BPA's Interactive Audit Tool Surpasses 200-Website Mark

CLB Media is the latest publisher to utilize the tool.

By Chandra Johnson-Greene
Wednesday, January 6, 2010

BPA Worldwide announced this week that its interactive Web traffic tool, which was launched in September 2008 in partnership with Nielsen Online, has surpassed 200 Web sites that are making audited traffic data available to media buyers and advertisers.

The five newest “live” sites include CLB Media’s Electrical Business, Manufacturing Automation, PEM (Plant Engineering & Maintenance), Security Product & Technology News and Woodworking.

“More and more media owners are recognizing the importance of standardized and reliable measurement of audience reach within the interactive marketplace,” Glenn Hansen, BPA’s president/CEO, said in a statement. “We expect to see a continued ‘snowball effect’ with more and more participants as the number of ‘live’ sites continues to grows and demand from the marketplace increases.”

In addition to the 200 sites already providing live data to the marketplace, BPA reports another 290 sites are tagged and receiving Web traffic data in preparation for making their information publicly available. More than 380 media buyers and advertisers have registered to access the data.

Due to a recent rule change, BPA members will now report live traffic on their circulation statements. Members’ traffic data also appears in SRDS’s (Standard Rates & Data Service) online reports.

Analytics vs. Audited Numbers
Now is the perfect time for CLB Media to start using BPA’s Interactive Audit Tool, according Niel Hiscox, VP, publishing. “This industry is currently in a transition from print to digital,” he told AD. “And there are a host of challenges that go along with that, one being that we’re trading dollars for pennies. When we have advertisers migrating from one to the other, we have to quickly establish the credibility of our new products.”

Hiscox added that if accountability can be quickly established on the digital side, it will trickle over to the print side. “If we can demonstrate to a customer that we’re approaching high credibility and transparency on the digital side, they’re going to assume that we’re taking the same approach in print,” he said.

One aspect of BPA’s interactive audit tool that may be preventing some publishers from participating is the fact that the results are different—and sometimes lower—than those acquired by Omniture, WebTrends or Google Analytics—mainly because BPA’s tool doesn’t count internal Web traffic. This presents an awkward point of discussion for publishers and marketers, but one that behooves publishers to properly explain.

“There really isn’t a ton of awareness on the difference between analytics and audited numbers,” Hiscox said. “Companies like Omniture have done a good job of establishing in people’s minds that they are a third-party brand, but these are not third-party validated numbers. It’s important to make that distinction. If we don’t make it clear that it’s expected that the numbers will be different, yet they all have a place, marketers will begin to take a buyer-beware approach.”

Hiscox added that publishers need to realize that BPA’s tool wasn’t created to be a replacement for analytics software. “I think some publishers are looking at their investments in software like Omniture and are refusing to walk away,” he said. “But this is not a replacement for analytics software, it’s in addition to. In the same way that advertisers wouldn’t think of buying an ad in a non-audited print magazine, they shouldn’t only accept numbers from Omniture. Those numbers are no different than a sworn statement.”

Hiscox does point out, however, that analytics software has features that BPA’s tool doesn’t. “We get a far more detailed view of the data that WebTrends provides,” he said. “For example, it helps our editors see what portion of their content is working.”

CLB Media is also preparing to participate in BPA’s Brand Reach Audit, which breaks out and audits each media platform a brand occupies. “This is a tool where we’re going to start to be able to have a truly integrated sales conversation with our advertisers that is supported by an audit,” Hiscox said. “It will truly level the playing field for our sales staff, but I can’t start using it if I’m not using the [interactive audit] tool.”