The value of page views and why publishers stick to page impressions

Whereas many web analytics practitioners let go of page views quite a while ago, some people on the receiving end of online advertising still hold on to it and assign great value to what has become a hollow metric.

There are few standard metrics that have value when considered on their own, but page view is what “hit” still was two years ago – practically redundant but over-used. A page view itself is not a proper measure for traffic volume and is merely a secondary metric that adds dimension to unique visitors. Examples are the use of newer standardized metrics, which set out page views vs visits to create “bounce (or exit) rate” and “pages per visit” – two metrics both used by Google Analytics (amongst other providers of web analytics solutions) that provide much more meaning to analytics efforts.

The beast that is the “page impression”

Sales executives of larger publisher sites simply LOVE to quote page views wherever they can and it can be deceiving unless you’re up to scratch with the terminology. Actually, the term they use is “page impression”, which seems to be a bastard breed between “page view” and “ad impression” - and it’s an ugly beast! The “page impression” is a species that tries to deceive advertisers into thinking that the number of times the ad is shown is the most relevant measure to base campaign cost on.

There are two reasons why these Sales execs consistently use page views/impressions:

1. The figure they can show you looks much more impressive than what information you’re really asking for. If these sites manage to get visitors to view five of their pages on average they can claim their traffic is more than fivefold the actual amount of monthly unique visitors
2. Even though it’s the visitor that advertisers are interested in (and not the amount of times visitors see their ad), publisher sales execs hold on the page impression to be able to charge a much larger sum than advertising on their site is actually worth.

Can you blame them? Depends. Sales execs working for large publications know there is a certain demand for impression-based advertisers. There are quite a few major players within certain industries that can afford and are willing to spend big bucks on advertising to boost their branding efforts. It gets trickier, however, when it comes to the smaller sites and wannabe publications. Both copy the impression-based cost model and both are playing with fire.

Smaller publications, often niche sites, attract smaller advertisers who are much more ROI-conscious than larger competitors. They are easily scared off by high cost with little return in terms of actions completed by the visitors that were attracted through the advertising campaign (purchase, registration, sign-up, etc.). By holding on to overcharging advertisers, these smaller sites run the risk of pricing themselves out of the market.

It’s a similar story for wannabes. Publications that start from scratch, behave as if they’ve instantly become a trustworthy and valuable source of news/info, and having a similar attitude when it comes to advertising rates. They charge premium prices – impression-based – and their Sales execs are often bewildered when cost is an issue. “But everyone charges these kinds of rates”. Correct. However, some have the ability to do so because they have large visitor numbers, and visitors that are willing to purchase/register/sign-up.

My theory is that with the growth of web analytics (and increasingly easy access to web analytics solutions such as Google Analytics) advertisers will become increasingly ROI-conscious. This will hopefully bring about a change in how publishers and advertisers see the page impression and value to businesses.