The New York Times had a pretty good article yesterday about Web metrics, ComScore, Nielsen NetRatings, and the whole site traffic measurement thing. It’s always struck me as ironic that this online world of ostensibly precise measurement is anything but; the Style.com example in the article’s lead shows differences in traffic measures by a factor of four.

At some point, I hope surveys and extrapolation are supplanted by actual hands-on audits of the traffic logs of major sites by a reliable third-party traffic measurement service. Sure, it would be pretty labor-intensive, but we’re talking about an industry that measures its size in billions, not millions, with hefty double-digit annual growth. Seems to me like it would be a worthy investment for all, not least of whom would include the third-party service.

Takeaway for marketers: The online world is a realm of precise, undeniably perfect measurement? Bwahahahahaaaa!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 at 6:00 am and is filed under Internet Stuff, Marketing Stuff, Marketing Takeaways.