Accountability in Radio Industry Now Required

Wednesday, March 5, 2014
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Accountability in Radio Industry Now Required

You've not been able to read any radio industry trade over the past few days without seeing the story about Triton Digital: "...the Media Rating Council (MRC) has granted accreditation to the company’s Webcast Metrics Local (WCML) product."

I'll stand in line to congratulate Triton for creating a measurement of online listening that's equitable to "Traditional audio metrics; Average Quarter Hour (AQH), AQH Rating, Cume and Cume Rating...."

"No amount of smoke and mirrors from the radio industry can show "radio works" as well as tying over-the-air campaigns to online metrics."

But let's not get too excited. This is taking a step backward for radio, while the online world moves forward.

The online aspect of measurement that has been ignored by the radio industry is accountability - as in how many people were exposed to your message; how many people responded to your message; how many people who did respond bought your product or service.

These are not simple questions to answer, and they won't be answered here. Instead, I'll use the next few paragraphs to introduce you to something that's mandatory if you want to compete online - Google's Analytics Academy.*

This first appeared at AG on December 22, 2005 and was reprinted in 2012. The message remains the same: Counting Clicks Is Advertising's New Goal. Only it has grown deeper as thousands of ad buyers choose to attend Google Analytics seminars. The more knowledge, the better they understand how to quantify a media buy - and no radio company is doing that by simply delivering a listing of AQH ratings, Cume, or Cume Rating.

I promised only a few paragraphs to explain this, and that's what you'll get. Go here to see how an online campaign can be managed, tracked, and verified from the ad to the cash register. This has become standard analytics, online.

Now, go learn how to do this yourself. Google is offering a free seminar on "Google Analytics Platform Principles" in a course format, beginning Tuesday March 11, 2014. Learn to use online analytics, and show clients how their ad campaign performs. (You may also go through the "Digital Analytics Fundamentals" course, free, prior to March 11.)

No amount of smoke and mirrors from the radio industry can show "radio works" as well as tying over-the-air campaigns to online metrics.

To put your faith in the future for radio based solely on replicating an outdated radio industry ratings system is foolish. Too many bright media buyers are learning how to count exact measurements and convert them to an explicit ROI. Whether you choose to participate will determine how long the radio industry remains relevant in the fight for advertising dollars.

*Note: 1) Google's Analytics Academy discusses "digital analytics." These seminars are not isolated to the use of Google Analytics; 2) Analytics can be used to improve radio programming, as well as client ad response.