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Mediasmith Anvil

Volume 7, Issue 4                     August 19, 2008

 

 

Quantcast: The Next Generation of Media Research

By David L. Smith

Editor’s Note: This string of articles, links and responses first appeared in MediaPost’s Metrics Insider. We’ve abbreviated some of the comments but you can find the whole string online at www.mediapost.com

Part I: Quantcast: The Next Generation of Media Research

While not a brand-new offering, Quantcast represents the next generation of media research and is worth checking out. I have written about Quantcast in passing over the last year or two (full disclosure, I did some early consulting for them and have a small number of stock options), and I find that many agency-side and publisher-side folks that I talk to are unfamiliar with their services. Quantcast merits attention. Today, I’ll tell you why.

They call themselves “The World’s Only Open Internet Ratings Service.” The big departure from the field for Quantcast is that they are a “census-based” service rather than sample-based. What does this mean? It means that they are able to go much deeper in number of sites rated than the commercial services such as comScore and NetRatings. In fact, they “see” over 20 million sites as compared to the low 10s of thousands for other services. In the digital world where audiences may be small and we still want to slice and dice them for targeting, census-based sources may be the only way to go.

In a Google-like move, Quantcast at this point is a free service to all, both for publishers and for agency planners and buyers. More about that below.

Quantcast starts with a methodology similar to other rating services in the fielding of a panel with several million respondents. They then use statistical techniques to project to the total U.S. That’s when it gets interesting. They also have the capability to put their tags on publisher sites (with publisher permission) that can yield much more granularity out of the information. They then combine the two of these methodologies and use their “secret sauce” called a Mass Inference algorithm to produce refined Web audience profiles. These algorithms have been ported over from the finance industry and refined by mathematicians recruited from NASA and other high-end organizations.

As I mentioned above, publishers must put Quantcast tags on their site to “Get Quantified” and ensure that the best possible information about their site is presented. In discussing this process with publishers, I have found that most find that their Quantcast audience to be higher than that reported by either comScore or NetRatings and closer to their log file reports. When publishers ask me if they should do this, my reaction is always, “Why wouldn’t you do it?” It’s free and Quantcast is going to report on the site anyway. So why not do everything they can do to make the data as representative of their true audience as possible?

Agency planners and buyers are using the tool, too. At Mediasmith, our planners have found it to be a quick way to determine if a site they are not familiar with skews towards a client’s target and is a candidate for further consideration. It also uses Domain Tools’ thumbnails to assist in getting a quick snapshot of the site. More powerful agency planning tools are on the way from Quantcast shortly.* In time, they will be able to provide us information on those engaging with our ads and how those demographics differ from those of the sites the ads are on.

*editor’s note: some of the new agency planning tools are now in release since this was first written. You may need to register with Quantcast to get access.

Their end game is not yet transparent. But it is clear that this is more than just a rating service. Quantcast’s ability to measure targets puts them in the position of being a next generation Tacoda, with or without a network attached. They should be able to provide us with much more than behavioral information, given that they have an increasing amount of demographic and sociographic information on consumer web patterns.

To get to the big time, Quantcast needs to achieve greater distribution among top sites in their Quantified Site program. They are making great progress, though, with top sites like Newsweek, People.com, Digg and NBC already participating. They have an active business development program and are in conversation with many top sites.

So check it out today and keep an eye on their progress. This is a tool that will only have greater and greater utility as time goes on.

 

Mediasmith Morsel

Recent data from comScore reveals the top ten online videos viewed in the U.S. in March. YouTube, now a Google owned company, is in first place with the greatest video viewership, with 38.0% share of videos. In second place was Fox Interactive Media with 4.2% (note the precipitous drop in share percentage). In tenth place sat ESPN with 0.8%. Total share of videos for the top ten totaled 54.3% of all videos viewed, with Google garnering a full 70% of that share: short head, very long tail.

The data further revealed that nearly 139 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 83 videos per viewer in March. There was no corresponding drop in the U.S. productivity reported during this time period, but with the average video streaming 2.8 minutes, this totals just over 61,000 years of video watched in one month!

Source: Number of Online Videos Viewed in the U.S. Jumps 13 Percent in March, comScore press release, 5/12/08

 

Part II: Web Analytics 2.0?

By Josh Chasin

To see Josh Chasin’s response to my above article, go to http://www.mediapost.com/blogs/metrics_insider/?p=56

 

Part III: Responses From Quantcast and Others

Audience measurement will always be a hot topic of discussion as long as technology continues to grow and our data becomes more granular.  Here is what a few of the most forward thinking minds in the space had to contribute.

Responses to “Quantcast: The Next Generation of Media Research”

1.      Adam Gerber from Quantcast Corporation says:
April 30th, 2008 at 2:34 pm

I wanted to quickly respond to David’s overview of Quantcast and the replies that have been submitted to date. As a former agency-side executive focused on digital media and now Quantcast’s CMO, I think it’s critically important to openly inform the marketplace about the unique approach we are taking to improve audience measurement. As we continue to build an audience measurement service for the era of digitized and highly fragmented media, we fully expect questions to be raised and confusion to spread. It’s a healthy part of the process.

First and foremost, we employ a hybrid model that leverages directly-measured traffic data from more than 30,000 properties (millions of unique web destinations) in combination with panel-based audience data from multiple sources. For perspective, we “saw” over 400 million unique cookies in the US last month, and over 1.2 billion cookies globally. That visibility provides us with more than 2 billion directly-measured daily media consumption events.

Scott Oliver’s concern about an approach that marries data from a “small number of sites that have tagged” with panel data to develop audience profiles is a valid one. The above figures clearly demonstrate that Quantcast’s direct-measurement universe is not “small” and that a significant and rapidly growing number of publishers on the internet have adopted the Quantcast solution (including major media companies such as Time Inc., CBS, and IDG).

Scott also questioned – rightly so – the value of panels, especially if not randomly selected. So that confusion does not persist – Quantcast’s panel is not self selected. More importantly, we only use our panel as a reference point in a much more sophisticated inference model that combines directly-measured traffic information and panel data sources. Our panel is not directly linked to pixel data to generate demographic audience projections – this simply doesn’t work in a fragmented media environment.

John Grono identified one of the most important issues of the day, with his comments about cookie deletion. The extent that it impacts any given site’s audience numbers depends on a number of factors. The good news is that with the comprehensive view of the Internet we enjoy (via direct measurement), we can model its impact. Our Quantified Publishers already get detailed reporting on this factor (in addition to others such as work/home use) and shortly we will provide more details for everyone. With regards to traffic counts, we’re aiming to provide the marketplace with a clearer picture of cookie, machine, and people counts. Today’s tension is a direct function of the fact log-file data and audience data are based on two completely different metrics that we all refer to as “unique” – cookies, and people. They are like apples and oranges. As David pointed out (and John questioned) - our traffic data for Quantified Publishers does align more closely with publisher log file data. But that is because it is cookie-based data. There is no conspiracy! Stay tuned for the public launch of our enhanced traffic counts for a much clearer picture.

We welcome questions, debate, and input into our approach to audience measurement. It’s the only way to effectively innovate in a constantly changing environment and address the marketplace’s desire for accountability. At the end of the day, that is our goal: to innovate and deliver more accuracy and transparency to the market. It is not about “secret sauce” – it is about delivering better tools, services, and results to all sides of the marketplace. And we will live or die based on our ability to do just that.

 

Mediasmith Morsel

A new report issued by The Media Audit, as indicated by the Center for Media Research, reveals that 43.8 million U.S. adults have read an alternative newspaper or visited an alternative newspaper's website in the past 30 days. The study, which compared past four issue readership among 117 papers across 88 U.S. Markets, reveals an average readership of 374,296 adults in 2007 compared to 362,938 in the previous year, a 3% increase. Further, the average number of unique monthly website visitors among the 117 papers is 113,469 adults in 2007 compared to 106,139 in 2006, a nearly 7% increase. 

Among the top 10 highest reaching alternatives based on persons 18+ is New York's Village Voice with over 2.4 million readers across the New York City metro area who read the paper or visited their web site, followed by:

Source: Alternative Newspapers and Their Sites Read by Suburbia

 

Responses to “Web Analytics 2.0?”

1.      Adam Gerber from Quantcast Corporation says:
May 6th, 2008 at 3:12 pm

Josh - we really need to go out more often! I couldn’t agree with you more (well, about one of the assertions in your column). Quantcast publicly reports uniques cookie, not people counts for Quantified Publishers (of which we have over 30,000 today). But I would strongly debate the notion that Quantcast is a web-analytics company (I’m happy to do it on a panel sometime!). We are focused on helping everyone - buyer, seller, large and small - understand the characterization of their audience/desired target. At the end of the day, this is all about people. Not about cookies, machines, or any other proxy. Hold on tight - Rome wasn’t built in a day! We’re creating something from the ground up. I suspect you’ll be pleasantly surprised in the near future by offerings that will bring clarity to the issue that to this day we all love to debate but need to solve - cookie or person?

2.      Roman Arzhintar from SideReel says:
May 6th, 2008 at 4:55 pm

Josh, comScore is less accurate than Google Analytics. And if you’re not “quantified” Quantcast is less accurate than comScore. On the website side, we check our server logs, Google Analytics, and Alexa (for reach compared to other sites). Growth trends in server logs, GA and Alexa correspond very well. comScore, Quantcast and Compete graphs go all over the place. As a website owner I need to keep accurate stats as to who’s going where and how often. I need this info to build and introduce compelling features. I rely on my logs and GA for those stats. My servers tell me X, GA tells me X and Alexa repeats X (slightly less accurately) and also tells me how my X compares to other sites. When there is an environmental impact on traffic, logs, GA and Alexa react the same way. comScore, Quantcast and Compete don’t reflect those trends. If we were “quantifed,” I assume Quantcast would approximate GA.

3.      Adam Gerber from Quantcast Corporation says:
May 6th, 2008 at 5:09 pm

Roman, you are correct. If Quantified, our traffic counts would be aligned to your current web analytics data. But you’d have the added benefit of understanding the audience dimensions of your directly-measured visitors as well, based on our inference model. The benefit of having this info collected, and surfaced by Quantcast is that we are a 3rd party, aggregating massive amounts of data from millions of distinct web destinations based on a common methodology, which agencies and marketers have access to.

Chen - yes, performance today is measured based on web analytics data (impressions, unique cookies, etc). But only because the industry has actually been less accountable than traditional media in delivering audience based data. The key is to do so in an actionable way that aligns to the impression-based, as opposed to unit-based, model of digital media. Performance marketers will always defer to web analytics data. Brand marketers are much more interested in the “who”.  

 

Mediasmith Morsel

 

How did the fiscal stimulus plan affect the economy?

 

In hopes of giving the lagging economy a jumpstart, the US government began handing out financial stimulus checks at the end of April. Americans below an income threshold received $600, plus $300 more for each child, separate from any tax rebates. Many retailers featured special promotions around tax rebate season in hopes of capturing a portion of the rebate, but did these promotions succeed? There is a possible indicator in sales at major chain stores, which rose 3% in May, beating projections of 1% and outpacing the yearly average of 2%.

 

According to The Economist:

  • Consumers planned to spend between 20% and 40% of the rebate
  • 17% of consumers planned to allocate their rebate to necessities like gas and food, whose prices have risen sharply in the time since the approval of the stimulus plan
  • An index of consumer confidence, compiled by the Conference Board, hit a 16-year low on 5/27

 

Taking the above factors into account and looking at the big picture, it seems unlikely that mid-range and luxury retailers will see a significant revenue increase as a result of the stimulus plan. When all the dollars in the till are counted, the more likely winners will be Wal-Mart and Costco, who both experienced increased sales for the month of May.

 

To see how consumers spent (or didn’t spend) their stimulus checks, go to: http://www.howispentmystimulus.com/

 

Source: http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11453738

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-fri-retail-incentive-may-stijun06,0,7004728.story

 

Part IV: A Report on Google Ad Planner

Editors’ note: As we were preparing this issue, Google Ad Planner came out with reports from many that it was “The new comScore”, “The new Nielsen NetRatings” or would bury Quantcast. Dave Smith weighed in on Google Ad Planner in MediaPost’s Metrics Insider:

Google Ad Planner Creates Significant Buzz

The Google Ad Planner announcement last week, timed to the annual ARF conference, got a tremendous amount of interest from the press. In fact, as an “industry quotable,” I do not remember a story this year that has gotten as many calls. So the question is, what’s all of the hullabaloo about?

As you may know, Google frees up employees to spend a day a week on “personal” projects which can benefit the “greater good.” The company is also very willing to put products into beta and leave them there while they are vetted and improved, and while others do mashups of the product (Google Maps, still in beta but used by many, is a great example).

Many of those in the digital advertising trade press jumped on this as “doom and gloom” for researchers comScore, Nielsen NetRatings and even Quantcast’s research offerings. I think it important to note that there is a significant different between putting information into the marketplace and providing research tools. Research tools for the advertising community need to have specific aspects: They are expected to be statistically reliable, they need to have a sample that is projectable to the universe they are measuring (or offer a census of all users) and they need to have been vetted by the industry as relevant and reliable to the task at hand (an MRC audit is always a good idea).

There are also a number of functions that an agency would expect from a research vendor that are lacking here. Some include deeper demographics and sociographics/product usage information (such as AIM or @plan), cross site duplication for reach and frequency, and full disclosure on methodologies.

What Ad Planner IS, is a front end to buying graphical ads from Google and for buying the long tail. But it is not even the first at providing this functionality. Lots of information about buying long tail exists via Quantcast and its research offerings. And with Quantcast you get full disclosure on methodologies. For buyers who want to self-select their network based on demographics, they could use a tool like Ad Bid Central to accomplish much the same. Interesting that there has been no big story about Ad Bid Central — but then it is not Google.

This tool, much like Google Analytics, is a front end for buying for those who do not have the budget or connections for more sophisticated alternatives. Google Analytics is a fine product, but it did not put Omniture out of business. In fact, according to analysts at ThinkPanmure, Omniture has some 2,000 more customers than when Google bought Urchin and released Google Analytics, even though many said at the time it would put Omniture and its competitors out of business. We believe that Ad Planner will appeal to much the same target as Google Analytics: the small agencies and companies who handle their own advertising.

Agencies can get much the same solution through networks. The networks have been selling the long tail for a long time. And as they, in the future, include data from sources like Quantcast, which already measures tens of thousands of long-tail sites, the ability of the networks to sell targeted impressions will only improve. Also, agency heads like Sarah Fay of Aegis (Carat) have already been quoted by the Wall Street Journal as not wanting to buy from the same people her company gets its data from.

Then there’s the discussion of “free”. Somehow the trade press does not understand that everything has a price to it. Sure, access to the Google tool is free. But there’s more to it than the actual cost of the resource — there’s the cost of staff time spent evaluating a resource for consideration. And agencies can go to the networks and get them to do the hard work of coming up with appropriate sites, in effect outsourcing the work they’d have to do with Ad Planner.

Now don’t get me wrong. We like Google a lot, spend a lot of money through them and we think that Google Ad Planner is potentially a fine tool. The emphasis, though, is on potential, as there are many unanswered questions.

The reality is that there is a long-tail marketplace in digital, and the Google Ad Planner can fit this need in helping the long-tail customer better understand graphical advertising options. This could well be the tool which migrates Google’s very large small-customer base from search into graphical ads. And the big agencies will check it out. But we don’t see them using it instead of comScore or NetRatings as research and planning tools. And as the Google Ad Planner sample appears to be limited to Google customers at this point, it will not be competitive with the exhaustive methodology of Quantcast.

 

Part 1 of this article originally appeared in MediaPost's Online Metrics Insider on April 29, 2008. Part 2 appeared in MediaPost's Online Metrics Insider on May 6, 2008 and Part 4 originated in MediaPost's Online Metrics Insider on July 1, 2008

David L. Smith is CEO and Founder of Mediasmith -- a full service advertising media agency, specializing in digital media with an increasing emphasis on emerging technologies. Mediasmith is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

 

 

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