• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, March 9, 2011

I love click rates!  I bet that got your attention, didn't it? 

Back in college at Syracuse I took a journalism class, and Syracuse is known for spitting out world-class journalists.  They always taught us to begin a column with an attention-grabbing first sentence, so that's what I'm doing here. I'm trying to get your attention in the hopes that we can address this age-old issue!

I actually really hate click rates, and before you jump on my back for being hateful, let me make my case.  Back in 1994, when the first ad banners were placed online at HotWired, there wasn't much to report on other than impressions and clicks, and the click rate was born.  That being said, you'd think that after 17 years we could come up with something else to talk about.  There have been fits and starts to get to a new metric, but now feels like the best time for us to join together and get this figured out.

At OMMA Global last week I finally heard some discussion about finding a new, better, more effective combination of metrics -- and I think I may have an idea.  I propose that we all begin to think about the SERF model for online analytics; Sessions, Engagement, Reach and Frequency.

SESSIONS

A number of years back there was talk about moving from impressions to sessions, and I think this model may have a lot of merit, especially as we are seeing more video be adopted online, where there is a value far beyond the standard impression.  A session can be tracked within any site, and a session can be priced at a higher value than a standard impression because you can own the experience with that user.  Think of it as category exclusivity within that user session.   It doesn't mean we have to abandon the impression, but leveling it up to a session would seem to give us a better read on interaction with a brand, per user content session.

ENGAGEMENT

Most online marketers are already crafting their own models for engagement - which actually does integrate click rate, along with conversion rate, interaction rate, action rate, and a host of other metrics that can be tailored to the needs of the marketer.  Engagement has been used as a catch-all for quite some time, so maybe the industry should finally embrace it and work to developing some standards against it.  At the very minimum, we can develop a few fully baked models for defining engagement by business category or type of unit.

REACH & FREQUENCY

Reach and frequency are traditional metrics, and far too many online companies have tried to force them out of the picture, but they're resilient, primarily because they make sense.  Reach denotes the size of the audience you contacted, and frequency is the means by which your message is understood.  Reach and frequency may feel like old-school metrics, but they're as important now as they have even been before.

If we could come up with an industry standard for evaluating the SERF model, maybe we could finally demote click rates to the same coffin as the 468x60, pop-ups and Pointcast.  At the very least, we would then have a model that integrates digital-only metrics, while also providing for an apples-to-apples comparison with TV.

Do you agree this could work or is there an even simpler model to speak to?  Let me know what you think on the Spin Board!