In the digital world we live in, tracking and understanding audience behavior is crucial for the success of any media outlet. Website traffic research has become a key tool for optimizing content and advertising, allowing media companies, agencies, and advertisers to make more informed and higher-quality decisions. In this context, the collaboration between the Croatian Association of Digital Publishers (HUDI) and Ipsos offers an innovative solution that provides precise and transparent data on the behavior of the Croatian online audience.
HUDI and Ipsos: Creating a Unique Measurement Standard for Croatia
As an association that brings together the largest Croatian online publishers, HUDI recognized the need for standardized and reliable internet audience measurement. Through collaboration with Ipsos, HUDI has laid the foundation for creating an official “currency” for measuring websites, which not only provides insights into visitor numbers but also offers deeper data on their profile and behavior across Croatian online media. The participation of the largest Croatian online publishers in this project allows for detailed monitoring and comparison of performance across different media entities (websites, applications), and the data obtained from this research will also be used to create higher-quality media plans and better optimization of advertising campaigns.
Our goal is to make the Croatian digital space more attractive for investments by providing transparent and accurate data on audience behavior, while enabling publishers and agencies to better understand how their users interact with online content, directly contributing to better business decisions.
Ipsos with the DotMetrics Project as the Official “Currency” for Measuring Internet Audience
Starting in January 2025, HUDI and Ipsos will become the only official providers of online media traffic measurement in Croatia. This collaboration ensures that, for the first time on the Croatian market, we will have a single measurement that includes all relevant online publishers.
Ipsos already has significant international influence in online media traffic research – we are the official “currency” for measuring internet audiences in the UK, Australia, and Slovenia, and we are preparing to implement this in Belgium and the Netherlands.
HUDI, as a professional body, will oversee the measurement methodology, ensuring that the process is objective and transparent. Additionally, Ipsos, with its advanced analytical tools and high-quality research, provides the highest level of precision in traffic measurement. This collaboration offers a modern solution that will provide precise results even when third-party cookies become obsolete.
What Does This Mean for the Digital Media Market?
From the beginning of 2025, HUDI will become the only provider of traffic measurement services for portals in Croatia. This means that all relevant media will be included in a single measurement, ensuring greater transparency and comparability of data.
This change brings significant benefits for media agencies and advertisers, as they will have access to unique data that ensures better optimization of marketing campaigns and reaching the right audience. Increased transparency and accuracy in measurement results will contribute to the further development of the digital media market in Croatia.
DotMetrics: A Project That Elevates Audience Tracking to a New Level
The key tool for implementing this measurement is DotMetrics – a sophisticated product designed to provide the most relevant data on website visitors, collecting data from various platforms and devices – from personal computers to mobile phones, tablets, and smart TVs.
What makes DotMetrics unique is its robust and reliable device tracking framework, ensuring more comprehensive tracking across different devices. We can track around 95% of devices over a month, compared to less than half that could be tracked using cookies alone. For maximum accuracy, devices are identified and recorded in three different ways: passive method via enhanced domain identification, active method via cookies, and active method using other forms of locally stored data.
This approach, for example, gives us the ability to deduplicate devices, meaning that users who use multiple devices to access a website (e.g., computer and phone) are not counted as different visitors.
Hybrid Methodology for “Currency” Data
DotMetrics uses a hybrid methodology that combines three elements. The first element is technical measurement through codes (tags, SDK) that collect total traffic on the publisher’s media entities, providing information on the type of device and its characteristics, as well as basic metrics (Page Views, Visits, Time Spent).
The second element is separate research (Establishment Survey) that determines the size of the online population, its characteristics, and segments the population into homogeneous groups based on internet usage habits. This provides us with detailed insights into internet usage patterns in Croatia.
The third element is pop-up surveys on publisher websites, where we collect socio-demographic data of visitors, allowing us to further segment users based on various characteristics.
What Do We Do with All This Data?
With the help of the Establishment Survey and measured device data (via measurement codes), we calculate the basic coefficients for converting the number of devices into “people.” These coefficients are further weighted using the demographic structure of the website (pop-up surveys). This allows us to calculate reach for each type of device and for each media entity in the study, taking into account statistics on overlap between different device types.
How Does Measurement Work, and What Are the Benefits for Participants?
Traffic measurement on websites is based on placing measurement codes (tags, SDK) on the publisher’s website and application. Data is collected about the devices accessing the websites and applications, analyzed, and converted into “people.”
For publishers, participating in this research provides important insights into the reach and structure of their audience, giving them the opportunity to better understand which content attracts the most attention and how to optimize their strategies. Agencies, on the other hand, can use this data to create more effective media plans, ensuring that advertising campaigns reach the right audience and maximize return on investment.
In Conclusion: Innovations Shaping the Future of Website Measurement
The collaboration between HUDI and Ipsos represents an important step in the development of the Croatian digital market. Through innovative methodology and advanced technology, the DotMetrics project provides insights into the behavior of online audiences, enabling media, agencies, and advertisers to optimize their strategies and increase the effectiveness of their activities.
Measuring internet audiences is becoming an increasingly important tool for making business decisions, and the Croatian media sector, with the support of HUDI and Ipsos, is gaining tools that comply with global standards. This collaboration not only raises the level of transparency and data accuracy but also encourages the further development of the Croatian digital industry, ensuring its long-term success.
