All ABCe data is prepared to standards agreed by JICWEBS.
The Joint Industry Committee for Web Standards (www.jicwebs.org) is the body created by the UK and Ireland media industry to ensure independent development and ownership of standards for measuring digital media. Its members represent media owners, buyers and advertisers from the following industry bodies:
Association of Online Publishers
Incorporated Society of British Advertisers
Internet Advertising Bureau
Newspaper Publishing Association
Institute of Practitioners in Advertising
Newspaper Society
ITG (Internet Technical Group)
The Internet Technical Group meets to discuss and find solutions to industry raised technical issues and to agree (practical and feasible) proposals to put forward to JICWEBS.
ITG meetings are held bi-monthly and are open to ABCe subscribers. For more information on the next ITG meetings, please email andy.flint@abce.org.uk
Global metrics for measuring electronic media
The current industry agreed mandatory metric for web traffic measurement (as endorsed by JICWEBS) is Unique Browser. This is a unique and valid device (e.g. a computer or mobile phone) that has made valid requests for content to the site in the period being measured.
ABCe independently audits a wide range of other industry-agreed metrics which the media owner can choose to have audited in order to demonstrate their performance.
For a full list of the global metrics used for measuring electronic media and a jargon buster definition of each please click here
An express guide to the industry-agreed metrics
- How many - the 'audience reach' metric = Unique Browsers
- How busy - the 'volume' metric = Page Impressions
- How often - the 'frequency' metric = Visits
- What see - the 'opportunity to see' metric = Ad Impressions
- What do - the 'response' metric = Ad Clicks
What is robotic traffic?
Robots are automated systems which crawl the net in order to supply information to search engines. Whilst this is useful when you are building up relevant search results, it’s not so useful when you are buying advertising, when you want to make sure your ads are being seen by people not robots! Sometimes as much as 60% of traffic to a site is generated by these robots. ABCe excludes material robotic traffic from its certified data.
To see the ABCe list of Robots and Spiders (only available to subscribers) click here