Download Measurement Guidelines
Comment Page
The purpose of the Download Measurement Guidelines are to establish baseline recommendations for how individual publishers, companies and organizations can measure how downloads are delivered to consumer audiences.
Draft posted for discussion April 16, 2008. PDF Download
Please help enhance and refine the Download Measurement Guidelines with your feedback and contributions here. The open comment period will conclude May 16, 2008.
Looks great. I think yet another good step forward. If third party tracking is used can the IP address be translated into ‘unique user verified’ and general location ad to provide a level of confidentiality. I think that this a great step forward, but end user must be kept in mind.
Maybe I’m missing something here, but the document seems to say a whole lot of nothing. More of a “here is data that should be available” yet falls short of recommending a standard.
Hey Ed,
It seems you have an alternative in mind for what “recommending a standard” involves that would be helpful to the committee. Please send it in. I’m sure we’d all benefit.
[…] * Advertisement Unit Standards Comment Page * Download Measurement Guidelines Comment Page […]
Great start to a valuable document for all podcasters. I see an opportunity for someone like Raw Voice or Feedburner to become the official stats aggregator that is recognised and approved by the media agencies and bodies.
Tracking “click to plays” for example direct from a website is also different versus number of subscribers and should be considered.
Karl,
I guess I was expecting a whole lot more. I understand the need for open-ended solutions, but the only “recommendation” even offered in the document is “it is strongly recommended to include the IP Address in analysis.” I was hoping to see more “the ADM recommends that measurement of complete downloads to be the default standard for total audience” or something along those lines. This document does nothing of the sort.
There had been talk about interaction as a way to add some level of measurable engagement. While likely harder to quantify and not always applicable for some types of content, I think at least note about engagement needs to be included. It’s those types of things that set new media apart from traditional channels. If we default to usual internet standards for the measurement of “new” media, what sets us apart? How does a potential sponsor or the like quantify that difference?
additional thoughts…
Why does the ADM putting all this effort “To provide leadership in and organization of advertising and audience measurement standards” if we’re simply going to use those standards that have been in place for years in regular internet analytics? I’m sure all of this has been hashed out quite a bit, so I apologize for the rant.
Please use and adhere to the IEEE RFC style guide for standards, published at:
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc-style-guide/rfc-style-manual-08.txt
The IEEE maintains its standard for document standards to ensure rigor and discipline in all standards proposals sent to it; their format for RFCs ensures that authors thoroughly and completely think out their proposals.
Personal opinion - the IEEE is the gold standard for standards bodies, and I hope to see the various new media organizations copy their best practices.
Here’s kind of what I had in mind for a Downloadable Media Standard of Measurement:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddhkpwz4_111gz7sr9cr
This is fine and dandy for hard and cold numbers. But is the ADM doing anything to standardize what a “listen” is?
Plenty of people can access server logs and say what the hard numbers are, but advertisers also want to know how many times something was listened to.
[…] The Association for Downloadable Media has opened up two key metrics for public comment and debate - Ad Units and Download Measurement. […]
Rob, that’s where measurement becomes tricky, for sure. While we can produce hard numbers for completed downloads, actual ‘listens’ is much more difficult.
However, traditional radio does not need to prove who actually listened to the commercial. Ratings are based on panel research estimating the number of people listening at any given time. And, often that panel is 0.1% of a population (or less). So, the question becomes, which is more accurate - an exact # of people who sought out and downloaded content or panel statistics on an ‘approximate’ number of persons exposed to a message. Ultimately the buying community will weigh in on this and determine the validity of either.
I’ve always liked John Wannamaker’s famous quote, “I know half my advertising works and half doesn’t. I just don’t know which half.” We’re dealing with an inexact science here and just need to provide as accurate a measurement as possible…the interpretation of that data will follow.