Customer Engagement Trumps Page Views
Nielsen/NetRatings announced yesterday that it will scrap its longtime industry measurement of online page views for how long visitors spend on Web sites.
Although Nielsen already measures average time spent and average number of sessions per visitor for each site, the company will start reporting total time spent and sessions for all visitors to give advertisers, investors, and analysts a broader picture of what sites are most popular.
Why is this significant? The move demonstrates how page views are becoming less effective means to gauge a Web site's popularity amidst the growing use of audio and video and that audience engagement is a more robust metric for a Web site’s success. More companies are moving toward the human side of business—appealing to customers' emotions and interests to get customers on the sites and to keep them connected.
I spoke yesterday with Carley Roney, cofounder of the popular wedding Web site The Knot, who with her partner and husband David Liu, has built the site into the biggest online wedding destination. That’s largely because the site provides a breadth of content and appeals to a woman’s particular life stage. Visitors engage in personal experiences on the site, become connected, and often stay loyal long after their nuptials.
The strategy, Roney says, is rather than build the site around advertisers, they’ve built it around the audience. “On the Internet, people will not click if you don’t make it something that’s interesting to them or speaks to them. On the Internet we’re responsible for every piece of behavior of our audience,” she said.
Is your Web site engaging with customers? Are you the go-to source for information in your industry? Are you offering rich media as a way for customers to interact and communicate? Are you engaging your customers in product development and asking their opinions? Are you active in building customer communities on your site?
If you answered "no" to all of them, then it's time to take a fresh look.
