Australian Advertisers Face Stats Gap After All

* NB this article was amended shortly after publishing, to clarify that Nielsen is continuing with its measurement service, just not as the official audited AMAA supplier *

Australia will have no audited web traffic metrics for the month of October, with Nielsen's deal with the AMAA ceasing as of this week and the replacement service(s) resulting from the latter's tender not yet ready.

Nielsen, previously the AMAA's single source for metrics, chose not to participate in a new tender which involves using several partners for a range of different measures. The contract for this was put out in May, and press reports suggest that comScore and Effective Measure are still bidding for the account.

Nielsen's AMAA contract was supposed to cease at the end of August, but last month the measurement giant struck a last-minute deal with the body, supposedly to ensure publishers and advertisers did not face a month without audited circulation statistics. Now, however, Australian online publication Mumbrella reports that online publishers are without an audited traffic metric for at least the next month, and [non-customers of Nielsen] are being told to remove Nielsen's tags from their sites or face additional fees. Nielsen's own traffic measurement service will continue to operate without a gap but will not be AMAA audited.

AMAA CEO Paul Dovas apparently told Mumbrella 'it makes sense for there now to be a break before we move to the new provider' - leaving some observers scratching their heads as to why. The new supplier will be announced on 21st October, after which AMAA members will have just ten days to install new tags onto their sites before auditing resumes on November 1st.

Web site: www.auditbureau.org.au .