Comscore is excited to announce that we have released our first beta data set from the Comscore Total Universe report, and we have some very interesting results to share. As background, the Comscore Total Universe report provides audience measurement for 100 percent of a site’s traffic, including usage via mobile phones, apps, tablets and shared computers such as Internet cafes. This first-of-its-kind measurement capability enables publishers and advertisers to understand digital audience sizes in a cross-platform environment. As media consumption shifts to emerging platforms like mobile devices and tablets, the effects on accounting for audiences and activity levels only becomes more pronounced with time.
In order to grasp the effect that Total Universe reporting has on audiences, let’s examine the impact for a few key publishers. An excellent example is for digital music provider Pandora, which attracts a significant percentage of its users via mobile (which in this case includes web browsing on phones and tablets, as well as access via mobile apps). Pandora’s U.S. Total Universe audience in April 2011 was 31.8 million unique visitors, 74% higher than its audience coming from home & work computers. In fact, 13.4 million of that total (42%) accessed Pandora only through mobile channels. A greater number of people actually accessed Pandora via phone or tablet (20.7 million) overall than did via home & work computers (18.2 million). Pandora’s reach among home and work computers in April was a very respectable 9%, but an incredible 35% among smartphone users.
To exclude the mobile media channel from Pandora’s audience is to ignore the majority of its audience. And while Pandora may still be somewhat of an outlier case, the example highlights the extent to which mobile can drive traffic for certain brands – especially those whose value proposition largely relies on mobility, such as Internet radio. It’s also an indication of where the digital landscape is headed.
Another illustration of how mobile audiences fit into the Total Universe landscape are news sites. Some of the most commonly used media on mobile phones are email and social networking, both of which are popular sources of link-sharing, which can drive significant click-through to news sites. If we look only at mobile web traffic (i.e. mobile browsing of traditional and mobile-optimized websites) as incremental to the existing home & work computer audience, we can see the level to which the mobile channel can attract additional users.
Below is an illustration of the incremental audience reached via mobile web for several leading newspaper brands. The New York Times, the largest digital newspaper, has an incremental reach of 2.3% for its mobile web, which represents nearly one million individuals – an audience certainly too large to ignore. And as significant as the New York Times’ incremental reach might be, other leading newspaper brands like the LA Times (6.7%), Washington Post (4.9%), Wall Street Journal (5.5%) and Chicago Tribune (5.2%) have an even greater incremental reach.
We can see a similar pattern in the UK (compared to the US data) with some of its leading newspapers. The Mail Online has a Total Universe audience of nearly 11 million in the UK, with an incremental web reach (mobile + shared locations) of 4.2%. The Guardian (4.8%), Mirror Online (8.3%), the Independent (6.8%) and Metro.co.uk (6.4%) all have notable incremental reaches, as well.
What these data suggest for publishers is that their total audiences are being shortchanged if they do not account for mobile audiences, which provide access to more eyeballs. In most cases today that incremental reach may be less than 10%, which still should not be ignored, and in certain cases (e.g. Pandora) that additional reach may be even more significant.
But if we take a long-term view of the digital media landscape, we recognize that mobile media usage is only going to become an increasingly large piece of the media consumption pie. Smartphone and tablet users are shifting a meaningful share of their total media consumption away from traditional PCs. Continued adoption of these digital access platforms has significant implications for publishers who get paid by advertisers to reach specific audiences at scale.
The growth drivers are undeniable. Nearly 70% of Americans do not use smartphones, and even with the excitement around the iPad and other tablet devices, they are used by less than 5% of the population. Increased penetration coupled with the explosion of optimized content and services will change the digital landscape.
How will it change? How much digital consumption will migrate away from the traditional PC? Who will capitalize on the opportunity? These are great questions. Comscore’s Total Universe report will help you answer them, so stay tuned for further developments.
Importantly, the value of the Total Universe report depends on publishers tagging their digital content entities, including traditional web pages, mobile-optimized web pages, and mobile apps. Any publishers interested in participating in Comscore tagging in order to be featured in the Total Universe report, please visit Comscore Direct.