Digital Media Wire reports that Nielsen/NetRatings is shifting away from the standard measurements of page views and unique visitors to a new system that will focus on time spent and total number of sessions.

Let’s consider two Web sites.

Site one has 12,000 unique visitors a week. Let’s say 7,000 visit three times a week for an average of three minutes per visit. The other 5,000 visit twice a week and spend an average of three minutes per visit. That’s 31,000 sessions and a total of 93,000 minutes.

Site two has 15,000 unique visitors a week, each going twice a week and spending an average of two minutes per visit. That’s 30,000 sessions and 60,000 minutes.

It seems like under the new system, site one gets a higher ranking. Yet as an advertiser, audience demographics being equal, I would probably prefer my ads on site two, where I can reach a larger audience.

Takeaway for marketers: Nielsen numbers are one tool, but ultimately the best course of action is to run a small test on both sites, measure ROI, then focus spending on the site that’s delivering the better result. Test and measure. Duh.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 12th, 2007 at 6:00 am and is filed under Internet Stuff, Marketing Stuff, Marketing Takeaways.