Coremetrics vs. DART Metrics
I was asked to explain to a client why there were differences between the stats received in Coremetrics vs. the stats from DART. Here are those findings:Coremetrics
- is used to collect analytics on onsite behavior
- is used to determine the source of traffic to the given website(s)
DART
- is used to deliver ads to third party websites as well as track usage of paid search terms.
Both systems collect metrics to help determine the effectiveness of online marketing and sales activity. But the metrics are not necessarily the same and the data from each vendor must be used for the proper purpose.Coremetrics and DART have different definitions for many metrics. This means that even if two metrics seem to be the same since they are labeled the same, they can vary greatly from one vendor to the next.DART
- When an ad is delivered successfully to a website, DART counts this as an impression.
- When a user clicks an ad on a website, DART will count this as a click. DART reports clicks as a gross number so if a user double-clicked on an ad, DART would have counted 2 clicks.
- Offers the following attribution windows, 30 days for an impression and 90 days for a click.
- Will report the most recent action. If a user received an impression in the past 30 days but clicked on an ad today, the click would get credit for driving to the Floodlight tag.
- Attributes a post-impression conversion to an ad that a visitor saw but did not click.
- Gathers click and impression data from server calls requesting an ad or directing visitors to the landing page.
- Tracks ad placements and paid keywords.
Coremetrics
- Coremetrics metrics including clicks, sessions, visitors, and conversions are based upon the actions that a visitor takes on tagged web pages. Coremetrics does not record impressions and does not record clicks on a non-tagged 3rd party site.
- Clicks is the number of times that the Page/MMC combination was loaded. This is not the number of times that the ad was clicked on a 3rd party site such as CNN.com
- Coremetrics users normally use same session or 7 day attribution (depending on their business model). When looking at MMC numbers you are seeing the actions attributed directly to visitors who came in on a MMC in the same session.
- Coremetrics offers multiple attribution windows in the standard product including same session and 7, 14, or 30 day backward looking windows.
- Coremetrics will only attribute conversions to ads that were clicked on that resulted in a session and landed on a tagged page.
- Relies on cookies to track visitor actions on client’s sites (A ever growing percentage of visitors use software to block 3rd Party cookies).
- Coremetrics tracks a variety of offsite marketing and consumer touches including email, natural search, and paid marketing.
Written by:
Dorian D. Regester
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Google+
