Questions about eMarketer's research methodologies

From: Tim Lee <TLee_at_webcmo.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 06:22:51 -0500 (CDT)

With so many research firms devoted to the E-commerce events
and so many poor but resistant online projections, we do
need someone to help sort these mutually (or even self)
contradictory forecasting results. I believe eMarketer does
a good job about this summarization.

However I am afraid I cannot agree with some statements made
by Mr. Ramsey about why his methodology is superior. The
following quotes are from Clickz and emarketer.com web
site.)

>>"There's no such thing as a objective researcher," Ramsey
said. "It's common for research companies to sell the
reports to the same people they relied on for research."

"Always ask, 'Could there be another agenda in skewing
results a particular way? Could the money behind the
research have a vested interest?'" Ramsey said.<<

We did see some companies or organizations paid for expected
research results and some research firms deliberately meet
their clients' "needs". One example is that a report
concludes that online banner can increase brand loyalty
while in fact it can't. However, Mr. Ramsey's statement is
too absolute. I am not sure if he excluded eMarketer as an
objective researcher and if eMarketer sells the reports to
the same people he relies on for research.

>>Ramsey pulled no punches, and he was refreshingly blunt
with his criticism of stats that rely on user surveys. Any
figure that's derived from questioning people is inherently
flawed, he said. And you have to wonder about those people
who answer the surveys to begin with: "Who are those people?
I mean, who has the time?" he asked.

So why don't the numbers spewed out by ZD Market
Intelligence, NetRatings, Jupiter and Forrester agree? Four
reasons:

There's lots of guesswork involved. Those surveyed
exaggerate, embellish, and outright lie. Researchers use
different definitions, giving an apples-to-oranges
comparison. Researchers use different methodologies<<

This is the first time I see someone claiming that all
survey data are invalid. I don't worry about myself because
even without any stats I still can make a good living as a
web marketing consultant. But I worry about many of my
fellow marketing researchers who don't know much about web
marketing issues.

I am very curious about eMarketer's analysis. With my
limited statistic knowledge, I could not figure out how
eMarketer does its analyses. The common sense is: garbage in
and garbage out. If emarketer uses reports from so called
invalid survey data, how could it get valid analyses?


>>The eStats research team gathers research studies, surveys
and reports from hundreds of published, publicly available
sources from around the world; we then filter, organize and
synthesize the information so it can be entered into our
eStatNet ModelTM, a proprietary statistical model of the
entire web.<<

Could Mr Ramsey or someone else from eMarketer explain how
this trademarked eStatNet Model works? This must be the best
way to prove the superiority of their analytical
methodology.

I believe many readers on this great list are willing to buy
eMarketer's new ad reports. And they are equally willing to
know how eMarketer conducts its analysis.

Best,

Tim Lee
Editor -- Journal of Web Marketing Research
http://www.WebCMO.com
Innovations in web marketing research & strategies
Participate in "Email Marketing Strategy" survey to receive your FREE report
http://www.webcmo.com/mis/survey.htm


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Received on Wed Apr 28 1999 - 07:03:42 CDT