Germany's online advertising regulator will use visits instead of page impressions as its main measure for online marketing. This move indicates a trend towards a new paradigm in online marketing.
Since website operators have discovered how to get more visitors to their pages by using games and images, click-through rates are skyrocketing, leaving the unit of page impressions in a very weak position. In light of this, the IVW (Informationsgemeinschaft zur Feststellung der Verbreitung von Werbeträgern) (German advertising watchdog) has botim data decided that from 2010 it will use the number of visitors instead of page impressions to measure the audience of websites and thus the distribution of advertising placed on them.
This measure raises hopes among content providers, marketers and media planners, who are no longer subject to the tyranny of impressions and dream of the triumph of quality content. Publishers will try to retain and build loyalty among their readers and users for as long as possible among their content offerings; and this can only be achieved with quality content. This will also contribute to improving the browsing experience so that the user can easily reach their goal.
However, there are also aspects that are causing criticism in this paradigm shift. For example, some publishers believe that the measurement of time spent on a site should be taken into account. There is also a lack of a unit of measurement for the effectiveness of online video advertising that would allow the online medium to be compared with television. In addition, there are calls for faster online statistics, which are usually monthly when they could be collected more frequently.
However, a single unitary measure of the Internet would be of little indication of the reality of the medium. The Internet is a channel where different forms of media use converge: from reading news and texts to watching videos, chatting or participating in forums.