Marketers Still Not Getting RSS Metrics – How Can We Actually Measure RSS

Even after all that’s been written and explained, even reputable online marketing posts like ClickZ still don’t get RSS metrics.

In a good RSS marketing article, Add RSS to Your Marketing Mix, Heidi Cohen has this to say about RSS metrics:

“From a marketing perspective, the measurement capability of RSS is still evolving and therefore limited. You cannot tell who has received your feeds like you can with email.”

Yes, the measurement capabilities of RSS are still evolving and will likely evolve beyond email metrics. Somehow it already has …

And it is also true that you cannot know who has received your feeds … if you are using the more established RSS approaches and only basic technologies.

However, once you connect your feeds to your existing user databases, you can go beyond what email metrics offer.

Here are some possibilities …

a]Use the “single source URL” approach, where each subscriber receives a source with a unique identifier, based on which they can precisely track which sources are requested … that is, which anonymous user requests which source.

b]If you want to integrate anonymous feed subscriber data with named (registered) user data, you can easily provide feeds only when signing up or only to logged in users and actually connect each unique feed URL with a user designated. Especially if you provide feed customization, this won’t be a problem at all. Once you’ve integrated this data, you can measure each and every iteration your user has with your feed.

c]If you do not want to force your visitors to sign up to subscribe to your feed, you can still use the single feed URL approach, which connects to a user session, cookie or other identifiable information. Once your RSS feed subscriber signs up, you can integrate the data you already collected based on the interaction of the existing feed and the website’s interaction with your new user account.

d]The other approach you can use is user authentication, where you limit access to your feeds with a username and password combination. If each unique user receives a unique combination, you can track everything based on this information.

There are other possibilities as well, and the actual implementation of the above is somewhat more complicated than it appears at first glance. For example, it also requires a more complex internet marketing strategy. It requires the use of more complex tools than the simplest RSS publishing solutions available on the market. Requires integration with your user database and Internet platform.

But the fact is that it is not only possible theoretically, but also in practice. And indeed simple for companies with their own advanced Internet platforms.

Just a short disclaimer …

a]If your feed is widely distributed, you may actually lose track of who is receiving your feed, even if you are using unique feed URLs (you can of course also measure this by analyzing user agent data). Using the user authentication model also solves this problem.

b]Even if your feed is widely distributed, it is still comparable to your emails that users broadcast. And when you consider that measuring open rates is becoming increasingly difficult due to users blocking images, email metrics no longer look so brilliant.

If you want to learn more about RSS metrics, just start by reading our collection of articles, reports, interviews, and news about RSS metrics at http://rssdiary.marketingstudies.net/content/cat_rss_metrics.php

I also hope that there will soon come a time when answers like this are no longer necessary, because marketers will finally understand the power of RSS metrics.

Copyright 2005 Rok Hrastnik