Online audience study… gemiusAudience… comprehensive measurement… socio-demographical data and preferences of the internet users… media planning tool… – surely most of measuretheweb.com readers are acquainted with these concepts to some extent. But just as many scientists would like to witness the Big Bang, the origin of the universe, many of those interested in the online reality would like to gain more information on how a comprehensive internet audience measurement is introduced on a given market. Is it a painless process? Or, as with all great undertakings, several problems are obviously encountered at the beginning? And, most of all, why is it worth to decide on an introduction of a common measurement currency? These notions can be readily elaborated upon basing on the experience from the Israeli market where the first gemiusAudience study results have recently been published.
First of all, a picture of the Israeli online measurement reality needs to be painted for the reader. One of the methods of measurement employed hitherto on this market was TIM study conducted by TNS-Teleseker – a declarative survey of respondents, with all of its obvious flaws. Not to be unsubstantiated, several drawbacks of the study itself need to be pointed out: mainly the fact that it is a survey basing on the respondents’ declarations. Survey participants are asked about their surfing habits at selected sites and the fact that they can meet their hearts’ content – not necessarily as they actually surfed – impairs credibility. On the other hand, different tools such as adservers or web analytics tools, do not provide sufficiently comprehensive information used in the stand-alone version and produce findings only to the publishers themselves, and therefore are not subject to comparison. The Web, with its all complexity and thousand of sites, applications and traditional as well as mobile surfing habits, should be studied from both perspectives simultaneously, through the hybrid measurement. User-centric approach, met in the need for the survey shall be enriched with the hard-data about the internet surfing. The latter, addressed often as the site-centric approach, has its source in the web analytics systems.
The proper online measurement results need to be available to all of the market players, without any exceptions, publishers, agencies as well as advertisers. What is the influence of introduction of such a project as the common currency on the market? It certainly provides advertisers with better tools to understand the potential of online advertising. Using different metrics – such as for example gender, age and income – advertisers can better optimize campaigns and publishers can more effectively sell their advertising inventory. Introducing the gemiusAudience study entailed the usage of the “Real User” concept, an indicator of the number of real people (not web browsers and cookies) that in fact are the audience that either the content of a site or an advertising message is being conveyed to. Quoting Maciej Mikołajczak, Business Development Director at Gemius: Upon the introduction of the study all websites should bear in mind that in the long run no other way than the transparent measurement of real people surfing the web is possible, if you want to supersede the television on the advertising market. A standard is crucial as all players are looking for a currency that will allow the internet to deal with other media on the advertising budgets. This is the only way to improve the situation of the internet when it comes to buying advertising media and the only way to transmit information about the users’ socio – demographic background. It needs to be remembered that if you are not talking about real people, you cannot provide such information. (…) Such data are extremely valuable because these are the target groups for advertisers and advertising agencies. This is the only way you can convince them to transfer from traditional media advertising budgets to the internet.
OK, so what the measurement employed really consist in? In fact, its methodology comprises four stages: the first is the abovementioned site-centric study, by the means of which the activity on the participating sites is measured through a special script installed on (and by) the sites themselves. The second, user-centric stage consists in the employment of panels that study the user’s activity through cookies or special software installed on the user’s computers (after their approval) – thus they provide socio – demographical web surfing habits. The third stage is an offline structural study, which ensures that the online sample is demographically representative for the whole population of internet users. Therefore, the researched audience has to be consistent with the structural data describing the population’s size and the distribution of demographic variables for the local internet users only. In Israel the structural study is conducted by means of telephone questionnaires, carried out by Market Watch (a research company, co-operating with Gemius on the Israeli market, owned by Avinoam Brog company) on a representative sample. The fourth stage is the integration of all the above-mentioned data.
Figure 1. gemiusAudience study methodology, Source: Gemius, 2011
So what did the first results of comprehensive Israeli online audience study say? To name just a few interesting results, the data indicated that the population of web users in the country amounts to 4.9 million. This number is nearly equally distributed between the genders (with a slight advantage of men). It has also been proved that largest age groups on the Israeli web are 7-16 years (23% share of the whole audience) and 32-36 years (10%). The study also proved that male users spend on average 3 hours more online per month than women. The internet penetration rate on the market is relatively high, amounting to 70%, so this may suggest that all target groups preferred by advertisers have online presence.
Figure 2. Internet penetration in the given countries
Source: Demark: Gemius, gemiusAudience, October 2011; Ukraine: gemiusAudience; Hungary: gemius/Ipsos Fusion Data; Czech Republic: NetMonitor – SPIR – Mediaresearch & Gemius; Slovakia: AIMmonitor – AIM – Mediaresearch & Gemius; Bulgaria: gemiusAudience (data collected using Synovate research); Poland: Megapanel PBI/Gemius; Turkey: Ipsos KMG; Russia: Gemius estimation based on FOM statistics/gemiusFusion Data; Croatia: Gemius/Valicon; Belarus: gemiusAudience; Bosnia: gemiusAudience; Israel: Gemius/Market Watch, gemiusAudience, September 2011 [age groups – Poland, Denmark, Israel: 7+; Czech Rep.: 10+; Croatia, Turkey: 12+; Hungary: 15+; Ukraine: 16+ Russia: 18+; ; Slovakia: 14-79;Bosnia: 15-65; Bulgaria: 15-69; Belarus: 15-74]
Maciej comments the importance of delivering such data to the Israeli market by comparing it to the Danish one: If you wish to know how does measurement really affect online advertising, just look at Danish internet market which, at some point, was very much similar to the Israeli one. Five years ago, the internet advertising market share there was about 12% -13%. Today, Denmark is one of the countries where the online decidedly surpasses TV, with 26% -27% share of local advertising. (…) Of course, I do not dare to say that all this happened only because of the common measurement, but as I’ve mentioned before, when you have a normal measurement system, it makes all online industry more reliable. Moreover in the times of economic downturn, internet often becomes the preferred advertising channel: Economical crisis affecting countries, the economies and people is a danger for the internet but also a great opportunity. At a time of recession everyone needs to understand the benefits stemming from each expense. Today, the only media that gives a clear answer is the internet. The ability to plan media with the knowledge of the relevant target groups’ habits, the ability to examine the effectiveness of an advertising campaign along with the implications following its conclusions – all this makes the internet the most appropriate media for hard times.
Figure 3. Online as share of total ad spends
Source: ZenithOptimedia Group, AEF July 2011/ Gemius
Last but not least, introduction of a common currency plays also a unifying role for the market: Competitors on a daily basis begin to go hand in hand to achieve an equal vision and understanding of the market in which they operate. Through delivering the most reliable information to advertising companies and advertisers who then are able to optimize budgets, gives the market an open road to a rapid development and a significant increase in its potential. That is why increasingly more and more markets move to a uniform system.
Never has online reality been so diversified and multidimensional. Still, for every, even the most complex, or otherwise, the least developed market, a clear path of understanding and usage may be found. So – why rely on matches in a dark labyrinth when a modern flashlight can be used instead? Why resort to imperfect solutions when a reliable and independent study may be used? The answer is up to you, Dear Reader. 
Post based on an interview with Maciej Mikołajczak, Business Development Director at Gemius, published on Globes.co.il on 6.12.2011
