Online publishers in South Africa took a giant leap last week with the announcement of an Internet measuring system that will sort out, once and for all, who’s reading what.
The beauty of the system, which will be used to find out how many people are surfing local sites, is that it is almost completely accurate.
Websites can now offer advertising agencies an accurate assessment of their audience as well as information like what magazines they read and how much they earn.
The preliminary figures on the measuring system indicate that between the 15 publishers represented on the system, there are 2 636 325 readers and 64 358 531 pages read over a full month.
This figure is likely to rise as the system becomes entrenched among the present publishers and as new publishers join.
So, how does it work? Members of the South African Online Publishers’ Association (OPA), which includes the Mail & Guardian Online, News24, ITWeb, iafrica.com and Independent Online, have placed a code on their sites that will gather information about surfing habits on a voluntary basis.
Martin Filz, the vice-president of business development at Nielsen //Net Ratings (formerly Redsheriff), said that in the past, professional media planners tended not to trust statistics, because there were often wild discrepancies.
Nielsen//Net Ratings, together with the OPA, said Filz, were creating a single “currency”, which will allow a true comparison to be made between sites.
He said that in New Zealand, which has a similar number of Internet users to South Africa, some sites had increased their advertising revenues by about 30% after the measuring system was introduced and advertisers found the market they were looking for.