Media Buyers Definitions of Visitors

They may be using a different set of numbers than the webmaster

[cyril kearney]

This subject comes up again and again when I speak to media buyers. They say that webmasters often miscount their visitors. After speaking with them, the problem seems to be that there is no clear definition of terms. From a media buyers perspective here is their definitions.

If a site says it gets a million visitors a month. The media buyer expects that to mean a million unduplicated people visited a site.

If a site says it gets 50 thousand visitors a day. The media buyer expects that to mean 50,000 unduplicated people visited a site.

However the sum of the all the daily visits for a month is NOT the same as the first definition. 50,000 times 30 would be a million and a half while the first definiton would yield a million.

Why is this important? Well the media buyer is the one controlling the purse strings so if you give unreliable statistics you might not be able to sell you advertising space.

Within your site you may be measuring visitors differently. Some sites count sessions to determine visitors. If a session times out but the person returns within the hour, the visitor is not counted again. That's reasonable.

Others count visitors that return hours later as a new visit. Logically this may be right but for advertising purposes this is not generally acceptable.

Any reporting system you use should be able to collect data to fulfill all these requirements.

Does anyone disagree with these definitions?

[Brett_Tabke]

Good run down.

The big thing I watch for is just to make sure that my definition a potential advertisers definition match.

[Tor]

Does anyone disagree with these definitions?

I completely agree with you. However, we have never had any arguments with our clients over this issue. The clue is to have waterproof contracts with our clients where theese things are clearly defined in advance.

[jm_uk]

Some sites choose to be audited by a body such as ABC Electronic to get an independant third party verification of the traffic volumes they claim (mainly unique users, visits and page views).

Take a look at this site to get a feel for what ABCE in the UK (and other all around the world) do in terms of auditing:

[ifabc.org...]

Site traffic numbers that are audited by an independant third party will give media buyers comfort in that:

1. The site has proven to generate a certain volume of traffic.
2. This traffic has been measured in a standard way that can be compared to other sites that have been measured by this same body.

Certainly in the UK ABCE seems to be the standard that people trust.