Effective Measure to Recruit SA Online Audience Panel

South Africa's Digital Media and Marketing Association (DMMA) is set to launch what it claims will be the country's first online audience measurement panel - part of an initiative to ensure accurate traffic reporting for all the country's digital media platforms.

Effective Measure was awarded DMMA's audience measurement contract, previously held by Nielsen, in February; and will use a proprietary solution employing Digital Helix technology to overcome issues with cookie deletion and unique visitor audience calculation.

As the first stage of the project, Effective Measure is recruiting panellists for DMMA's new Online Audience Measurement Panel, and will monitor and measure panellists' web browsing activities using software downloaded and installed on their PCs. Resulting data will then be combined with existing DMMA member information.

Commenting on the initiative, Josh Adler, Head of the DMMA's Measurement Tender states: 'For the first time we will have a view of South African browser activity on non-DMMA member sites like facebook, Google and YouTube, allowing us to better understand the true size and appeal of the local digital market. Armed with this data, we can give South African brands and advertisers a clearer idea of how many people and which audience segments they could be reaching by allocating more of their budgets to online advertising.'

Panel recruitment has just commenced, and Effective Measure is set to deliver the first set of data in the third quarter.

Web sites: www.dmma.co.za and www.effectivemeasure.com .