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BREAKING NEWS & VIEWS
How Much Is That ‘Unique User’ Worth?Thursday, January 20, 2011 Traffic is a cheap drug for online publishers. Tweak your site index or tease with a link-bait headline (usually involving mention of Facebook or iPad) and you can get a search-induced spike. But how much are those opportunistic users really worth to the long-term health of your business? Scout Analytics asked that very question and recently concluded a study of the relative value of different kinds of audiences to a site. It turns out that the “fly-by” traffic driven by search engine optimization (SEO) may help pump up the unique user base, but these same users consume fewer page views than brand loyalists and ultimately are worth much less to the publisher. SEO traffic continues to be the largest of the genre measured by unique users to most major sites, the research finds. But these users consume only a small share of the overall page impressions at a site. The frequent visitors to a site are the ones who consume the most content and generate the most revenue. For this research, Scout segmented the typical site audience into four categories. "Fly-bys" are single-time visitors, usually driven by a single story link they find in search engine. "Occasional" visitors come two to three times a month. (Scout says that these recurring but infrequent guests have an average revenue potential of 5-to-1 compared to the true fly-bys.) The “regular” visitor comes one or two times a week and this segment of the audience has an average revenue potential of 10-to-1 over the fly-bys. And finally, the site “fan” who visits more than twice a week has an average revenue potential of 50-to-1 compared to the fly-by. Scout finds that most sites are getting 70% to 80% of overall traffic from fly-by, one-time visitors who actually consume less than 30% of page views. It concludes that publishers need to focus their efforts on the regulars, occasionals and of course the fans, because this is where the lifetime user value is found. “Very few publishers can build a sustainable business with SEO as their core strategy,” says Matt Shanahan, SVP of strategy for Scout. “It’s critical to develop long-term relationships. In this case, creating loyal visitor relationships increases revenue potential and predictability.” If you have breaking news to share please contact Steve Smith at ssmith@accessintel.com
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Another downside of this 'fly-by' traffic is that ad tags often do not have time to load so there will be a discrepancy between what a publisher counts (higher amount) in terms of impressions and what the client or agency counts (lower).
Posted by Joe Ferrick on Thursday, January 20, 2011 @ 02:47 PM
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