Monthly Archives: June 2013

The Dark Side of Pageviews and Their Bridesmaids

By Mark Hanzlik, Executive Director

If you missed Sam Slaughter’s frank look the almighty pageview in his Digiday post earlier this week, give it a quick review.  It’s a short but awfully clear-headed view of the state of the brand advertising in the current digital environment.   He calls pageviews’ bridesmaids (metrics impressions and click-through rates) or more likely co-dependents in the practice of measuring traffic.

“Chasing pageviews is almost universal in the digital media world, and it leads to an almost universally crappy user experience,” Slaughter summarizes in his post.    He admits, pageviews work for direct-marketing advertising but when it comes to brand awareness and sales, it’s a miserable experience for those on all sides.

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“Great brand advertising doesn’t just reach people, it influences them,” an often quoted mantra in agency shops from Manhattan to Los Angeles sounds like a Don Draper line though maybe not as sexy or introspective.   This points toward a need to influence and/or engage the consumer in a more meaningful way which clearly cannot happen in a direct-marketing driven scenario.

But there is some good news.   Some brands are waking up, starting to drift away from standard banner ads and moving toward the Holy Grail of online ad space, quality original content.   It will take a lot more advertising decision-makers’ embracing this kind of thinking before we’ll really see the almighty pageview and the rest of its’ wedding party retreat from view.

Madison Ranks at Top of AltMedia Websites Nationwide

Media Audit’s newly released analysis of the top AltMedia websites in the U.S. was led by Isthmus in Madison, WI.    According to the study, 15.2% of Madison adults visited thedailypage.com within the last 30 days.   The top three sites, Isthmus, C-Ville Weekly and Austin Chronicle have been perennial leaders in this research of online viewers.   Also included in the top five were Springfield’s Illinois Times, and another Charlotte site, The Hook.

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For a more in-depth look at the results from Media Audit, visit their website and June 2013 fyi newsletter.

The new annual study which combined research from viewers gathered between 2011-2012 in 80 markets was recently released by The Media Audit. Results for this ranking are based on Adults 18+ in each respective local market study.