intelligent measurement

Measuring Online Behavior

August 3, 2006 at 8:00 pm 2 comments

A lot has already been written about how we can measure online behavior through looking at indicators from web site statistics or “web metrics”. As part of PR measurement, web metrics can provide an interesting complement to other measures being taken. For example, in campaigning, online behaviour such as signing a petition, referring a page to a friend or uploading a message of support can be measures of behavior change and supplement “offline” measures. In advertising, the use of web metrics is making advertising more “measurable” and impacting the business model in general. This article in The Economist sums up well this change.

I found this explanation from a Google representative quoted in the article of interest:

Old way of “offline” advertising:
“Advertisers are always trying to block the stream of information to the user in order to blast their message to him.”

New way of “online” advertising:
“On the internet, by contrast, advertisers have no choice but to go with the user, the information coming back from the users is more important than the messages going out.The interactive nature of the Internet makes this possible; the medium more measurable and a two-way symmetrical approach to communications feasible.

Glenn

Entry filed under: General, Social media monitoring, Web metrics.