Advertisers still don't know what surfers want

Resolving what to measure is as complex as deciding how to measure it. Some sites produce their own ratings based on internal server logs, on the theory that panel-based data understate traffic. But comScore says internal logs can overstate traffic when users delete identifying files called cookies from their browsers because servers think they're seeing a "unique visitor" each time that user arrives.

Counting unique visitors can also be challenging — and lose meaning — when an individual logs in to several different computers, or a family of six all use the same computer. "Page views," once a key indicator, haven't been since Ajax software let people view different elements on one page instead of going to a new page for each one.

From any vantage point, there's still no clear equivalent for reaching a potential audience of 18 million people around the country at the same time with a single ad on the TV show "Desperate Housewives."

"There aren't well-established, tried-and-true standards in the industry, which need to be worked through," said Jeff Marshall, senior vice president of digital marketing at Starcom USA, a major ad-buying agency. "The concerns are escalating as more and more of our clients are shifting significant amounts of money into the space."

Traditional measures may not even apply to the Web, some executives say, because the benefits the Web offers — most notably, the opportunity for users to click right through and buy the advertiser's product — aren't comparable to other media.

But Web publishers want to give advertisers some basis for comparison.

"Advertisers want to be able to understand that their online spend got this reach, and their offline spend got that reach," says Jim Spanfeller, president and CEO of Forbes.com.

Or, as Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, put it: "Marketers want to know, If I take $10 out of TV and put it into online, am I getting $10-plus back?"

Peter Daboll, a research guru at Yahoo Inc. who holds the title Chief of Insights, acknowledges that it's still a "challenge" to work through the various kinds of online data.

"We're not dealing with a perfect science here," said Daboll, formerly chief executive of comScore. "What we're trying to do with our advertisers is take some of the mystery out of this."

Indeed, advertisers are demanding just that.

Bob Liodice, CEO of the Association of National Advertisers, said corporate leaders have been ratcheting up the pressure on marketing departments to justify their ad budgets with hard proof they are generating business.

In response, TV broadcasters this fall started counting how many people watch commercials during a show. Radio ratings company Arbitron Inc. is rolling out a new electronic measurement system that uses a portable device to capture what stations people actually hear, instead of what they recall hearing. The system is running in Philadelphia and Houston, with nine more markets to be added in September.

And the outdoor advertising business will replace estimates of vehicle and pedestrian traffic in front of billboards with a measure that takes into account how visible a certain billboard is. The new measure will also include estimates of demographic data, something other media already provide.

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