Hits, Clickthroughs, or Unique Visitors?

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by Michel Fortin

There are a lot of misconceptions regarding Web site traffic -- particularly in the way it is measured -- and hopefully we can dispel some of them here. Tracking visitors is often done with many different yardsticks, which vary tremendously from person to person, site to site, and marketing effort to marketing effort.

However, these differences can often be quite misleading, especially for the would-be advertiser and aspiring Internet marketer. And today there is far more involved in the process than that to which most would tend to give credence.

The web is evolving at breakneck speeds along with the way we measure it. First, it is not enough to know how many "hits," "clickthroughs," or "unique visitors" a web site receives. For instance, banner ads that draw a lot of clicks are no longer considered important -- at least not as important as those from which these clicks are translatable into sales. What's important nowadays is the quality of those clicks -- or the number of qualified "interactive visitors" a site receives.

A case in point is an interesting article published in this month's "Business 2.0 magazine". Titled "Web Metrics," writer Steven Vonder Haar provides some fascinating insights into the erroneous perceptions of Internet traffic. And the most common is the fact that hits were -- and still are -- considered to be the measurement of choice.

But with today's super-explosive Internet population and the hypercompetitiveness of online business, added to the fact that netizens are now drowning in an impetuous sea of promotional messages, traffic measurement has significantly evolved.

According to Vonder Haar, "Some banners that draw downright horrible click numbers can actually wind up with more sales than vague online ad messages that get users to click but not buy." And while statistics have shown that click-rates overall are decreasing, Rosa Aguilar of CNET Radio, pointed out in a recent piece on "Banner Blindness" that "clickthroughs are becoming higher in quality."

In essence, visitors are no longer measured by quantity, but by their quality. Although traffic has been long touted to be the key to Internet marketing success, today that's no longer true. What's more important is the conversion rate. In other words, today's Internet marketer must focus more on the percentage of curious browsers that turn into serious, long-term buyers.

Consequently, basing one's traffic upon mere hits is really a "hit-and-miss" approach -- and no longer enough. According to Vonder Haar, "Once users click, you want to know where they go." And that's what needs to be measured. Less than five years ago for instance, hits, pageviews, and clickthroughs were the popular measure of web site activity. But today the tracking process has shifted to include audience activity and behavior.

In other words, Webmasters are slowly realizing the importance of isolating the typical curiosity-seeker from the more important interested prospect who is looking at developing a relationship. And subsequently, they are realizing the necessity in tracking their visitors' level of interest, loyalty, and activity.

Simply put, all pageviews and clickthroughs are not created equal. For example, if one web site is geared toward financial investments and has 1,000 visitors, that number can be made up of teenagers looking for the latest gimmick versus prospective investors requesting stock quotes for a $10,000 trade. Thus, the goal is not to simply advertise or to put money into advertising, but "to reach those would-be investors," says Vonder Haar.

It is no longer important to advertise anywhere and everywhere but to advertise in specific places where targeted, prospective, long-term customers are -- that's the key. The successful Internet marketer's bottom-line is to get the biggest bang for every marketing dollar -- let alone every droplet of blood, sweat, and tears -- invested. If you're only counting the number of hits your site receives as well as the number of eyeballs in front of which your site or ad appears, and not the quality of the people behind them, you're wasting money and energy.

"Niche" marketing is the new buzzword -- and with reason. People are now drowning in data. And their resources -- including this rare commodity we call "time" -- have also been cut short. Therefore, specializing, targeting, converting web site visitors into customers, as well as relationship marketing are now part of and essential to the traffic measurement process.

Here's a mini-lexicon of web site traffic terms, which also includes a quick look at the evolution of traffic measurement:

Hits
Hits are pieces of data (or files) requested from a web host's server. However, this primitive measurement includes not only the web page but also every other file that makes a page possible -- such as graphic files, plugins, scripts, text files, style sheets, and so on. In other words, a single web page can easily translate into multiple hits. Therefore, when one says that one has received over 1,000 hits, that could very well mean that the site received only 100 actual visitors if not less.

Pageviews
Similar to hits, pageviews are files requested from the server but are limited to the web pages themselves (i.e., HTM or HTML files, or Hyper Text Markup Language files). While a little more concrete than hits, pageviews do not give specific information about surfers or their behavior -- as, for example, the length of time that they remained on a specific page.

Clickthroughs
Clickthroughs are the number of clicks -- or responses -- to an online advertisement. Again, while it's definitely a better measurement than the previous two, clicks do not provide in and of themselves enough information regarding the quality, the subsequent activity, as well as the level of interest of the people responding.

Unique Visitors
Unique visitors are tracked not according to the files they have requested but by their unique IP (or "Internet Protocol") addresses, which are much like online fingerprints. However, not only does this process fail to include specific data about the visitors but it can also be tremendously misleading. For example, many Internet service providers use DHCP (or "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol") -- like AOL, WebTV, and cable modem providers (which are becoming more and more prevalent these days). DHCP uses a different IP address for every file requested, thus making one visitor look like many. In other words, a single IP address may not necessarily reflect a single and truly "unique" visitor.

Reach
A site is said to have a certain reach, which is the percentage of visitors randomly surveyed that have visited a specific page in a given month. Similar to the TV's Neilsen ratings, this measurement is very broad and nonspecific. For example, if 50% of randomly sampled netizens have visited a specific page, the site is then said to have a 50% reach. It is much like a poll where the numbers are extrapolated and speculative. While vague, this measurement is often used as a tool for selling advertising space, particularly with the larger portal sites.

Interactive Visitors -- The New Breed
This is the type of web site traffic in which surfers are measured multifariously to determine their quality and not just their quantity, which at the same time helps to measure the quality of one's marketing efforts. Elements such as length of stay, conversation rates, registrations, subscribers, repeat visits, referrals made, and so on are now part of the tracking process.

For one, interactive visitors give better clues to their demographic data as well as a site's return on investment. Items tracked include visitor loyalty, site behavior, and registrations (such as with opt-in mailing lists, email requests, contests, and e-zines).

While defining specific tactics on how to increase the number of interactive site visitors is far too complex, there are, however, two important key areas. First, niche marketing is definitely at the top rung. As Ludwig Mies van der Rohe once said, "Less is more." The more competitive the Internet becomes, the narrower your focus should be. And the more specialized your online business becomes, the more visitors let alone the more pre-qualified, loyal, long-term prospective customers your site will receive.

Second, you must enter into a relationship with your visitors. If you plan to increase your sales, you must provide your visitors a way to subscribe themselves to your mailing list -- be it a community, an announcement list, a discussion board, a contest, or -- the commonest method -- an ezine. In essence, you have to start thinking in terms of being interactive with your visitors instead of merely being a silent billboard in cyberspace.