Yahoo Answers recently asked people if they believed in Bigfoot. Bigfoot’s a hairy hulk that, legend says, wanders across mountains in the U.S. and Canada.
Most said Bigfoot exists.
This wasn’t a statistically significant survey. Only 19 people responded, and some answers were clearly put-ons. (One person “believes” because the Easter Bunny told her so.) But, it shows that while no one’s proved that Bigfoot is real, lots of people believe it.
So why is it so hard to believe that we can measure communication? We’ve got a lot more proof than a few grainy pictures and a patch of fur.
A couple years ago I surveyed communicators about measurement. Barely half said they did any measurement. Only 3 in 10 tried to link communication to business results.
Some might say we don’t measure because we focus on great tactics, not great results. I don’t buy that. I think we just need to figure how to measure. We don’t produce widgets. We manage stakeholder relationships. How do you measure something intangible?
It’s not impossible. Companies have measured intangibles for ages. Marketing departments measure brand value, sales departments measure customer loyalty and HR departments measure employee loyalty. A strong brand translates into more sales, bigger market share, and the ability to charge more than the competition. Loyal customers are repeat buyers, so companies spend less time and money for each sale. Loyal employees stay put, which means lower recruiting and training costs.
We need to think about how communication adds value. For starters, it raises awareness, and influence attitudes and behaviors. These are all things we can measure. We can also measure how communication-driven behavior changes affect bottom-line indicators like productivity, employee retention, quality and safety.
Here’s some fuel to get you thinking.
- In 1986, David Pincus found that an employee’s job satisfaction was directly related to how the employee felt about supervisor communication and the company’s communication climate.
- The 2005/2006 Watson Wyatt Communication ROI Study found that effective communication is a leading indicator of an organization’s financial performance. Companies with effective communication have higher shareholder returns, lower turnover rates and higher levels of employee engagement.
- Angela Jeffrey at VMS found that a company’s “share of discussion” is directly related to business success. The more good things that people say about your company in the media, compared to your competitors, the more your sales will increase.
Let’s get this discussion going. Are communication metrics as elusive as Bigfoot? What are your thoughts, experiences, hopes or fears? Do you have any advice or best practices to share? I look forward to hearing from you soon.
If employees are so connected, why is it so hard to communicate with them?
Over the years, I’ve developed a strategy tool that I call measurement-based planning. It may sound counterintuitive to start your plan at the end, but starting with defining what you ultimately want to measure—and how you will measure it—creates a more focused and concrete communication plan, with more quantifiable results.This is a twist on the traditional planning process that focuses on goals and objectives. Yes, the things you ultimately want to measure are the objectives. However, analyzing those objectives through a measurement lens from the outset forces you to think much more concretely.
For instance, one of the responsibilities in your job description may be to manage employee communication and to educate and motivate the company’s workforce. Instead of plunking down “educate and motivate employees” as an objective, start by asking yourself, “How would I know if employees were educated and motivated? How would I measure that?”
Consider three types of outcome measures, which social media measurement expert Kami Huyse has summed up neatly as the three As: awareness, attitude and action. In other words, what will your audience know, what will they believe, and what will they do?
When Should We Measure Communications?
Annual in depth surveys. Engagement and satisfaction surveys are typically carried out annually and can carry additional questions to provide some insights into the effectiveness of communications.
Prior to a specific communications campaign. In order to best understand the impact of communications, it is necessary to measure (awareness, attitudes, knowledge etc) before a campaign.
After a significant communication or campaign. It is important to measure the effectiveness and impact of significant communications programs and initiatives. This allows you to tailor internal communications to make sure they are effective and delivering quantifiable business value.
At intervals to track attitudes. Regular measurement helps communicators to gauge the ever shifting feelings and attitudes within an organization and to tailor messages to make sure they are appropriate to their audiences.
Pulse checks and temperature checks during and after specific events provide an insight into the issues and challenges an organization faces and to gather feedback on specific issues.
At intervals to benchmark and track against KPI’s. Measuring regularly against benchmarks and tracking trends over time provide an early warning of issues that may go undetected until they have escalated further.
What to Measure?
Determining which aspects of communication to measure will depend on the organization’s specific business and communication objectives. A few examples of useful communications measurements include:
A client recently asked me if I had a tool that would help her track and collect measurement data during the course of a project. “Have you got a tool for that?”
It made me realize that when it comes to measurement we really harp on the planning skills. Which is crucial. But the collection, tracking, analysis and reporting are equally important. How many of us have planned our measurement, but never carried through?
So, here are some tips that will get your measurement skills up to speed across the entire measurement lifeline.
- Planning
- Target metrics that connect to business goals and prove communication success
- Find out what the organization is already collecting
- Determine the frequency of collection, approach of collection (e.g., survey, interview, electronic) and owner for each metric
- Collection and tracking
- Identify due dates for all the collection activity
- Determine all the collection logistics in advance so you don’t miss anything
- Automate what you can (e.g., invitations, reminders, electronic data reports)
- For longer-term efforts with multiple measurement points, document key data points and findings as they come in
- Analysis
- Identify the three most relevant findings
- Identify the most surprising finding
- Identify the findings that require additional follow up
- Categorize, count and analyze open-ended comments
- Consider the benefits of cross-tabulating some of your quantitative data
- Assess what worked well in the data collection process and what did not
- Reporting
- Understand the expectations and interests of the stakeholders to whom you are reporting
- Break out recommendations by short-term and long-term timing
- Identify those findings that best connect to goals
- Be realistic about how much you can present in the given time
- Determine which visuals and which words will be most useful to incorporate
- Identify the final call to action
- Anticipate questions and prepare a response
If you approach items two through four with the same diligence communicators typically approach item one, you’ll be more apt to follow through. And follow through means having more and better data, and more and better data means proving our value.
Proving our value through great measurement is one ingredient in the recipe for becoming a trusted advisor. Thinking strategically throughout the measurement lifeline is another. And, yes, we have tools for every step of the way.
Stacy Wilson, ABC, is president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., in Lakewood, Colorado
Unless you’ve been holed up in a cave for the past few years, you’ve probably had some kind of brush with a quirky company called Zappos. You may be one of the millions of fanatically loyal customers who buy shoes from them over and over again. Or you may be a salivating investor who’s watched the company skyrocket from zero to over $1 billion in sales in less than 10 years. Or you may be like me – one of the lucky few who’ve had the rare opportunity to visit the corporate headquarters in Las Vegas and witness their wacky and wildly successful culture.
Why this Whimsical Workplace Works
Before I even entered the building, several “Zapponians” greeted our group of visitors outside with the kind of upbeat playfulness you’d only expect at someplace like Disneyland. (BTW, I’ve been to Disneyland, and they could learn a thing or two from Zappos).
You Can’t Fake Culture
It’s easy and appealing to subscribe to that kind of philosophy – and lots of organizations claim to live by it. But for most, it’s a shallow charade that shows up like a short-term promotional event. At Zappos, it’s the true essence and heartbeat of everything they do – and it’s captured wonderfully in the company’s annual “Culture Book.” It’s their traditional collection of stories gathered each year from employees, customers and vendors about their experiences with the company. In the 300-page 2010 edition, Hsieh makes a point that illustrates the emphasis they place on culture as a conscious business strategy. The company is very clear about its brand, and as Hseih puts it, “The brand is simply a lagging indicator of the culture.”
Les Landes, Landes & Associates
Buy Les’s webinar replay: Getting to the Heart of Employee Engagement
Measuring the value of communication has always been important. Today, it’s become something of an obsession, and it’s easy to understand why. But instead of focusing on measuring the value of communications, communicators should concentrate on communicating about measures that people value. Here’s an example of how a St. Louis-based winner of the Baldrige National Quality Award, Wainwright Industries, applied that principle.
Making data meaningful with “Mission Control.”
When they set their sites on the award, they knew they would have to collect a lot of data – and figure out how to share it throughout the organization. The solution was inspired by NASA. The Wainwright team decided to post the data in a single room organized around priorities that came from input provided by employees. They called the room “Mission Control,” and it was designed to let all employees know how various aspects of the company’s performance are tracking at all times. Using color coded flags, the display provides instant awareness of emerging problem areas. What’s more, it activates a pre-set course of action if performance indicators fall below established benchmarks.
While it’s essentially a communication system, not many professional communicators would typically see it as part of their domain. Therein lies the proverbial rub – and the opportunity to be more relevant.
Measuring what matters to people.
When communicators measure their success in terms of functional indicators like media impressions, newsletter satisfaction ratings and similar measures, they’re not connecting with most employees who don’t care much about those measures. Ultimately, the most vital function of organizational communications is to facilitate the exchange of data, information, and knowledge that support employees in doing their everyday jobs. That’s what most people care about – and that’s where communicators should focus much of their measurement efforts.
The first step is to ensure you’re focusing on relevant indicators. Examples might be safety, employee learning and development, results of continuous improvement efforts, quality of products and services, defect and rework rates, results of employee opinion surveys, customer satisfaction, sales and margins, progress reports on employee profit-sharing and the like.
Sharing information so people see why it matters.
But all that data is useless without an effective system for sharing it. In short, measurement needs to be supported with a communication system that spans the entire organization. Communicators shouldn’t try to do it alone, though. They should work closely with other key functions – human resources, organizational development, finance, quality, information technology, sales, marketing, customer service, etc.
The roles played by the people in this measurement and communication “orchestra” vary depending on numerous factors. Someone, though, has to take the lead and serve as the “conductor” who keeps the group operating in unison. That role is ideally suited for communicators who can see their way out of their traditional boxes.
Regardless of who plays what role, several important elements have to be built into the design of an effective measurement and communication system:
- Leading and lagging indicators
- Frequent and timely
- Simple
- Visual
- Relevant
- Quantitative
- Benchmarked
- Action-based
Click here for a brief description of each of those elements.
It’s a big role to take on, but it’s worth it. Beyond the merits of the system itself, communicators stand to be recognized more for the value of their work – and appreciated more for their contributions to the performance of the organization.
Les Landes, Landes & Associates
Buy Les’s webinar replay: Getting to the Heart of Employee Engagement
I want to share another insight from my late friend and mentor, David Berlo. He always emphasized the distinction between results and performance. Results are the outcomes you produce, and performance is how you get there, he said. From there, he asserted that being singularly results-driven in what you measure and reward eventually leads to the deterioration of both performance AND results. Here’s why.
Outcomes vs. Inputs
First, we all know that people tend to repeat behaviors that are reinforced in some meaningful way. Likewise, people tend NOT to repeat behaviors for which they receive negative response. Next, it’s important to realize that no one has direct control over outcomes (results) – unless the game is fixed or there’s an unfair advantage. People can only control inputs (performance).
Now, if bad performance always led to bad results, and good performance always led to good results, it wouldn’t matter which one you rewarded – results or performance. But that’s not always how things work out. Sometimes you don’t get good results even when you give your best effort – other variables can come into play. Other times, just the opposite is true. You can give a marginal effort and come out smelling like a rose.
That’s not how things usually happen, but look at what you get when they do. If you fail to reward people for good performance because they had bad results, you discourage them from repeating the good behavior. If you reward them for good results in spite of poor performance, you reinforce poor performance in the future. The cumulative effect over time is inevitable. Every time you focus on results in a way that either reinforces poor performance or discourages good performance, you also take a step backwards with long-term results.
Performance is the bottom line.
Of course, you have to add up the numbers on the bottom line eventually. But even if winning in the world of business means producing results, lasting success still requires focusing on the drivers of those results, and rewarding effective execution – regardless of the outcomes in the short run. Berlo summed it up this way: “Winning is the name of the game, but performance is the bottom line.” Clearly, if effective execution isn’t producing the desired long-term results, you need to figure out where the disconnect is. But it serves no purpose to penalize people for poor outcomes if they’re doing the right things in the right way. If that happens, you need to fix the systems, not the people.
So what does that mean for us in the people professions? For HR people, it’s pretty obvious. Some compensation and bonus programs are notorious for focusing solely on immediate, bottom line results without regard to how they’re produced – often leading to short-term “success” with negative long-term consequences. Those programs have to encourage performance that looks at the long haul. For communications people, we need to look at where the bulk of the ongoing organizational dialogue is focused. Are we communicating effectively about the “steps to success” – or is everything employees read and hear about focused on the end game? If it’s results we’re after, we’d better be talking a lot more about what it takes to produce them – because in the end, it’s how you get there that counts.
Les Landes, Landes & Associates
Buy Les’s webinar replay: Getting to the Heart of Employee Engagement
Assessing the state of communication at your company means gathering SWOT data vital to improving communication. An overall communications assessment should be conducted, at minimum, on an annual basis. Smaller or shorter communication assessments, often referred to as pulse checks, may occur for specific projects or topics on an as needed basis.
Whether you are conducting an annual overall communications assessment or a pulse check, you are also increasing the visibility of- or internally marketing the internal communications function.
Assessment activities include:
1. Review (structure, roles/responsibilities)
2. Audit (engagement survey data, messages, channels)
3. Observation (meetings, events, water cooler talk)
4. Interviews (leadership and non-leadership)
5. Focus Groups (functional, mgmt and non-mgmt)
6. Surveys
7. Research (benchmarking, industry data)
So, when is the last time you conducted an assessment? Get in the game and benefit by:
1. Developing a broader network and elevating the importance of the function.
2. Gaining an understanding of the communication history and of the current environment or situation.
3. Comparing your organization to others.
4. Being able to conduct a gap analysis.
5. Identifying improvements and/or areas where you are falling below standards.
Julie Baron, COMMUNICATION WORKS
Attend Julie’s webinar replay: How to Conduct a Complete Communications Assessment
Maybe all the talk about the need for more measurement and research in PR and corporate communication is having a measureable effect. The most comprehensive research study of the field to date, the Generally Accepted Practices (GAP) study, suggests that more communicators are getting involved in the research and measurement of programs, which is taking on a more prominent role in the communication process.
Conducted by the Strategic Communication and Public Relations Center at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, in cooperation with IABC and other industry partners, the study found budgets allocated by corporate PR departments to measurement and evaluation have more than doubled, from 4 percent of total budget reported in 2009 (and in prior years’ GAP studies) to 9 percent in 2011. GAP VII surveyed 620 senior communicators in the United States.
As reported in the September-October 2012 IABC Communication World, the cause of this increase is unclear. It could be an indication that communication is being viewed as more strategic than in years past, and therefore programs are being evaluated on actual results. Or it could reflect the increased availability and use of digital measurement tools and services, which have become more widely adopted over the past two to three years.
One head of communication measurement and evaluation of a Fortune 500 company speculated the steep increase may have also occurred for a very different reason. Maybe the budget boosts are needed simply because there is currently no single method or tool that fully meets the requirements of communicators. This causes communication departments to invest in multiple measurement tools and processes
For a unique opportunity to dig much deeper into the art and science of communication measurement? Plan now to join two of North America’s premier experts, Angela Sinickas, author of How to Measure Your Communication Programs, and Claire Watson, ABC, APR and a master communication strategist for the Communitelligence webinar,Internal communications measurement: taking it to the next level.
Communication Measurement-ROI: A survey of research, best practices and ideas
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Four Steps to Demonstrating Communication ROI . CW World On-Line. by Jim Shaffer, IABC Fellow. I’ve never met a senior business leader who didn’t want to …
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Angela Sinickas video on communication’s ROI
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Communication ROI: how do organizations measure communication against corporate objectives? – Entrepreneur.comThe tracking and measurement of any marketing program has always been difficult, time-consuming and limited at best. Metrics can be even more elusive for marketing communication, and, in many cases, measurement methods are even inadequate or misleading.
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A Business Case for Internal Communication
Tourism Ireland is currently ranked the third largest national tourist board on Facebook, with approximately 700,000 fans across 20 markets in eight languages. In the absence of an accepted industry standard to assess the value of this beyond simply counting fan numbers, we developed the concept of Social Equivalent Advertising Value (SEAV).
Just as the PR sector has traditionally measured its impact by the cost of buying advertising to cover the equivalent column inches, so a similar approach can be applied to social media. The more a brand message is shared, the more “column inches” are gained and the value of this can be compared to the cost of equivalent online advertising.
We identified four levels of consumer engagement with brands in social media:
- Post Impressions: viewing a brand post.
- Page Impressions: viewing a brand owner’s social platform.
- Personal Actions: consuming brand content such as photos, videos or links.
- Public Actions: sharing brand content with their network.
We then categorized the actions that consumers can take across the major social platforms into each of these groupings, and attributed a financial value to the cost of delivering a comparable consumer engagement online. This allowed us to quantify the value of our social engagement in Facebook at the end of last year at an annualized level of €1.7 million.
The era of Big Data has arrived, and social media big data will be a huge trend this year. This means public relations professionals have to step it up to keep up.
The monitoring tools we currently use are crude at best and provide only a glimpse into the mirror. There are mountains of data and we don’t really have the skills to see what they all mean and really connect the dots.
Up until now, we have used free tools such as Google alerts to monitor mentions or paid tools such as Radian6, Lithium, Custom Scoop, Cision and many others that give us ideas about what is being said and by whom.
If we are really sophisticated, we will use sentiment scoring, influence measurement tools, or text analytics which allow us to mine more information.
5 Essential Skills to Master Big Data
There is a whole new skill set we have to master to understand and be ready for the insights and opportunities Big Data brings to public relations.
Following are five essential skills to master Big Data you can undertake right away.
- Become an analyst. Don’t be intimidated by data and analytics. Use your brain and look for the ways in which different insights might help you to make better business decisions.
- Learn Excel. One of the best gifts you can give yourself is to take an advanced Excel course to learn how to manipulate data in spreadsheets. We need to move beyond the basics. Take a course locally, or the one linked to above. It is the still that will pay back in spades.
- Collect Data. Consider collecting your own data to supplement what you get from any tools you use. With services such as 80legs and Gnip, you can also gather your own data and analyze it. You can even pull an RSS feed or feeds into a Google Doc and go from there. The key is, don’t be intimidated.
If employees are so connected, why is it so hard to communicate with them?
Over the years, I’ve developed a strategy tool that I call measurement-based planning. It may sound counterintuitive to start your plan at the end, but starting with defining what you ultimately want to measure—and how you will measure it—creates a more focused and concrete communication plan, with more quantifiable results.This is a twist on the traditional planning process that focuses on goals and objectives. Yes, the things you ultimately want to measure are the objectives. However, analyzing those objectives through a measurement lens from the outset forces you to think much more concretely.
For instance, one of the responsibilities in your job description may be to manage employee communication and to educate and motivate the company’s workforce. Instead of plunking down “educate and motivate employees” as an objective, start by asking yourself, “How would I know if employees were educated and motivated? How would I measure that?”
Consider three types of outcome measures, which social media measurement expert Kami Huyse has summed up neatly as the three As: awareness, attitude and action. In other words, what will your audience know, what will they believe, and what will they do?
For more wisdom on measurement, see
Common Sense Communication Measurement .Purchase
Led by Kami Watson Huyse, APR, and Alice Brink, ABC, APR.
We still need those web metrics mentioned and others to continue optimizing our websites, call-to-action processes and to monitor conversion rates etc. But more useful is to identify and define your main focus social media metrics. Then define related Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to monitor your progress over time, AND then do mashup of both web analytical data and social media data. Combining data results from search referrals, website and social media all together gives you REAL insights.
Why is it so hard to identify and define metrics for social media marketing? I think it is because many organizations do not have a written social media strategy, and lack defining their social media goals and objectives. Goals and objectives always come first, and then you define your social media KPIs to monitor status and progress for your objectives. You should both identify and define quantitative metrics, and maybe more important; qualitative metrics. Choice of these “social” metrics depends of your social media objectives.
The easy metrics to identify are quantitative ones:
When Should We Measure Communications?
Annual in depth surveys. Engagement and satisfaction surveys are typically carried out annually and can carry additional questions to provide some insights into the effectiveness of communications.
Prior to a specific communications campaign. In order to best understand the impact of communications, it is necessary to measure (awareness, attitudes, knowledge etc) before a campaign.
After a significant communication or campaign. It is important to measure the effectiveness and impact of significant communications programs and initiatives. This allows you to tailor internal communications to make sure they are effective and delivering quantifiable business value.
At intervals to track attitudes. Regular measurement helps communicators to gauge the ever shifting feelings and attitudes within an organization and to tailor messages to make sure they are appropriate to their audiences.
Pulse checks and temperature checks during and after specific events provide an insight into the issues and challenges an organization faces and to gather feedback on specific issues.
At intervals to benchmark and track against KPI’s. Measuring regularly against benchmarks and tracking trends over time provide an early warning of issues that may go undetected until they have escalated further.
What to Measure?
Determining which aspects of communication to measure will depend on the organization’s specific business and communication objectives. A few examples of useful communications measurements include:
How’s that social media working out for you? All that conversation actually getting you anywhere? It’s time to step up and measure your program. (Click here for a sample social media measurement report with the kind of stats you could — and should — be producing.)
Yep, it’s a big job, but it just got a lot easier. KDPaine’s New Social Media Measurement Checklist leads you through the process, step by step. You still have to do the work, but it’s a whole lot easier with a road map to show you the way.
The Checklist lays it all out for you — just about every decision you need to make and every thing you need to do. You can use it to plan your measurement program, and use it to keep track of your progress. Heck, you can rewrite it with your own name at the top and use it to impress your boss.
Creating a communications measurement plan that demonstrates substance and results doesn’t have to be an arduous process. Follow this guide and you can have a plan in place today.
There was a time—not too long ago—that PR initiatives were measured largely by newspaper clippings.
PR agencies would concoct ratios of readers per clip, claiming that two-and-half or so people read the story. In reality, it was all just a guess. It was an expensive and highly misleading approach to whether a communications plan worked or failed.
Times have changed, and in today’s digital era, we have many accurate and effective ways to measure whether our communications work is making progress or needs a course correction.
By examining and balancing many data points, we can clearly see how things are going. But a measurement matrix, as I call it, starts in the initial planning stages.
What to do
Any communications or PR program must have identified objectives. Those goals are intended to favorably impact a company in order to justify the expenditure of funds and resources. So, draw up a grid.
When you hear any of the following terms or words, make sure you ask the person using them what he or she means by them. And if their definition does not match the one below, be very, very careful who you are dealing with, and what you are buying.
1. ROI
ROI is an acronym that stands for Return On Investment, an accounting term for a specific calculation of financial results. The formula for calculating ROI is:
?
ROI = (Gain from Investment – Cost of Investment) / Cost of InvestmentThat’s it. There is no other definition, despite the many uninformed people who use ROI as if it means “results.” So unless you can calculate net gain, you can’t measure ROI. Many people seem to think that ROI and measurement are the same thing. They are not.
2. Measurement
Measurement is collecting data that will help you make informed decisions about your performance. Good measurement should tell you what is working and not working in your programs. Measurement is often mistakenly used to justify someone’s job or program or budget; it should not used to justify anything.
3. Impressions
Impressions are the circulation figures of a magazine or newspaper. Impressions, reach, and opportunities to see are often used interchangeably. But they really aren’t. And they are numbers, not measures of success. Frequently, when people say that we need a standard measure for PR, they refer to a Nielsen Number. That “number” was in fact a rating that measured the potential reach of a television broadcast. It was invented to provide a broadcast version of impressions. Today, people want a Nielsen Number for social media, which is very difficult to come up with, because about 85% of all social conversations take place in private places such as email or private Facebook pages, or off-line all together.
4. Social Media: Earned vs. Owned
Most people want to measure social media, but they blur the lines between earned and owned social media. Conversations that you start on your Facebook page or YouTube channel are owned social media, and it is relatively easy to measure their success via Facebook Insights or Google Analytics. Earned social media is made up of all those things you can’t control. Like all the Tweets, blog posts, and other activity that is swirling about in the cyberverse that may mention you, but in ways that you may or may not find desirable. Remember, there is a reason they call it earned.
The metric you choose communicates to your organization what’s important to you (the POWERFUL person). It communicates to them how their personal success will be measured. That translates directly into what they prioritize when it comes to your digital initiatives.
Choose the right metric and they’ll create the most glorious digital experience in the universe, the perfect acquisition campaign, the most amazing customer service channel. And they will shock you with the profits they deliver.
Choose the wrong one and they’ll create self-serving, sub optimal, non-competitive, tear-inducing outcomes that will, slowly over time, bleed the business to death.
It really is that stark. Simply because it all comes down to the incentives you create.
Don’t believe me?
Let’s look at six corrosive metrics and their angelic twins, which illustrate this challenge – and magnificent opportunity – quite vividly.
1. Page Views vs. Visitor Loyalty
Is there anything easier than measuring Page Views? This metric has been in every tool since we started torturing web server logs to measure hits (!).
What does Page Views measure? It kinda sorta measures consumption. It is hard to know if a lot of Page Views per visit is a good thing (“The visitor loved our site so much that they read 23 pages of content!”) or a bad thing (“Our site is so horrible that it took 23 pages for the visitor to find what they were looking for”) or a horrible thing (“After 23 page hunt the visitor gave up, cursed us, abandoned the site, and went on to tweet to 23,000 followers that we stink”).
When you look at 23 Page Views, how do you know which of the above three was the outcome?
But it gets worse.
Most content sites are currently monetized using display advertising, most commonly on a Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM) basis. When you are paid on a CPM basis the incentive is to figure out how to show the most possible ads on every page (“mo ads mo impressions!”) and…. ensure the visitor sees the most possible pages on the site (“mo ads mo impressions mo page views mo money!”).
That incentive removes a focus from the important entity, your customer, and places it on the secondary entity, your advertiser.
It does not take a degree in rocket science to see what happens next. The web is littered with examples of this awfulness.