Riding the Storm
Impressions Vs. Reality
Recently we had an animated brainstorming/feedback session with one of our customers. After a discussion on features (they are on their way!), the conversation turned to a talk about “Impressions VS. Reality” We thought we should share.
Here is the general issue: Traditional media concentrates on impressions, defined as how many eyeballs might have actually seen a specific piece of content (an ad, banner...you get the idea).
Impressions are ok if they are the only thing you’ve got. But many times, users don’t notice content on a webpage, or content gets loaded outside the users view, and these things still count as impressions.
Without an alternative, impressions are the best you can do...but is a very inaccurate best when your business objective is to understand (and capitalize on) engagement. In the widget “industry” today, the focus has been on meeting the status quo: impressions are what people understand...and so that’s what vendors delivered.
We’re taking a different track, and this customer noticed. Viewing MuseStorm’s Total Analytics for the first time, the customer realized that they could gain much deeper insight into user engagement and commitment; insight they could use to better value their content and success. We identified several analyses that, taken alone, just look like stats. But when interpreted from a business perspective, provided a new dimension of user commitment and business value:
- Widget Impressions. Yes. Still need them. But now they actually indicate how many times the content has actually been loaded, not seen. Maybe we should change their name to “deliveries”
- Widget Interactivity. This goes beyond click-through. Widget Interactivity can show how devoted the user is to content. Certain of interactivity flows are especially interesting. For example: For those users that stop a video, do they restart it and watch it completely? Similarly, when audio or video are muted, is it unmuted? Was the video watched more than once by the same user? These behaviors are a clearer measure of how interested the user is in the content.
- Widget Stickiness. Stale or uninteresting widgets get dumped pretty quickly. Widget stickiness measures how long widgets live on web pages. Understanding when a widget is removed or becomes inactive can act as an alarm to bolster content and maintain widget freshness.
- Widget Revenue. How much revenue (ad, sales) can be directly attributed to the widget.
The MuseStorm platform provides a wealth of analytics data on both engagement and distribution. It is the only service that actually provides real engagement metrics (not just clicks) and we constantly work to add more insights and views. Check it out by signing up here.
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