Measurement: Attention vs. Engagement

Let's call this Measurement Month. For the first time, I feel there are some promising threads out there that will offer an initial idea about measuring word of mouth-based marketing efforts.

Now Compete.com is talking about an "Attention" measure. In their own description:

"Attention fuses engagement (measured by time) and traffic (measured by unique visitors) into a single, more complete picture of a web site’s value."

They are trying to go beyond traditional Web metrics to gauge the influence of a site (who isn't?). To distinguish what they do and what Alexa does, they have now added this Attention measure. At the end of the day, "Attention" appears to be simply a measure of time spent. Is this a self-serving attempt to "own" a model of measure? Sure. Is it different than the ideas circulating around "engagement?" Yes. A good definition of engagement might include the following:

• time spent: how long did the visitor spend there during a session or series of sessions
• number of interactions: what all did they do there to interact with the experience (number of posts read, game interactions, submission activities)
• user contributions: did the visitor contribute something to the experience - e.g. comments on a post
• subscription: did the visitor grad an RSS feed or submit their email address. This could easliy be a seperate measure yet it does speak to the idea of engagement over a different span of time.

Here's how Compete complains about the "engagement" measurement movement:

"Unfortunately, defining a universal “engagement metric” is like finding the holy grail – it’s elusive, controversial and many will die in an attempt to take ownership of it. So while we all are trying to crack the code on how to best measure engagement, Compete has created an important sister metric – Attention.

We are excited to announce the creation of the Attention 200™, the two hundred sites that yield the largest share of our attention on the web. The Attention Index is based on the amount of time U.S. internet users spend across the top one million websites."

All Compete is doing is trying to take ownership of it. They are also approaching this from an advertising discipline POV which is smart business. They want to build a matrix of traditional traffic measures for the reach leaders (top trafficked sites) and this time-spent concept. That is different than our POV as we are less concerned about overall reach than we are about understanding who (person not a "what" or Website) is influential.  Embedded in the quote above is a link to Jeremiah from Podtech who has been exploring this subject for some time and has an interesting post about different POVs on engagement.

Attention = Time Spent

Ultimately, what Compete is doing is pulling out the time-spent measure, calling it Attention and then bundling the following as their "Engagement" measure:

• Attention
• Average Stay - Monthly
• Pages per visit - Monthly

Here's how three different opinion sites rate within their system:

 

At the end of the day, I do think there is someything here. (and thanks to Alison for the delicious tag) Like Alexaholic, I am betting this is a better comparison tool than a way to evaluate single Web sites.

As an advertiser, I would like to compare simple traffic measures with this type of engagement data to make choices about my ad buy.

Is measuring "engagement" going to happen? Will there be a standard? What is the difference between what engagement means in advertising vs. public relations? 

Comments

[Lynn Winters]

Great information.I'll be backkkkkkkkkk.