http://newsnumbers.com Using web analytics to build news audiences Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:25:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://newsnumbers.com/2010/03/17/an-ounce-of-prevention/#comment-11 Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:25:23 +0000 http://danachinn.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/an-ounce-of-prevention/#comment-11 I think visits per user is a really good metric. Should be out the box in Google and Omniture. I’m going to start including it in my reports.
I agree that CPM is vague and often misused. By default I think of it as cost per thousand impressions, but you’re right it’s not specific! And since one page can deliver multiple impressions depending on how many ads you fit, it can get REALLY misleading.
Re: all site should be niche…yes I agree to a point, but sites will do what makes most business sense. Huffington Post, for example, has expanded its niche beyond liberal media into areas like entertainment and education. For many advertisers, those high monthly uniques are all that matters and sites are responding to this. In 5 years, things will probably look a lot different.

]]> http://newsnumbers.com/2010/03/17/an-ounce-of-prevention/#comment-10 Wed, 14 Apr 2010 08:52:29 +0000 http://danachinn.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/an-ounce-of-prevention/#comment-10 Good point…page views per visit alone isn’t my fav metric because most content-based sites have poor navigation, so a large number of page views per visit often means people couldn’t find what they were looking for. However, Prevention is looking at other engagement metrics as well, like visits per user. It’s the combo of various metrics that point to the assessment that engagement at Prevention.com is up.
Whenever I hear “CPM” I always want to ask “cost per thousand of WHAT?” I’m not a fan of cost per thousand page views. That’s just falling into the easy but useless total number of page views trap. Same thing for cost per thousand unique visitors, monthly or otherwise. CPM is great for mass media vehicles but it’s not as useful for niche online sites – and shouldn’t all sites be niche media?

]]> http://newsnumbers.com/2010/03/17/an-ounce-of-prevention/#comment-9 Wed, 14 Apr 2010 02:48:22 +0000 http://danachinn.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/an-ounce-of-prevention/#comment-9 I wonder if the engagement jump had anything to do with additional slideshows? I’ve seen a specific case where an ad network asked to be excluded from slideshows on a site. I think there is a place for slideshows, but the CPM model is not particularly well suited to them.
Your website and resources are great. Thank you,
Carson

]]> http://newsnumbers.com/2010/02/10/always-a-bridesmaid-never-a-bride/#comment-12 Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:26:46 +0000 http://danachinn.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/always-a-bridesmaid-never-a-bride/#comment-12 best information…

]]> http://newsnumbers.com/2009/09/10/email-benchmarks-soft-vs-hard-bounce-rate/#comment-13 Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:52:14 +0000 http://danachinn.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/email-benchmarks-soft-vs-hard-bounce-rate/#comment-13 Here are a few actual email marketing benchmarks to throw into the mix: http://emailcritic.com/2009/09/29/how-does-your-email-marketing-program-stack-up/

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