Overview of Quantcast

Measurement is one of the biggest issues in the field of public relations today. Unlike many fields, PR does not have a standard way of measuring program outcomes in terms of reach, impact and other metrics. This means that results of programs are highly variable and are relative to the measurement techniques and tools used by the specific team. Luckily, there are now many free tools online for PR practitioners to use for measurement, including Google Analytics, Compete.com, comScore, Alexa and Quantcast.com, the site which this post will dive into further.

Launched in 2006 and named one of the World's Most Innovative Companies of 2010 by Fast Company, Quantcast is known as the industry standard in web measurement as it is the only web analytics service accredited by the Media Rating Council, meaning it complies with the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s advertising impression and audience reach measurement guidelines. 

Quantcast is primarily used for marketing and advertising agencies to conduct market research in order for marketers and media planners to use a variety of analytical data to more precisely reach their target audience and best utilize marketing dollars. Boasting the largest database of human interests, psychographics, and demographics, Quantcast collects more than 200 billion observations of media consumption every month, and has a web visibility second only to Google. To date, Quantcast has provided direct measurement analytics for more than 100 million websites and companies. 

However, Quantcast can also be a highly valuable and useful tool for any PR or media relations professional. Whether for daily use or more specifically for research, monitoring, or reporting purposes, Quantcast provides data such as impression numbers, website analytics, as well as demographic and psychographic information for various websites that can aid PR professionals in targeting media relations efforts or expedite the reporting process. 

Basic information provided by Quantcast:

• People: Number of people visiting the site Total people visited, unique monthly visitors, impressions
• Site Visits: Number of individual sessions started by all visitors to the siteTotal site traffic (domestic and international), top countries, individual page views, cookies
• Page Views: Number of views of all the site’s pages (measured by number of browser loads) Total number of page views per site, per person page views

Additional information provided by Quantcast for many websites:

• Traffic
  • Mobile web traffic
  • Subsites
  • Audience Segments
  • Syndicators
  • Videos
• Demographics 
  • Gender
  • Age
  • Ethnicity
  • HHI
  • Children
  • Education level
• Geographics 
  • Geographic
  • Countries
  • States
  • Cities
  • DMAs
• Lifestyle (other relevant sites)
• Business (S-L)

Limitations & Implications for PR and media relations professionals

Like any measurement tool, Quantcast also has it limitations. The biggest limitation is that without signing up for an account, the data given for every site differs and depends on whether the site has been “quantified”, meaning that it has been measured precisely, while sites not “quantified” are estimated numbers. This means that the level of detail given for various sites will be hit and miss--some sites will have detailed demographic data with site traffic broken out by country, others may include traffic information for just one year while others will have three years of data. Because of these differences, Quantcast may not be a highly reliable measurement tool for comparing sites to one another since not all data will be identical. Despite these variables, Quantcast is useful for any PR professional doing media monitoring and/or reporting, as it will always give current numbers for domestic and international site traffic. Additionally, media relations professionals can use Quantcast to research demographics and psychographics of publications coupled with lifestyle information to determine other publications that may be relevant for the same audience.

Additional Resources

Quantcast.com provides a number of additional resources for users to learn more about its tools and services as well as to learn more about the realm of measurement for media and communications.

• Top Million Sites: Quantcast provides a quick-reference list of the top internet and mobile websites for the U.S. and other countries, giving number of monthly visitors and shows which sites have been quantified.
• Glossary: Definitions of terms and tools for Quantcast's user interface
• Twitter: Quantcast's Twitter profile provides its users with the most up-to-date information, articles on measurement and tips on how to use the interface.
• Quantcast Blog: IQ: Inside Quantcast, the company's blog, provides more in-depth information on topics related to measurement and the capabilities of Quantcast's site.

Below is a great example of the data Quantcast provides.