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AMAA cracks autorefresh transparency problem in bid to get big publishers into web audit

AMAAThe Audited Media Association of Australia (AMAA) has confirmed from next month it will begin reporting the numbers for website which automatically refresh their pages, with the hope of bringing Australia’s largest publishers into the survey.

The AMAA’s CEO Paul Dovas told Mumbrella the move would provide greater transparency in the online measurement market and would hopefully open the door to the entry of larger publishers in the online auditing service. This month Private Media, which publishes Crikey and Women’s Agenda among other sites, has re-entered the survey.

“We will be reporting auto-refresh separately. We are capturing it now and testing it, with the plan to release it as a feature next month,” said Dovas.

“As of next month we will be able to bring transparency to autorefresh activity and we will be reporting impressions generated automatically under a separate metric,”

“In the absence of transparency it was important that we didn’t have it included but now that we can show it and people can see it then they can make up their own minds.”

Autorefresh has been a controversial area with the AMAA refusing to allow publishers into their survey who have metafresh, more commonly referred to as autorefresh, which updates pages automatically, generating more page impressions.

Dovas said he hoped the change would open the door for the bigger publishers to participate in the audit body’s metric.

He said: “It is going to remove another hurdle. We would like to think that it would encourage movement from the big publishers, but I can’t speak for them.

“Autorefresh will bring transparency and confidence to buyers in their spend. It will contribute to a healthier relationship between advertiser, publisher and agency.”

Private Media has re-entered this month’s online audit, having addressed technical issues posed to publishers when the AMAA switched measurement providers from Nielsen to Comscore last year.

“It is also good to have Private Media on board. We are about being open to everybody largest to smallest and we treat everyone equally,” added Dovas.

The February numbers for the AMAA survey reported Pedestrian.TV was the largest publisher in the survey 42,768 unique browsers (UBs) a day, followed by Timeout with 36,777 UBs a day and Crikey with 21,478 UBs a day.

Private Media’s new Daily Review arts website had 3,006 UBs a day, while its Property Observer website had 6,999 UBs a day. Gay and Lesbian news outlet the Star Observer had 2,824 UBs a day.

Mumbrella was ranked fourth overall in the survey with 14,277 UBs a day, up 23.3 per cent on February last year, while creative industry blog Campaign Brief’s main website had an average of 3,405 UBs a day. Yaffa Publishing, publisher of AdNews, and Cirrus Media, publisher of B&T, do not participate in website auditing.

The audit only accounts for browsers inside Australia.

Last year’s launch of the AMAA’s new online audit service, which is conducted by measurement company Comscore, drew criticism from rival Nielsen with Monique Perry head of media at Nielsen, which is the IAB approved metric, calling on the industry to support Nielsen as the approved metric rather than “muddying the water with mistruths”. 

Nic Christensen

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