Every once-in-awhile, we need to write a non-self-serving post that isn’t simply showing off all ofour awesome polling data. This is NOT on of those posts.
Today, though, we are looking at our data from a different perspective. As you probably know if you’ve been paying attention, we collect our data from a vast network of in-content polls distributed across hundreds of news, entertainment, sports, social, and other media sites around the web. We aggregate millions of responses from those sites to produce highly-valid and deep public opinion and consumer research insights. We publish and sell those results to lots of different types of customers.
But here’s the real story-line: All of those websites give us prime real estate on their home pages and, typically, every sub-domain of their site, entirely for free. Our polls will receive over 1 Billion page views this month and growing fast. Again, we pay zero for that space, which, if you do the math on the potential CPM value on the kinds of highly-quality sites we’re on, is saying something.
So why do these sites work with us, you ask? Great question. They do it because we give them a tremendous amount of real-time insight into their audience. We can tell site editors what topics are most interesting and important to their readers. We can tell ad sales executives what kinds of cars, restaurants, credit cards, and thousands of other brands are most popular among their users and why. And, we can do it all while showing them how their site is different if not unique compared to the full web or even just among a peer group of sites.
In today’s uber-competitive digital universe, media companies are not going to thrive among the likes of Google by simply raising their CPM rates by a nickel or two. They are going to do it by leveraging their single biggest asset, THEIR AUDIENCE DATA, to build more sophisticated and profitable businesses. CivicScience can be a critical element in the future of these successful web companies.
Today, we published one of our most thorough Case Studies on this topic, namely, how media companies are “Using In-Content Polling Data to Drive Website Growth.” We hope you will take a moment to read it over and learn about some of the important work we – and our partners – are doing.