Sound Alliance boss: Advertisers have woken up to audit
The battle for website traffic auditing has largely been won, one of the champions of audit transparency has suggested.
Neil Ackland, CEO of The Sound Alliance – publisher of music and culture sites including inthemix, Faster Louder and SameSame – made the comments in a video interview with Encore.
Ackland said that last year’s furore over auditing has forced many smaller players to prove their traffic claims or face losing advertisers because clients now understood the questions they need to ask.
The issue was a controversial one because while most advertisers understand the value of an audited circulation number when it comes to print titles, there was less unanimity in the online space. Many publishers had been relying on self reported numbers or internal Google Analytics although these numbers can include overseas or other questionable traffic.
Ackland said: “I think there was a good job done of publicising the issue and making our clients and advertisers aware of the importance of it. I think they all acknowledge that and were requesting it and I think that was one of the things that drove the change.”
Asked about the murkiness of music industry publishing, Ackland said: “You’ve got a lot of smaller businesses and that might not be a priority for them for whatever reason. I think as a result of that push, a lot of them came on board.”
This story first appeared in the weekly edition of Encore available for iPad and Android tablets. Visit encore.com.au for a preview of the app or click below to download.
Dumb question – is there anywhere to watch the video for people without an ipad/tablet?
Hi Ben,
Not just yet. In the week after publication we do gradually publish most of Encore’s content on Mumbrella too.
Cheers,
Tim