Show Me The Metrics! (What, is it 1996 already?)

IAB: Better metrics would increase online ad revenue

A survey co-sponsored by the Audit Bureau of Circulation and NSON Opinion Research confirms that advertisers would spend more money online if only the metrics came from an independent third party auditor. My self-interest detector is going off, but as an advertiser, I can vouch for the validity of this.

I think this is a good news/bad news situation for online publishers. Better metrics by third parties will lead to more spend, so the investment will for the most part be well worth it. The bad news part is two-fold: (1) Third party metrics and auditing cost a boatload of money, and (2) not a few publishers would go belly up as their sham self-reported visitor numbers are exposed for all to see.