Pages per visit (PPV) – the average number of pages viewed per visitor to a site (this is
indicative of engagement with a site since the longer a visitor stays on a ‘sticky site’,
the higher this value will be). PPV is a more accurate indication of stickiness than
duration on a site in minutes since this figure is skewed upwards by visitors who
arrive on a site and are inactive before their session times out at 30 minutes.
Visits per (unique) visitor (VPV) – this suggests the frequency of site visits. Readers will
realise that this value is dependent on the period that data are collected over. These
data are reported for a month during which time one would not expect many return-
ing visitors. So it is often more relevant to present these data across a quarter or a year.
Other information giving detailed knowledge of customer behaviour that can be
reported by any web analytics package include:
top pages;
entry and exit pages;
path or clickstream analysis showing the sequence of pages viewed;
country of visitor origin (actually dependent on the location of their ISP);
browser and operating system used;
referring URL and domain (where the visitor came from).
Comparing apples to oranges?
With hundreds of different web analytics tools being used on different sites, it is important
that there are standards for measuring visitor volumes. In particular, there are different
techniques for measuring unique visitors which can be measured through IP addresses, but
this is more accurate if it is combined with cookies and browser types. International stan-
dards bodies such as the Web Analytics Association (www.webanalyticsassociation.org) and
UK organisations such as ABCelectronic (www.abce.org.uk) and JICWEB (www.jicwebs.org)
have worked to standardise the meaning and data collection methods for different meas-
ures. See Table 9.1 or visit these sites for the latest precise definition of the terms in this
section. Media buyers are particularly interested in accurate audited figures of media sites
and organisations such as ABCelectronic are important for this.
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT FOR INTERNET MARKETINGTable 9.1 Terminology for key web site volume measures
Measure Measure Definition
1 How many? ‘audience Unique users A unique and valid identifier [for a site visitor].
reach’ Sites may use (i) IP + User – Agent, (ii) Cookie
and/or (iii) Registration ID
2 How often? ‘frequency Visit A series of one or more page impressions,
metric’ served to one user, which ends when there is
a gap of 30 minutes or more between succes-
sive page impressions for that user
3 How busy? Page impression A file, or combination of files, sent to a valid
‘volume metric’ user as a result of that user’s request being
received by the server
4 What see? Ad impressions A file or a combination of files sent to a valid
user as an individual advertisement as a result
of that user's request being received by the
server
5 What do? Ad clicks An ad impression clicked on by a valid user
Source: ABCe (www.abce.org.uk)