Advertisers call for web ratings fix

28Feb08

Funding such a system is understood to be a key agenda item at the
Interactive Advertising Bureau board meeting, which includes all the
leading publishers, due to take place today.

Industry sources estimated the $370 million general internet
advertising sector risked losing tens of millions of dollars from its
failure to resolve the issue.

That would affect the display ad revenues of internet publishers such as Ninemsn, News Digital Media, Fairfax and Yahoo7.

General internet ad growth slowed to 21 per cent last year from 56
per cent the previous year. Total internet ad spending rose 34 per cent
last year.

Media agencies and publishers told Media new advertisers such as
packaged goods brands were being dissuaded from trying online
advertising by the industry’s failure to agree on simple data, such as
the number of individual people a website can reach.

Instead, three industry systems compete with proprietary publisher-level data for market currency.

"In my experience we’ve seen advertisers turned away because they’re
just so overwhelmed (by the competing data)," Media-edge:cia
interaction director Tim Cooper said.

Fairfax Digital chief Jack Matthews said the industry needed to
build its credibility with advertisers. "We’ve had feedback suggesting
one of the impediments to getting more high-quality brand advertising
online is the ambiguity or inconsistency among some of the audience
metrics," he said.

Steps the IAB took last year towards establishing ground rules for a new system have ground to a halt.

Media agencies were unhappy with the IAB’s announcement in November
that it favoured a panel methodology, where the habits of a group of
internet users are amplified to represent the broader online population
rather than relying on data collected by tagging sites.

The IAB also said it would begin an accreditation process totighten existing measurement systems.

But the agencies want a hybrid system that will take site-centric
data and use it to calibrate panel data to make it more accurate.

Meanwhile, Stuart Pike, who chaired the IAB’s audience measurement
committee and was to have managed the accreditation process, has
resigned.

He will be replaced by Ann Morrison, a media consultant and former media director of advertising agency Euro RSCG Partnership.

IAB spokeswoman Patty Keegan – whose position is funded by the
publishers to the tune of only two days a week – said the industry was
taking "baby steps" towards a single measurement system.

"That’s what we’re working towards," Ms Keegan said. "No one else in the world has figured this out."

But agencies were unimpressed the accreditation system would still result in several sets of competing numbers.

As well as Nielsen’s NetRatings data, which tags sites to collect
data on actual users, the company operates the NetView panel of 4000
users. Other competitors include Hitwise and research from publishers
such as Yahoo7 and Google.

While NetRatings tends to double-count at-home and at-work users, as
well as those who have deleted their cookies (data used to track their
online movements), it does track actual users. But it cannot provide
demographic data.

Media agencies are working with Nielsen to develop a hybrid system called Data Integration.

Nielsen acting managing director Mark Ottaway said the system would be a world-first.

A source said the size of the 4000-strong Nielsen NetView panel on
which it would be based may need to be doubled to provide more accurate
data and capture traffic to niche websites, an expensive exercise.

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