Go to our global site (EN/PL)
Gemius SA in Lithuania. How to measure the Internet?
2005-10-10
On the Lithuanian Internet market there is no place for a standstill. Over the last few months sequential growth of the online audience has been observed. Simultaneously, knowledge about specific demands of the developing cyber-market has became more powerful and financially profitable. As the future belongs to professional Internet measurement, it is worth knowing what it exactly is.
Measurement of the Internet. You have probably heard this term mentioned around but how much do you know of it? Cheap, affordable, quick... If you are not an expert that is your answer. The main goal of this article is to attract your curiosity and increase awareness of the Internet as a professional tool of research.
From Web Site to Internet User
The Internet offers two kinds of measurement: site-centric and user-centric. Both approaches have a valid role to play in helping to generate greater understanding of the activities of Internet users. It is even recommended to consider them as complementary ones.
The site-centric research includes only the web site perspective. What does it mean? Statistics are derived from the records of a user's activity captured by the site. Thanks to the cookie technology, data is gathered in real-time without violating the Internet users' privacy, what is crucial from the ethical and legal point of view. Tracking data reveals much information regarding traffic and a web site's usage. Noticeably, the quality and complexity of the gathered data depends on both technological solutions and defined indicators. Apart from the mentioned differences, the site-centric measurement helps to optimize the web site's content and update it in accordance with the Internet user's changeable attitudes and preferences. Some of the site-centric types of research might even provide detailed feedback on the usage of a given web site with special consideration of the following aspects:. detailed clickstream analysis of an individual user (cookie), techno-graphic data (relating to an Internet browser, operating system, or screen resolution) and geographic reports.
But what do we know about our online audience? Undoubtedly, the most valuable assessment that sites can undertake is gaining a thorough understanding of their users as people and - taking into account a commercial perspective - as customers. How old are they? How much do they earn? Are they students or they work? Are they Web laymen or Web veterans? All this questions do not stay without answer thanks to the user-centric research. The user-centric measurement makes use of pop-up surveys to research the user's socio-demographic characteristics and their online behavior patterns.
Problems and Solutions
Both site-centric and user-centric research face up some methodological problems. When the number of cookies is used as an approximation of size of given web site' audience, following divergences should be taken into account: cookie deletion, using by one Internet user many computers and co-using of the same computer by more than one user. This problem can be partly solved. Some of the site-centric measurements estimate the number of Internet users (real users) on the basic of special algorithm which takes into consideration the fact, that the total number of cookies for a given web site is disturbed by intentional or unintentional cookie deletion. The user-centric research, on the other hand, has to be focused on representative demands. It means that data should be adjusted to the Internet population. Fortunately, weighting techniques based on the socio-demographic structure provided by representative research, mold site-centric sample into the data of all online population.
The Third Perspective - Integrated Data
There is also a third perspective which brings together the best of the two different approaches commonly used to measure online audiences - the site-centric and user-centric research. These studies combine a web site user's socio-demographic profile with the traffic they generate. How does it work in a nutshell? This problem will be analyzed on the example of the gemiusAudience research that was conducted on the Lithuanian market by research agencies Gemius Baltic and Gemius SA.
A strategic goal of the gemiusAudience product is to gather and constantly update data for use in optimizing online advertising campaigns. Both traffic and demographic data are insufficient when it comes to analyzing them separately. The gemiusAudience study bases on a pop-up panel. The pop-up panel integrates the following research components: a web survey and usage audit conducted through the gemiusTraffic platform. As a result of the methodology's implementation, the gemiusAudience research study makes comprehensive data with special regard to the frequency metrics and audience demographic profiles.
Qualitative vs. Quantitative
The Internet enables to implement the same type of research which is commonly used in "real" - qualitative and quantitative research. Let's pay them an in-depth look. Qualitative research uses comprehensive approach that seeks to understand phenomena in context-specific settings. It diagnoses the problem with regard to many various perspectives without previous expectations and presumptions. Quantitative research, on the contrary, reveals the meaning and priority of the analyzed problem. The main aim is to estimate the distribution of given feature in population as well as to determine the relationship between one variable (an independent one) and another (a dependent or outcome variable). It is worth mentioning that on the Internet, quantitative research surpasses the qualitative ones - coefficient defining proportion of quantitative investigations to qualitative one equals 20:1! In the traditional media it reaches from 3:1 to 4:1.
Practical implementations
Advertisers, media planners and marketers are not interested in "users" or "cookies". They care about "consumers". Consequently, the main goal of every market research is to combine the firmest methodological principles with practical needs. Because of its affordability and flexibility, online research can be carried out to answer very specific questions. For example particular players on the market may specify the characteristics of their web site's users and finally design the web site's content as it is demanded by the audience's needs. Advertisers, on the other hand, might measure the effectiveness of an online advertising campaign. Nearly every decision related to the product's development, sales strategies and advertising ideas can be informed by research. The specialist can choose from a wide range of a variety of studies - from measurement of advertising campaigns' effectiveness to tracking research, satisfactory research and brand awareness research. Each of them may help to adjust business activity to audience's needs and expectations. And it is undoubtedly the right way to successful launch.
Lithuanian market as a field of online research
There is undoubtedly a need for developing different type of online research. But there is also a need to develop such types of research which enables to get knowledge about the picture of the Internet market in a more comprehensive and holistic perspective.
Thanks to the gemiusAudience research we know exactly how the Central European Internet markets looks like. Comprehensive studies of audience measurement are the inexhaustible source of knowledge about users' activity and the existing trends. But they are also on the way of the market's transparency and research's standardization.
Download a complete version of the press release in a Word file
Press contact
International Operations Department - contact@gemius.com