Re: Defining metrics

From: Dan Belhumeur <eyemedia_at_home.com>
Date: Wed 21 Jun 2000 23:30:09 -0500

STEFANY WILSON <stefany.wilson_at_ketchum.com> WROTE:
> I work in the digital media group of a large, top 3 PR
> Agency. I have 3 questions on online advertising...
> 1. Is there some sort of general ratio of unique
> visitors to a site to impressions of a page?
> 2. Generally, are unique visitors to a site counted on
> a page by page basis, or simply hitting the site once?
> For example, would a research firm call me a unique
> visitor 3 times if I go to 3 pages I've never visited
> before?
> 3. Is CPM the same as cost per impression or cost per
> unique visitor in standard CPM pricing scales?
> 4. Is there a stat on buys per number of click aways
> if I link to another site and receive commissions from
> the other site if someone purchases something there?

Stefany,

Many agencies are confused by site metric parameters. And
rightly so as so many web sites that are selling advertising
space don't understand metrics themselves. A unique visitor
is counted once during a period of time (usually a month)
and is independent of the number of pages that they visit.
This is done mostly by the site dropping an expiring cookie.
Like it sounds, this cookie will expire off the visitors pc
after some determined time (usually 30 days). This means
that if I visit a site every 30 days, I am counted as one
unique visitor every time.

Unique to Page View Ratio...I have seen these ratios vary
widely. That I know of, there are no industry standards for
these ratios. As you might expect, content rich sites or
sites that have clever reasons to step through pages will
yield higher ratios.

CPM is simply a cost per 1000 impressions served. These
impressions could all be served to one person or to 500.
Having said that, some agencies are asking for a limit to
the frequency of impressions to each unique visitor. The
serving software that a site uses may also have some control
of frequency at least for each user session.

I'm not sure I understand your last question and my
experience is mainly in ad sales and not the conversion or e
commerce area. If you are asking what the standard ratio of
click throughs to sales, that may be the biggest question in
the internet industry today.

Best Regards,

Dan Belhumeur

VP Sales/Business Development
Seniors.com
dan_at_seniors.com
401-225-6095
www.seniors.com
"Grown Ups on the Web"




Received on Wed Jun 21 2000 - 23:30:09 CDT