Just read Rob Yoegel’s blog over on Publishing Executive, What Exactly is ‘Publisher’s Own Data?’ He brings up the never-ending specter of the inaccuracies and lack of transparency in web sites that report their own web metrics (uniques, visit, page views, etc.).  He reiterates all of the important points, but what I found most fascinating were the comments posted in response to Rob’s post. Nearly all of the comments focused on how publishers need to get more involved with web audits. Of course the comment thread was started by Peter Black, SVP of Business Development...

here are a myriad of sites and tools, both free and paid, that can help you track how well your Web site is performing versus your competitors. Here are a few of my favorite, free online competitive analysis tools. 1. Web Traffic Comparison—Compete.com We all know our own traffic numbers from our analytics system (and we at least hope that our IT staff set things up properly so that the data is accurate). But what we really want to know is how much traffic our competitors are generating and how we stack up against them. There are a host of free players in this space (Alexa, Quantcast,...

A good friend of mine just sent me a link to a very interesting article on iMedia Connection about Google Analytics. I agree with the author, Brandt Dainow, that the analytics companies are in big trouble with the launch of the new Google Analytics interface. Web analytics are becoming a commodity now. But I haven’t looked closely enough to know if there is still enough value in WebTrends, HBX, or Omniture to justify the expense of those systems. They have enough extras like conversion funnel analysis, dashboards, cross-property reporting, etc that it may still be worthwhile for larger or more...

I’ve been talking with several publishers who have asked what are the key metrics they should be using to measure their web site business? Obviously, the number one metrics is revenue per month, but here are the key metrics that I like to use when measuring the health and growth of a web publishing business. Unique visitors per month – Even with the problems counting unique visitors, this is still a useful metric to guage the overall reach of a site. Just remember that cookie deletion is on the rise and the number of unique visitors you report is likely quite inflated over the...

Metrics continue to be a real hot spot for publishers and marketers alike. It’s become so much of an issue that I am collaborating with a friend of mine to write a strategic report called “Online Metrics Demystified: What Marketers and Publishers Need to Know to Buy and Sell Online Media” … or something like that. Be on the lookout for it next month. In the meantime, I thought I’d share a conversation that I recently had with someone trying to make sense of email newsletter metrics. They asked me for the definition of several email-related metrics. Hope this helps! What...