thinking about

> sites except for a very few instances. I'm buying tonnage across networks

> online and offline - TV, radio, magazine, web.

>

> I need a thesis of some kind when I'm doing this to have any rigor at all

> -

> I want to reach a certain type of audience, with a certain level of

> repetition, etc. I reach certain people with certain repetition and I

> achieve "weight" that translates into awareness / trial that translates

> into

> sales.

>

> Whether you believe in that model or not, that's the way it is done,

> because

> they can only work with the data they have. They don't have granular

> information, and they don't really need it, because their own models show

> that **it works**, over and over. You buy X audience weight, you get Y

> results. You can confirm that with market tests and scanner data. The

> model works.

>

> So you're this buyer, and you are looking at the web. You know there is

> audience on the web you want to reach. But the current media buying model

> doesn't work, your media mix models tell you that when you buy weight on

> the

> web *as it is currently defined** nothing happens - there are no

> incremental

> sales. Awareness, OK maybe, (if there is a way to prove that isn't really

> coming from the TV), but no sales.

>

> So the display ad buying model that works everywhere else in electronic

> media is broken for the web. You start to think about it, talk to people

> about it, and you think, hey wait a minute, in every other electronic

> media,

> we look at duration. Duration is a - admittedly weak - proxy for

> engagement, and we all know it's not "accurate", but it is precise.

> Precise

> because it is always wrong in exactly the same way.

>

> Then you start thinking about the behavior, visits to web sites. And it

> strikes you that a lot of this activity is simply not really conducive to

> the idea of "weight", because there is no substance to it. It's a lot of

> thrashing around and so forth, and in many cases, people don't even see

> the

> ads because they are not really "engaged with the page", if you know what

> I

> mean.

>

> And that's probably why we can't get any weight on the web, because the

> whole Frequency side of the equation is screwed up. Frequency on the web

> is

> not the same as Frequency on TV or Radio - it's different. The Web is

> different, as the chant always goes, right? So let's admit that?

>

> Frequency on the web is busted, it's not the same as Frequency on TV or

> Radio. So we have to compensate for that, we have to weed out the thrash

> that is low value. One way to do that is to use duration as a proxy for

> Frequency, a different way to measure engagement.

>

> We know people are generally "engaged" listening to radio or watching TV

> at

> some level. Sure, there is a ton of noise in that, but like I said, it is

> always wrong in the same way. It's consistent. The average percentage of

> people going to get a beer during the TV ads is always the same. The fact

> they do this doesn't really matter, only the consistency of outcome for

> the

> media buyer and his or her boss matters.

>

> I buy X weight, I get Y sales.

>

> This idea of using duration as a "screen" is fundamentally no different

> than

> excluding one page visits in key metrics, or excluding robots and spiders,

>

> or any of the other things we do in web site analysis to get cleaner data

> out of a really dirty dataset. It's a filter.

>

> Now, you start to think about the future, and you think about mobile, and

> in-game, and all the social networks that think they are going survive off

>

> display ad revenue, and whatever else is coming down the line. And you

> think to yourself, look, the more interactive the environment, the more

> this

> matters, because there can be all kinds of thrashing around in these other

>

> media too.

>

> All kinds of opportunity for an "impression" that isn't really an

> impression, because the visit is too quick, or it is too focused on a

> task.

> These quick hits are like 1 page visits, they lack weight, they shouldn't

> be

> counted.

>

> But now back to the reality of executing. There is no way I can analyze

> all

> of this, I can't possibly manage a network on a global basis that is

> looking

> at all these reasons a web site analyst can come up with why I'm not

> measuring things correctly. I need a damn standard, something I can use

> globally at the macro level across all these platforms that gives me some

> sense of "weight" that I don't get with Frequency in an interactive

> medium.

> And the easiest and most precise - though incredibly inaccurate - standard

> I

> can come up with to do that is duration.

>

> It is universal, it is stable.

>

> And I need the most stable thing I can get, because I need to plug it into

>

> models and try to figure out how to buy weight, how to impact sales.

>

> I need a least common denominator representation of engagement, to tell me

>

> that there is at least a chance in hell visitors saw my ad. And I can use

> this LCD to create a ranking system that - on a macro basis, with a lot of

>

> noise, but consistent error - tells we where I am most likely to find

> "weight".

>

> Does the above make any sense at all to you folks?

>

> Jim Novo

> jim@... <jim%40jimnovo.com>

> Web Site: http://www.jimnovo.com

> Blog: http://blog.jimnovo.com/

>

>

>





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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 are applicable to the web.



Thanks,

Judah





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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 "macro"

and "micro" level site analysis.  In fact, your past, genial posts about

this issue are quite thought provoking.



Simply put Nielsen is providing a new metric for "measurement" not for

"evaluation."  Such categorization makes the announcement easier to accept.

I get agitated in the evaluation of a site based on a time-metric *without

context*.



If I may briefly paraphrase the "macro"... what you are saying is

that measures of "frequency" on the web are so noisy, that using "duration"

as a proxy for "frequency" makes sense in that it is comparable across media

types because it is inexact in similar ways.  Therefore, because of historic

precedent, a time-basis for media buying becomes a de facto "standard" for

approximating audience "weight" on the web. Thus, with a Total Time Online

metric, a buyer of electronic media can apply existing models to purchase a

known quantity of time (i.e weight) and predict a known result (i.e I buy X

weight, I get Y sales).



That makes sense to me if the theory holds true, but, darn, it is

suboptimal, especially as a measure of Web 2.0 sites. It's not just single

page visits that aren't counted, but the time spent on the last page in the

session isn't counted either.  If the majority of your "engagement" takes

place on the last page in the session, then the "total time" metric fails to

account for that too.  The time data is trimmed at the beginning and the

end.  Take for example Zillow.  In my personal experience, I engage the last

page I request, panning, zooming, checking my neighbors home values, then I

leave.  In the current model, my time on the last page is not captured.



One could assume that rich internet applications and sites that serve

RIA transfer more megabytes then "web 1.0" sites.  Does that mean I should

measure and rank on "megabytes transferred" as indicator of Web

2.0engagement? Is it a useful measure of "weight"?  No, it's not, and

I'm not

sure "total time" is the solution either.  That said, from the macro level

and business model perspective, I get why Nielsen is moving in that

direction.  I also understand why they are backing off a bit on the

importance of the metric for "evaluation" and talking about how they are

still tracking page views and other metrics too.



I'll still give Nielsen props for making people think

about "the numbers" and using their influence to bring light to the

challenges of new media measurement.  At the end of the day though, it's

still tough data to believe since I have no insight as to whether the panel

suffers from coverage error and selection bias, regardless of the technical

challenges to measuring time on the web.



Judah





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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]

> I'll still give Nielsen props for making people think

> about "the numbers" and using their influence to bring light to the

> challenges of new media measurement.  At the end of the day though, it's

> still tough data to believe since I have no insight as to whether the

> panel

> suffers from coverage error and selection bias, regardless of the

> technical

> challenges to measuring time on the web.



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 there is simply a higher correlation between the effectiveness of display

advertising and Visit Duration / Engagement  than the effectiveness of

display advertising and Page Views / Consumption.



This could simply be because the panel measurement error, while high for

Duration, is even higher for Page Views - and probably getting worse.



Jim Novo

jim@...

Web Site: http://www.jimnovo.com

Blog: http://blog.jimnovo.com/

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 visit

duration for the last page visited on a site with their tracking software. I'd

have to double-check with my client reps to confirm...



David



-------------- Original message --------------

From: "Judah Phillips" <judahphillips@...>

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 "macro"

and "micro" level site analysis. In fact, your past, genial posts about

this issue are quite thought provoking.



Simply put Nielsen is providing a new metric for "measurement" not for

"evaluation." Such categorization makes the announcement easier to accept.

I get agitated in the evaluation of a site based on a time-metric *without

context*.



If I may briefly paraphrase the "macro"... what you are saying is

that measures of "frequency" on the web are so noisy, that using "duration"

as a proxy for "frequency" makes sense in that it is comparable across media

types because it is inexact in similar ways. Therefore, because of historic

precedent, a time-basis for media buying becomes a de facto "standard" for

approximating audience "weight" on the web. Thus, with a Total Time Online

metric, a buyer of electronic media can apply existing models to purchase a

known quantity of time (i.e weight) and predict a known result (i.e I buy X

weight, I get Y sales).



That makes sense to me if the theory holds true, but, darn, it is

suboptimal, especially as a measure of Web 2.0 sites. It's not just single

page visits that aren't counted, but the time spent on the last page in the

session isn't counted either. If the majority of your "engagement" takes

place on the last page in the session, then the "total time" metric fails to

account for that too. The time data is trimmed at the beginning and the

end. Take for example Zillow. In my personal experience, I engage the last

page I request, panning, zooming, checking my neighbors home values, then I

leave. In the current model, my time on the last page is not captured.



One could assume that rich internet applications and sites that serve

RIA transfer more megabytes then "web 1.0" sites. Does that mean I should

measure and rank on "megabytes transferred" as indicator of Web

2.0engagement? Is it a useful measure of "weight"? No, it's not, and

I'm not

sure "total time" is the solution either. That said, from the macro level

and business model perspective, I get why Nielsen is moving in that

direction. I also understand why they are backing off a bit on the

importance of the metric for "evaluation" and talking about how they are

still tracking page views and other metrics too.



I'll still give Nielsen props for making people think

about "the numbers" and using their influence to bring light to the

challenges of new media measurement. At the end of the day though, it's

still tough data to believe since I have no insight as to whether the panel

suffers from coverage error and selection bias, regardless of the technical

challenges to measuring time on the web.



Judah



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]









[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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 going elsewhere online (or even moving to a desktop

application, e.g. Excel), comScore can capture that.  If the activity

that truncates duration is the user getting up and walking away from

the computer, that's when an edit rule is necessary.



----- Original Message -----

From: dhs1986@...

Date: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 3:22 pm

Subject: Re: [webanalytics] Re: Nielsen NetRatings Switch-Off to Time

on Site

To: webanalytics@yahoogroups.com



> 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 visit duration for the last page

> visited on a site with their tracking software. I'd have to double-

> check with my client reps to confirm...

>

> David

>

> -------------- Original message --------------

> From: "Judah Phillips" <judahphillips@...>

> Hello Jim,

>

> Y'know I share the love and respect. I also hear ya loud and clear

> aboutthe differences in understanding the impact of a duration

> metric on "macro"

> and "micro" level site analysis. In fact, your past, genial posts

> aboutthis issue are quite thought provoking.

>

> Simply put Nielsen is providing a new metric for "measurement" not for

> "evaluation." Such categorization makes the announcement easier to

> accept.I get agitated in the evaluation of a site based on a time-

> metric *without

> context*.

>

> If I may briefly paraphrase the "macro"... what you are saying is

> that measures of "frequency" on the web are so noisy, that using

> "duration"as a proxy for "frequency" makes sense in that it is

> comparable across media

> types because it is inexact in similar ways. Therefore, because of

> historicprecedent, a time-basis for media buying becomes a de

> facto "standard" for

> approximating audience "weight" on the web. Thus, with a Total

> Time Online

> metric, a buyer of electronic media can apply existing models to

> purchase a

> known quantity of time (i.e weight) and predict a known result

> (i.e I buy X

> weight, I get Y sales).

>

> That makes sense to me if the theory holds true, but, darn, it is

> suboptimal, especially as a measure of Web 2.0 sites. It's not

> just single

> page visits that aren't counted, but the time spent on the last

> page in the

> session isn't counted either. If the majority of your "engagement"

> takesplace on the last page in the session, then the "total time"

> metric fails to

> account for that too. The time data is trimmed at the beginning

> and the

> end. Take for example Zillow. In my personal experience, I engage

> the last

> page I request, panning, zooming, checking my neighbors home

> values, then I

> leave. In the current model, my time on the last page is not captured.

>

> One could assume that rich internet applications and sites that serve

> RIA transfer more megabytes then "web 1.0" sites. Does that mean I

> shouldmeasure and rank on "megabytes transferred" as indicator of Web

> 2.0engagement? Is it a useful measure of "weight"? No, it's not, and

> I'm not

> sure "total time" is the solution either. That said, from the

> macro level

> and business model perspective, I get why Nielsen is moving in that

> direction. I also understand why they are backing off a bit on the

> importance of the metric for "evaluation" and talking about how

> they are

> still tracking page views and other metrics too.

>

> I'll still give Nielsen props for making people think

> about "the numbers" and using their influence to bring light to the

> challenges of new media measurement. At the end of the day though,

> it'sstill tough data to believe since I have no insight as to

> whether the panel

> suffers from coverage error and selection bias, regardless of the

> technicalchallenges to measuring time on the web.

>

> Judah

>

> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

>

>

>

>

> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

>

>