Re: real numbers & advertising revenue

Sean Pfister (seanp_at_cnet.com)
Tue, 10 Sep 1996 10:15:09 -0800

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<hwolhandler_at_activmedia.com writes:

> Every six months for the past 1=BD years, ActivMedia performs a random
>sample study
> of commerce on the net and asks Web marketers about the information you
> seek. And we agree that WebTrack's method is a little off base.

It might be helpful if you discussed ActivMedia's methodology in more
detail. As you point out, this infomation is available on your Web site,
but readers of this list might be interested in knowing that the ActivMedia
study is a sample of Yahoo sites, not the Web, and that the study achieved
only a 16% response rate. With a low response rate, it might be helpful to
explore non-respondent bias in further research.

(It's reasonable to ask, for example, if survey respondents were comprised
only of the most interested "marketing decision makers" at the sample
sites: that is, those at sites that make money or sell advertising are the
ones most likely to respond, perhaps skewing the results in their favor.)

>Based on this analysis, the market is far more diffuse than WebTrack
> presents. ..<snip>... WebTrack estimates
> added to our own, since none of the top 10 appear in our random sample.

I don't think it's advisable to add WebTrack's numbers to yours, since, as
you correctly point out, the methods used for collecting the data are
completely different. ActivMedia claims to sample a known population while
WebTrack claims to conduct a census, I believe. The two are quite different.

It also makes one question the representativeness of your random sample, if
it didn't include any of the largest revenue generating sites (assuming
that WebTrack's top 10 are in some way related to the "real" top 10, of
course.)

I don't mean these as harsh criticisms. Nor are they unique to
ActivMedia--It's notoriously difficult to research any new medium, and
methodological difficulties and differences are to be expected.

sean pfister
director, research and analysis
CNET: The Computer Network
seanp_at_cnet.com
415-395-7805 x 1529
Fax: 415.395.9205

http://www.cnet.com
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http://www.sharewaret.com

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