We are know that tracking web traffic is not yet an exact science. But for ad executives that rely heavily on the information, exactly how wrong is it and as a result how much stock can they put in it? According to a recent WSJ article, the answers are apparently "very wrong" and "not much". Many ad execs were quoted as not being at all surprised that comScore's research isn't 100% accurate, but that it's the best they have to go on at this point in time. However, because they rely on firms like comScore and Nielsen Online for research to decide where and how to spend their internet ad dollars, you have to question how much of that money is going to the wrong place and being wasted on nonexistent consumers? One of the key problems is that these companies don't count every unique visitor. They use "visitor panels" and then extrapolate the data. So not only is the data itself not exact, but the results from both firms tend to conflict with each other. So what's the solution? At this point, until technology advances there isn't much advertisers can do, but take the data with a grain of salt and use their common sense.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120874282224730191.html
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