Last week we posed four questions to website owners wondering if they should be selling their ads directly, as opposed to utilizing a third party network. If your answers led you to believe that you should be going direct, one of the first exercises you’ll need to complete involves getting some data about your audience.
Why You Need Good Audience Data
When you begin the process of selling ads directly (or otherwise trying to monetize your site without the help of networks and middlemen), it’s only a matter time before you get asked to share demographic information about your audience. Advertisers are often trying to reach specific segments of the population, and want to be sure that their dollars are spent going after relevant demographics. (For more best practices on selling ads directly, sign up for the free MonetizePros newsletter.)
Getting data on your audience might seem like an overwhelming task. After all, how are you supposed to know who is visiting your site when their interaction occurs through the anonymity of the Internet. In most cases, visitors are free to come to and go from your site as they please, without telling you a thing about themselves.
But there are a few relatively easy ways to get detailed information on your audience that can help you make a pitch to potential advertisers and other monetization partners.
Source #1: Quantcast
Quantcast is a free service that can give you a ton of good data with just a small snippet of code. Once inserted, you’ll get basic demographic information about visitors to your site. Quantcast can tell you the breakdown of your audience by gender, age, education level, race/ethnicity, and household income, and can also show how you stack up to the Internet average. You’ll also get a feel for which other properties your audience likes to visit, which can be useful in both brainstorming potential clients and pitching to them.
Pro: Free and quick.
Con: Only basic data available; no customizable queries.
Cotton Delo has at Ad Age a great summary of who measures what in the online space, including a review of Quantcast and other options.
Source #2: On-Site Surveys
If you want more control over what questions you’re asking, you may want to invest in setting up your own survey. One common practice is to require visitors seeking to access certain content (for example, a free guide) to tell you a bit about themselves–perhaps answer three questions that tell you about their shopping habits, or which brands they prefer). With minimal dev work, you can begin collecting input from your user base and build a customized profile of your audience.
Of course, you have no way to force users to answer questions truthfully (as frustrating as that may be). But if the survey is relatively short and simple to follow, odds are you’ll get high participation and accuracy rates.
Pro: Free way to collect ongoing data.
Con: Delay in gathering statistically significant number of responses, as well as diminished conversion rate.
Source #3: Emailed Surveys
If you want information about your audience, perhaps the best way to get it is to simply ask them. Send an email asking users to take a quick survey, telling them that you will use the information to improve the quality of the site and the user experience (which is true; if it helps you sign up advertisers, that allows you to continue to provide content to them free of charge). If you have a good relationship with your audience, they’ll likely be willing to help you out with a few minutes of their time.
SurveyMonkey is a relatively cheap way to get results, and can be easily customized to ask the questions you want. We’d suggest keeping it to five or fewer and making answers multiple choice, but you can experiment and try longer surveys if wanted.
Pro: Fast, reliable results.
Con: Risk of driving unsubscribes and/or complaints (though this is generally small).
Bottom Line
If you’re attempting to sell ads directly, your job becomes considerably easier if you are able to effectively communicate to potential advertisers that your audience is valuable and relevant to their messaging. In order to do this, you need to know about your audience: how old they are, what interests them, and why they come to your site (among other things). Take advantage of the free resources above to get good data on your audience; it will help out tremendously when building a media kit and selling those ads!