ABA web audits continue to grow

Got to love transparency….Well done!

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Keep the pressure on. The more there are with an ABA tick, the more the ones without look like they’ve something to hide.

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Well done – nothing wors than random figures being thrown around!

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Comment from chris janz is rich considering until recently they were one of those web publishers who weren’t audit compliant.

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can’t believe allure has the hide to come out as taking the high road on this considering what they’ve been up to traditionally when it comes to auto page refreshing. quite funny actually.

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any truth to the stories circulating that Allure and MCM have shed the majority of their ‘engagement’ numbers around time spent and page views? Anyone have the current Neilson numbers?

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@jim, Allure’s daily Page Impressions have been reduced by 23% and Average Session Duration has been corrected from 16 mins to 4 mins. No surprise at this, the effect of auto-refresh quadrupling session duration is consistent with this case study we recently published: http://bit.ly/5u0Gsg.

MCM have passed our audit without a reduction to their engagement figures. If anything, they are undercounting their engagement and we are working with them on their options to correct this.

To answer the question I keep getting, “How does an ABA audit differ to being listed in Nielsen?”:
Even when everyone is using the same (Nielsen) tags there is still a lot of variance in how publishers are deploying the tags and intepreting the rules. You would be surprised how differently publishers are measuring their Photo Galleries, Partner Sites, Video Clips, Audio, Digital Editions etc due to their different levels of understanding what is allowed.

Using tracking tags and being listed in Nielsen is just a first step. Being rules-compliant and earning the ABA green tick is the only way for you and your media-buyers to know your figures are truly accurate.

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Alexx, honest question.

You link to the case study, which includes at the end some points about global measurement rules. You list the IAB’s rules as including leeway for “only those pages in which user interaction occurs” to incorporate refreshed page impressions. Yet the ABA Digital Watchdog Committee’s rules contain no such allowance, and disqualify any and all refreshes from being measured, if I read the documentation correctly.

Why has the ABA DWC not included a provision in its rules to allow measurement of refreshed pages which do include user interaction? I can assure you that some rather large sites in Australia would benefit from such a relaxation without compromising the rest of the rules, as they do include high-interaction pages utilising auto-refresh, such as my own (FanFooty). In particular, it seems an injustice to me to have a blanket ban on AJAX-fueled pages not being able to use a reasonable auto-refresh to get value from advertising for pages that users will watch for hours at a time.

Thanks for all your hard work on this issue.

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Hi Paul, generally speaking, only user-initiated refreshes can be counted. So an AJAX refresh can be counted as a new page impression as long as the content on the page is substantially changing upon the user’s request.

But what you’re suggesting is right, there are exceptions to any rule and there is leeway built in for these grey areas. Where a case is borderline it goes to the DWC for a final ruling and then we will update the rules accordingly. Sports scores sites and stock sites may be able to argue an exception depending on exactly how this refresh is being executed and if it is impacting other site metrics.

Generally what we have been seeing though is sites trying to use A-F just to compete with other sites that have been doing it. This is not speculation on our part, they freely admit this is to intentionally compete with inflated figures. So keeping the rule (and message) fairly strict is to stop this specific practise.

Note: The DWC continues to review the rules each month to ensure they are sensible and relevant to current web technologies and user behaviour.

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Thanks for your response, Alexx.

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Can’t wait to read the spin

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One of the sites average session duration is down for April to just under 2 1/2 mins from just under 8 mins in January – fair drop you’d have to say. Page Impressions have dropped a load since the same period for the same site.

Another as a network is down from 15 mins to just under 4 for the same measurement comparing April and March. Page Impressions look to have taken a beating as well. This network had their whole business based on a fake premise of engagement so it’d be head scratching time in there.

Audits are great but gees they appear to disadvantage those who do them as they lose whatever fake premise they previously had fooled the market into believing – would any ad agency be prepared to cough up more CPM for an audited site versus one of their less transperent competitors?

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@Anon – The question is will marketers be willing to pay for transparency? It’s a bit like the Money or Box concept (figuratively speaking). Do they want the safety and transparency at an agreed rate, or a guess with massive upside and downside.

For some products/brands high numbers work in their favour, so non-audited will still be fine, whereas others will be happy to pay more and know exactly what they are getting.

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The really annoything thing about all this is that it requires the ABA to get involved – Nielson – as the defacto standard of measurement – should be more proactive. Instead, they’re building an “independent” ratings business which has zero checks or balances. But you have to pay to be in it, so that you can cheat.

It’s the Drugged Olympics, and Nielson are the IDOC

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