by the AFCP Technology Committee
In keeping with our committee's mission to help our publishers harness
the full potential of emerging technologies, the first "Digital Bytes"
feature of the New Year asks, "What's in Your CVC Audit Report?" Here's a
hint: If it's not the full range of Digital Data now measured under
newly expanded "Paragraph Six," you are missing tremendous
opportunities.
Adding to the established anchor analytics on general website activity
and companion digital editions of publications, our audit reports now
offer verified reporting for mobile-text marketing, social media, and
email databases. The industry should welcome and embrace the new
reporting opportunities, says tech entrepreneur, Joe Nicastro:
"Websites, digital editions and social media statistics have become so
vital to our industry. In the past we simply relied on our publication
audits. Although those audits are a very important part of our industry,
online statistics are becoming just as important if not more
important."
"The reason being," Nicastro asserts, "is that advertisers hear more and
more about online marketing, they know about companies like Facebook
and Twitter as well as Google. They hear all the time they need to have
an online presence to increase their business. Your online numbers
become very important and can play a large role in increasing your print
revenue. If your traffic to your website, digital editions and other
types of online media are growing it can show your advertisers as well
as potential advertisers that your publications understand the need for
traditional print but also understand online advertising and how it can
help their businesses."
For publishers who have long embraced the existing digital reporting,
the new opportunities offered under CVC's Paragraph Six are most
welcome. However, not everyone is onboard with the "legacy metrics"
according to CVC VP and digital lead, Jim Kennedy. "Currently 59% are
reporting general website activity (6A)," he says, noting however that
the industry still has room to grow from the "14% who present data for
both web activity and digital editions." He is hopeful, as is the AFCP
Digital Committee, the current industry reporting baseline will serve as
a "springboard, as publications not only offer the banner ads, but
begin to incorporate the other, expanded Paragraph 6 platforms into
their programs for advertising opportunities."
Our industry has plenty of examples of success leveraging website
analytics and digital metrics, and Delta Publications has done so for
years. As an early adopter, Joe Mathes is excited about the expanded
reporting and the opportunities it offers to enhance the conversations
with prospective advertisers. "Today it's imperative to include digital
information along with your CVC audit. Advertisers are hungry for
digital data," he notes from experience, adding that, "in some cases
more so than your circulation numbers. It doesn't matter if your numbers
aren't great. To some advertisers, 1,000 unique visitors are more
desirable than 10,000 copies in print."
"Reporting your text message advertising statistics is key to lending
credibility to your product and will help lay the ground work for the
future success of your text ad sales," adds Ken Ubert, President and
Publisher of Hometown Publications - Express News. "We recently landed a
large grocery store chain for Text It Advertising, our newspaper's
retail mobile division, in large part due to being able to back-up our
personal stats with third-party audit reporting. It is great that CVC
will now be offering this to publishers, which is something the 'big
guys' want to see."
The message from the trenches is simple, befitting a New Year's
Resolution: "Include all your digital numbers, and you make your company
as attractive as possible!" These sentiments are echoed by another tech
entrepreneur and friend of the industry, Justin Gerena, who proclaims:
"We're living in a media buyer's fantasy right now -- never before have
they been able to make decision based on cold hard facts about exposure,
reach, and results." His conclusion, that we should all want to do our
easy homework here, notes that "CVC can't make it any easier to report
digital circulation data. It's a no-brainer to report on digital reach,
especially when you have vendors who can do it for you. No excuses when
data is so readily available."
