Publishers need competitive intelligence, local data
The advent both of performance models and of individual targeting makes third‐party audience metrics (at least as traditionally understood) somewhat less decisive for advertisers, and argues against the emergence of a single online currency on the order of Nielsen’s TV ratings. However, third‐party metrics remain relevant for both buyers and sellers of media online — especially for the publishers, who express a clear need for research to clarify their competitive position, make editorial decisions, and present a case to advertisers. “Data on the competitive landscape is missing, and itʹs important for both editorial development and for ad sales,” declares the Miami Herald’s Hirsch. The two syndicated research services, Nielsen and comScore, appear to be the best option for this sort of competitive intelligence, despite publishers’ many complaints about the panel‐based measures. This is in part because publishers are reluctant to advertise their server‐side data, or to trust claims made by their competition. As the New York Times Marc Frons puts it, “Sharing our data with competitors is not something we’re eager to do.” What newspaper publishers say they want, almost without exception, is more demographic granularity. The hybrid measures in development from Nielsen and comScore hold some promise in this regard. Publishers who have experimented with the hybrids report that thus far they have a limited (if useful) objective, to provide more accurate audience counts. However it seems clear that the measurement firms aim to marry demographic data more closely to specific newspaper sections. Hirsch argues that this sort of information would be enormously useful: “There are a lot of optional, high‐cost, high‐effort editorial projects a newspaper can choose to pursue. I wish I had the data to guide these editorial choices. Ironically itʹs still like being a traditional editor making calls based on your gut instinct — you have more data, but itʹs conflicting. Better data would make it easier not to resort to cheap tricks to spike traffic.” However, especially for regional newspapers such as the Herald and the Providence Journal, this section‐level demographic data has to be local to be really useful. The panel‐based measurement tools typically don’t have a large enough local sample outside of major metropolitan regions to be able to adequately report on traffic for local newspapers’ web site. It is partly for this reason that both newspapers and sites like Talking Points Memo rely heavily on registration data and reader surveys to understand their audience. The lack of local insight affects editorial decisions as well as a publisher’s appeal to local advertisers. “Our philosophy is we want to sell some national stuff,” Hirsch continues. “But the advertisers who are traditionally important to us, like department stores, upscale restaurants — if I can tell them in a compelling way what our audience looks like, thatʹs good. We need to show upscale professionals are our readers. We need to distinguish our audience.” Finally, today’s metrics landscape almost completely neglects the smaller, independent online news outlets so often credited with representing a crucial trajectory in the future of journalism. Even a major site like Talking Points Memo barely shows up in the comScore or Nielsen rankings; smaller, local journalism projects are off the radar completely. Based on a series of summits with independent media producers in seven cities, Tracy Van Slyke of the Chicago‐based Media Consortium asserts that these independent online journalists are very poorly served by available data sources. Most cannot afford comScore or Nielsen and are too small to be captured by panel methodology. As a report produced on the basis of the “Impact Summits” noted, Many summit attendees expressed frustration with the inconsistency of current social media analysis schemes. “Dashboards” — which combine and analyze a range of data points on one screen — are in wide use across the online media environment. For example, web traffic analysis tools such as Google Analytics or Mint allow webmasters to track the numbers of site visitors over time, page views, and time spent on a site. …However, many public interest media projects are not only too small to show up on these larger comparative services, but are increasingly using social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to distribute content, rather than centralizing their work on a single site. 18rely on Google Analytics to gauge their own traffic from month to month. However, even more than audience estimates these news outlets want to understand and assess their impact in the wider journalistic sphere, and use any available tools to track inbound links or references by more established news outlets.