Hearst mag sites' unique visitors up 50% in 2015

Hearst Magazines saw a 50% increase in digital traffic in 2015, to reach an all-time high of 163 million unique visitors, according to a story in AdAge's FishbowlNY. These include

• Esquire.com with 15 million uniques.
• MarieClaire.com a record with 8.4 million uniques, a 179 percent increase since December 2014.
• PopularMechanics.com 8.3 million uniques, marking its fourth straight month of increases.
• RedbookMag.com a record with 7 million uniques.

New, streamlined 2-page AAM audit form coming

The Alliance for Audited Media has reached consensus on a simplified, two-page magazine report for U.S. and Canadian publications which it covers. The new rules take effect in the second half of 2015 (the actual reports will not be available until December 2015) and the AAM says it will present data in "a clearer and more concise format". Additional data will remain available in the Media Intelligence Center tab, including per-issue stats.  You can see the prototype here or view a video tutorial. 

Mags Canada unveils set of standard metrics for digital editions

Magazines Canada has published a new set of standard metrics to provide advertisers, agencies and publishers with a consistent measure of engagement and readership in digital magazine editions. 

The guidelines outline a set of standard measurements in five categories of audience data. 

• total unique readers per issue
• total number of sessions per issue
• total amount of time spent per reader per session
• average number of sessions per reader per issue and 
• total accumulated time spent per reader per issue.

These would be measured over a period of 30 to 90 days (depending on the frequency of the title.) The information would be reported as a 6-issue rolling average on a 14-week release. Provision is made for special interest publications (SIPs) to offer a 120-day metric.

"This is an important first step in marketing our magazine media brands on multiple platforms," said Mark Jamison, CEO Magazines Canada. "By working together and with our partners in measurement organizations, Canada's magazine media will provide a better understanding of the remarkable connectivity audiences have with our brands on every device."

Onward and upward -- Canadian Magazines blog tops 1 million visits

This blog started on a whim a little over 7 years ago, February 25, 2005. One of the early posts was about the concentration of funding for literary and cultural magazines in two federal ridings in Toronto and a national boom in magazine startups.  There has been a lot of sturm und drang in the industry since, but clearly no lack of interest in the topic; this week Canadian Magazines topped 1 million visits and almost 1.5 million page views.

What's a reader worth a year? That's a metric worth tracking

The average revenue per user (ARPU) is a metric that more and more publishers are, or should be, using to analyze their  plans for online publishing and to determine how much money they need to make a profit from readership, according to a post in paidContent.  Matt Shanahan of Scout Analytics says his clients are aiming at a target figure of $10 a year. Revenue becomes as important (or more important) as audience.

However, Shanahan freely admits that ARPU can vary wildly: for example, the comparison of People magazine making $409 revenue/visitor/year in 2009 and Demand Media getting only $1.60.

On to our second million: Canadian Magazines blog passes 1 million page views

Sometime last evening (June 1), the Canadian Magazines blog crested 1,000,000 page views since it was started in March 2005. Onward and upward.