Every client I work with wants a relative measure of how they compare to their competition online. The standard measuring stick is traffic. For years Alexa has been providing a ranking based upon traffic (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.), but they didn’t provide what they felt those traffic numbers were. Instead, they provided (and still provide) a relative measure, rank, based upon their collection methods.
Today, there are other options, and ones that go far beyond a relative rankings system or even traffic. For the price (free), no one provides more information than Quantcast. Before we dive in, here’s how Quantcast defines themselves:
Quantcast is a new media measurement service that lets advertisers view audience reports on millions of websites and services. Only Quantcast combines directly measured audience data with panel-based estimates to deliver accurate third-party metrics and easy-to-read profiles on digital media properties.
Here’s a quick overview of some of what you can learn about your competitors on Quantcast’s web site:
- Visits per month
- People per month (individual visitors)
- Gender, age, household income, ethnicity and more of domestic traffic
That’s far more than you’ll find over at Alexa. But, there’s more. Beyond traffic and demographic information, Quantcast also provides:
- Brand and site affinities
- Other sites with similar audiences
Let’s take a look at some of that data. Here’s some sample Quantcast data for John Battelle’s Searchblog (http://battellemedia.com)
Here’s some information Quantcast provides:
- People - Global: 36,884
- People - U.S.: 23,461
- Average Page Views/Visit - US: 1.33 US
- Average Page Views/Visit - Global: 1.31
- 62% of traffic is Male, 38% Female
- The household income for 64% of visitors is between $30,000 an $100,000
- The majority of visitors, 70%, are 35 or over
- Visitors have brand & site affinities for telegraph.co.uk and the Washington Post
How Quantcast arrives at the information it provides is through the combination of panel data and directly measured data. Not all sites on Quantcast are providing directly measurable data, however. John Battelle’s Searchblog is, and you can tell that because on the report page for the web site, there is a “Quantified Publisher” icon toward the top of the page. This indicates that this web site has placed a tracking script on each page of the web site, allowing Quantcast to directly measure (and share) site usage information. If this icon isn’t present, the data Quantcast provides is not nearly as accurate.
Just to be clear, providing competitive metrics isn’t why Quantcast exists. That said, by the nature of the information it provides Quantcast can be used for competitive metrics. If you leverage it for competitive research be sure you understand how Quantcast collects information. If you’re making decisions based on what Quantcast (or any other data provider offers) the first step is understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your data source.
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