NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> cache counting standards
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> cache counting standards
Matthew Donald (mdonald_at_sofresimr.com)
Wed, 17 Jun 1998 21:06:49 +1000
Bob Stewart <rstewart_at_vmirror.com> wrote:
> How exactly does your system do this if not with cookies? I can
> understand (in general) how it avoids caching, but how do you know
> that the request for ad "A" came from the same person as the request
> for ad "B" if it isn't through a cookie?
WebMeasure and AdMeasure track visitors (the audience) through
fingerprints. The fingerprint is a hash of a number of attributes such
as IP address at the browser, IP address when received by the
mini-server, java vendor, operating system, browser type and so on.
This is also used to track click-throughs. If a given user sees an ad
and then immediately sees the click-target, obviously they have clicked
on the ad.
Bob Stewart <rstewart_at_vmirror.com> wrote:
> Does your system actually know if the ad was within the viewable page?
> Say a user goes to a page with the ad at the top, scrolls down the
> page to a point where the ad is no longer viewable, follows a link,
> uses the back button and returns to where he left off on the original
> page (so the ad is still not in view) and scrolls further down and
> follows another link. Would your system record that as a view?
AdMeasure counts an ad view whenever an ad is rendered by the browser.
It doesn't care whether the user scrolled it off the screen. We thought
this issue through quite a bit while working on the design of
AdMeasure.
Banner ads are invariably placed at the top of the page (possibly the
bottom as well, but I've never found an example where they were not
placed at the top). Also, frequently, ads are displayed in a separate
frame so that its in view all the time. All browsers show a new page,
positioned at the top. Unless the user has the browser window size
adjusted to be smaller than an ad, then they must have seen the ad. The
other major reason was to keep the metrics simple.
So, if the browser displays the page once, only one view of the ad is
counted, no matter how many times they scroll the page.
Bob Stewart <rstewart_at_vmirror.com> wrote:
> You may be right that it's fair to count these back button viewings
> if the ad was in fact viewed.) But I think advertisers might want to
> have these counts differentiated.
This issue is a little complicated. For page view measurement, the back
button viewing should always be counted. WebMeasure counts all page
views and its policy is unlikely to change.
Ad measurement may, however, be a different case. Currently, AdMeasure
counts all viewings, but also gives view durations. If advertisers want
short views discounted then we'll be able to do it. If, in the future,
the market standard becomes to pay by duration then AdMeasure can do
that as well. The current market standard is to use views and
click-throughs so thats what AdMeasure handles today. Maybe tomorrow
advertisers will demand better and broader stats ;-).
Bob Stewart <rstewart_at_vmirror.com> wrote:
> Most of our ads are on forum pages listing a number of messages. In
> this case, users are definitely going back to the page repeatedly.
> With your system ad views would probably show a 200-300% increase,
> before we even factor in caching. It would be tough to make a case
> that all these viewings are of equal value.
Sure. But what if you had graph showing the distribution of view
durations? That way you have both the true number of viewings and an
explanation of the quality of viewings. AdMeasure is designed to give
the absolutely most accurate measurements it can.
I can see your concern that billings would increase sharply. That would
be true if you simply had the number of viewings, but the worst way to
deal with this is to use bad viewing measurements. With the duration
info, however, it would be simple to negotiate a more equitable deal.
In pratice I doubt that it would be even that complicated. I expect
most AdMeasure customers to be web site publishers. Probably, the
publisher would address the short duration issue up front in the initial
agreement.
Theres another dimension to the increased counts AdMeasure shows.
Advertising rates for the web are pretty high compared to other media.
I suspect that web advertising is absorbing all the money available. If
the number of views increase, probably the cost per CPM will decrease.
At least, that's my guess.
By the way, I don't expect views to increase by 300% - 60%-80% is
probably a better typical average increase. The major effect of this
increase will be to enlarge the available inventory for publishers,
especially for premium web sites (such as Yahoo) which always sell out.
Also, publishers will use the visit stats to try and increase the
average number of pages (and thus inventory) for each visitor.
The internet advertising industry is still immature. Arrangements
between advertisers and publishers will change over time as both parties
have independent, accurate stats on the ads. AdMeasure provides
information which both parties have either not had before (such as
demographics of the viewers sampled at the same time as the ads were
viewed, or duration of the view) or had in an inaccurate form (viewings
and click, both of which are badly affected by caching). All of this
information is delivered in real-time. This sort of information will
make it easier for advertisers to accurately target their spend, which
will have to have a big effect on the publishers. AdMeasure (or other
similar products :-( ) will change the this industry.
cheers Matthew
--
____________________________________________________________________
Matthew Donald Ph +61 3 9864 0706
Technical Director mdonald_at_sofresimr.com
IMR Worldwide http://www.sofresimr.com
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