AdNews and B&T invited to have websites audited
The publishing industry’s digital watchdog has invited trade titles such as AdNews and B&T to audit their traffic after Campaign Brief followed Mumbrella’s lead and signed up for verification by the Audit Bureaux of Australia.
The comments from Alexx Cass, who heads up ABA’s digital audits, came after a blog posting from digital agency Amnesia triggered an unprecedented torrent of transparency among the media and marketing industry’s trade titles.
Last week, Amnesia wrote about the online audience of the various magazines and websites.
As well as pointing out AdNews’ progress since it revamped its own site, Amnesia quoted Alexa statistics which put Mumbrella, which is the only ABA-audited, well ahead of other titles.
Following the posting, several of the sites released screenshots of their Google analytics – the first time this has been in the public domain.
Based on those Google analytics, the sites have the following number of monthly unique visitors:
- Mumbrella – 91,493
- B&T – 71,481
- Campaign Brief – 37,003
- AdNews – 25,694
And serve the following number of page views:
- Mumbrella – 412,346
- Campaign Brief – 260,319
- B&T – 235,378
- AdNews – 152,836
However, the unaudited Google analytics are not as robust as the ABA-supported Nielsen Intelligence data, which also splits out overseas and local traffic.
This morning, Campaign Brief owner Michael Lynch revealed in a comment on the posting that he has now signed up his site for audit.
And the ABA’s Cass wrote:
“Good to have Campaign Brief on board, so stay tuned for their audited data at the end of April. If the other publishers decided to be audited it would be easy for us to distribute a free monthly report to the market for just the Trade Press sites.
“That would remove any doubt about comparing AU vs International traffic figures as well as the other discrepancies you inevitably get from comparing non-standardised figures.”
In an earlier comment, Cass wrote: “It’s strange that these other sites decline to be audited.”
Marketing Magazine is another such website. The magazine’s Kate Kendall posted in the debate: “We’re not (Marketingmag.com.au) actually “declining” to be audited – it’s definitely something that we’d like to do. We tend to currently deal directly with our partners and clients who understand our “niche audience of marketers”, so they aren’t hounding us for impressions etc. at every turn.”
Mumbrella editor Tim Burrowes writes: Inevitably when we cover a story like this, no matter how hard we try our coverage is going to be in some way partisan, or at least open to that perception. So rather than try and persuade you otherwise, I’d urge you to read the conversation on Amnesia’s blog. The reason that ABA auditing is so important is that everyone can directly compare the same sort of figures on an even playing field.
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Tim, I feel your pain. We have the same issues in my market. Print magazines that decline to be audited. We even have one competitor who claims to have 3.5M “hits” to their website. I think a hit is a piece of a page or something. Anyhow that’s the metric they use. I check their visitors on Ad Planner, and that tells me they have about 20,000 uniques.
Audits are good for everyone. And ad agencies have to share some blame here. If you just refused to put clients money into media that is unaudited, the landscape would change dramatically. For the better. People who get an audit have nothing to hide. Those that don’t have clearly got something to hide.
It costs about $350 for an audit and takes a 1/2 day of work.
There is no excuse.
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Tim, I like the look of the Alexa charts when Digital Buzz is added in for comparison 😉 But back on topic, I think anyone selling ads directly B2B and not via an industry ad network (eg. sold on CPA or CPM) should be Audited for benchmarking, and more so when there is 4-5 competitive sites.
If for nothing else, out of good will for potential advertisers and transparancy for the industry itself.
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It’s good to see the trade paying attention to the topic of auditing … however the much bigger story is that 95% of the digital display advertising dollars in this country are poured into non audited sites and no one seems to want to do anything about it.
the silence from those who should be doing something is almost deafening.
Follow-up post, due to some questions I’m getting directly:
Google Analytics, while adequate for internal metrics, is not useful as a benchmarking tool because a publisher can implement the tracking tag in a variety of ways. I have seen some bizarre setups which have made sense internally, but when compared to standard practises drastically undercounts or overcounts what should be measured.
For example, counting content being i-framed by partner sites may make sense internally, but this is not compliant with the industry’s rules. External traffic can’t be included in market metrics for that brand.
So as an advertiser I would beware GA or any non-audited figures, since there’s no way in knowing exactly what it includes. An ABA audited figure with a green tick means that the site’s measurement is rules-compliant and they have not inflated their figures, either intentionally or unintentionally.
In our April Web Watch newsletter we will report on these types of issues we have found in the last 110 sites we have audited. You can subscribe here: http://bit.ly/bVQwKd.
btw, note that Carrob’s pricing is referring more to print audits.
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If you’re selling an ad unit surely your client are entitled to the truth.
If you have nothing to hide, then why not?
The same could be said of much of the other media metrics.
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@Alexx – Sorry. I was referring to pint audits there. But I assume your web audits are similar pricing? I would like to know how much they are, because the principles of Auditing are the same no matter which media.
As for the guys at Marketing magazine, they are being a bit disingenuous if they say that audits interfere with their “niche markets”. Since when has B2B been anything but niche? It’s such a cop out.
It’s the same old story. People running a commercial entity who are asking for advertising dollars have an obligation to the industry to get an audit. Publishers have to do it. Because, quite frankly agencys seem happy to spend money with unaudited publications/websites. It’s a shame but it’s been that way for years.
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“People running a commercial entity who are asking for advertising dollars have an obligation to the industry to get an audit.”
Agree, absolutely!
Not sure why it’s so hard for so many of the digital players to acknowledge this and then act on it.
AdNews have got a very weak case not to be audited.
For magazine of the year they only included magazines that had an audit.
They should hold themselves to the same standards.
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I find it ironic that there is auditing body that offers a seal of approval to nielsen audited numbers – aren’t they the independent industry auditors?
Having said that, agree 100% with Ben S’s view that the bigger game is media sites being audited – its crucial on soo many levels, with the end advertiser being most impacted!
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Totally agree Mo – Google Analytic numbers are so much more valid than Nielsen Net Ratings
They bought the system from Red Sheriff and it sucked before and it still lacks any kind of real rigor
Nielsen validate meta refreshing and allow advertisers to be duped
They also facilitate some very dodgy aggregates which at the end of the day mislead the advertiser – the only purpose being stroking brand egos
If Nielsen wants to be the defacto method for commercializing a site they should measure accordingly – I am all for the ABA’s efforts
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@ Mo? What do you mean by ‘I find it ironic that there is auditing body that offers a seal of approval to nielsen audited numbers – aren’t they the independent industry auditors?’?
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@ Real Yield – Google Analytics is not a benchmarking tool. There is no control on how they are used and no visibility on how the system works. How does that make them ‘more valid’?
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From my understanding the ABA doesn’t automatically offer a seal of approval to Nielsen output numbers … it’s more about practices etc (ie Auto Refresh) that are allowed and not allowed.
I’m all for what the ABA is doing but find it amusing that most of the debate around the issue surrounds trade publications with low amounts of traffic … whereas there are sites with 5/6/7m users (most of which who are part of publicly listed companies who are using less than transparent practices to boost their sales pillars of engagement and page impressions. Practices the advertisers that contribute to their revenues wouldn’t be that happy to hear about.
@Carrob, our web audit fees are monthly because the reporting process is monthly, different to print. The fee is between $95-$273 per month for small to medium sites, so quite affordable.
For the record, Nielsen is the measurement provider and the ABA is the industry auditor since we audit individual publisher’s practises and also the Nielsen platform itself.
We endorse the Nielsen MI rankings as the AU currency for census-based measurement but be aware that only the sites with the green tick have been audited, not only from the publisher side but we have checked that Nielsen are tracking the correct domains and have them listed in a way that’s compliant with Nielsen’s own branding and categorisation rules. The audit process will clean-up the types of issues that Real Yield flagged, greatly improving the crediblity of this platform.
The audit is definitely worthwhile because only a small proportion of Nielsen sites have passed the audit without some sort of notable issues being flagged and corrected. The larger the publisher, the more issues there tend to be, due to site complexity and outdated setups which noone has probably reviewed in detail for a long time.
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It’s important to re-iterate Alex Cass’s insight on Google analytics here. The initial article we posted used “Alexa” data which attracted some negative feedback. The point is that neither Alexa or Google Analytics are completely accurate sources of traffic data (which is why we referred to the article as traffic update rather than a report/analysis).
It may come as a surprise to some to hear Google Analytics is not the holy grail of traffic reporting but we have had plenty of issues with it over the years and can confirm what Alex says above. For those who need more on this there is plenty of information available on Google Analytics and associated issues eg:
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/21144.asp
In light of the ‘lack of transparency’ we’d fully support the use of an independent body for the purposes of monitoring traffic in this instance.
~ @eunmac
Amnesia Razorfish
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@eunmac – there is an independent body … the ABA … and they have a standard on what is and isn’t acceptable.
Given that, would you recommend to your clients at Amnesia that they only invest on sites that are audited and have the green tick?
@Ben S. You are 100% correct.
The people with the real power in this equation are the people with the ad dollars. As I said in my original comment. It is up to the advertising industry to lead the way. The publishers can push an industry, but the real power comes from the “pull” of the ad dollars.
Why don’t razorfish et al, just say. “In 6 Months we will not book advertising for our clients on websites that aren’t audited”. It changes the industry. Overnight. Because this has never happened on the print side of things I can’t see it happening on the web side of things. Agency’s love to howl about accountability but seem to do nothing meaningful about it themselves when the answer is staring them in the face.
If I were to whack on my tin foil hat I would start to wonder if there is some other mysterious reason as to why agency’s are so willing to spend advertising dollars on media that is not audited. Do they too have something to hide?
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@bens @carrob
It’s a fair point although I should probably point out that we are in a more fortunate position than some – we’re not flying completely blind when it comes to planning/buying digital media because of the ongoing tracking and reporting we get through Atlas etc. I guess you could say we have our own body of evidence we can pull on.
Although ABA audits would be great the reality is that it wouldn’t change our own day jobs here because we still have to optimise based on performance both in campaign and long term performance. A non performing site is just that, and would be weeded out of future plans regardless of advertised numbers.
However I must agree with you both that more needs to be done. I’m all too aware of the bigger issue surrounding site metrics which is why we would fully support any efforts to standardise measurement in the industry.
Iain
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The problem with google analytics is media companies can’t cook the figures for their own benefits.
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@eunmac … most agencies will have info from a DFP or Atlas etc … but that doesn’t cover similar areas to an audit.
DFP/Atlas can’t tell you whether your ad was served due to auto refresh. they can’t tell you whether your ad appeared on the screen. they can’t tell you how AR impacts page dwell and engagement.
definitely is better than flying blind but doesn’t change the fact that page impressions, time spent etc are being gamed by most of the industry.
No matter which solution is chosen for measurement it us sure to have technical limitations, and there will be some site owners that try to find ways to fudge the numbers or refuse to participate.
At the end of the day it is up to the publishers to make a commercial decision as to whether it makes sense for them to have their site(s) audited or not.
However at some point in time these same publishers/site owners will probably find themselves in a competitive pitch going head to head against their peers, and against “traditional” media.
So what does the agency media buyer do? Recommend the proposal supported by in house numbers, or those audited by a third party that is recognised by the industry?
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Disagree with Alexx re: “The fee is between $95-$273 per month for small to medium sites, so quite affordable.”
For a small website, $95, plus GST is near impossible to justify. Simple as that.
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Una – are you saying that a yearly cost of $1,140 is too much for a website that wants to generate advertising revenue?
Yes I am Ben. Small websites are highly unlikely to have agencies wanting to place ads on their sites in the first place and secondly, even if the agencies did, it’s unlikely the small website would recoup revenue to pay for the audit fees.
There is a difference between “a website that **wants** to generate advertising revenue” and the reality of actually generating said revenue.
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i’d imagine one would only audit their site if they had demand for ad revenue or wanted to generate demand.
$1k or thereabouts is a reasonable cost I’d say. Most media companies need to invest something to develop an ad product that suits the market – staff, sales resource, ad server, auditing, nielsen etc …
Iain, I personally don’t agree with the article you linked to. I think the author is at times outright wrong and other times oversimplifies what is actually a complex issue. His assertions that “bounces” are unimportant doesn’t factor in the fact different sites have different traffic mechanisms. If you are sending out periodic newsletters for instance and you have people clicking on those articles to read the story under his “rules” he’d count that as window shopping and unimportant whereas in fact you’ve just achieved your goal of bringing the user to your site for that story. Same goes for adwords etc.
Not to say measuring the length of a persons stay is not important and google analytics will do that as well but we are measuring different things for different reasons.
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I speak with long-tail, niche and independent web site owners every day – actually I am one 🙂 – and make them aware of the ABA’s audit service.
My experience is they have a genuine desire to present their sites and traffic accurately and ofcoarse get in front of potential buyers with usually very viable and compelling advertising options – they welcome the opportunity to be audited.
Just like any business, managing costs is their prime concern. This and the fact their market is not demanding audited figures, are reasons the ABA’s service is not an option for some.
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