RSS Headline Item Click-Through Rate
This is the second is a series of blog posts discussing a variety of RSS Metrics. Please note that the names I use for various RSS Metrics in this blog are my own and may not be standard. In truth, there are no standards, hence why I've made up my own terms - albeit based on terms used for other types of Internet-related metrics. These terms are subject to change in later postings (but will be identified if they change).
Before we can calculate I-CTR for a particular day, we need to define some terms:
RSS Feed URL
This is the URL of the RSS/XML or Atom/XML file, or generator, that represents the RSS Feed. (By generator, I mean any web script that dynamically generates RSS or Atom content.)
RSS Headline Items
When you view an RSS Feed in a typical standalone RSS Reader, you usually see a Feed list in a left window pane, a list of headline items in a top-right window pane, and the description of the selected headline in a bottom-right window pane. Each time you click on a different headline item, you will see the associated description displayed in the bottom pane.
RSS Item Description
Each headline has an associated description. This is usually either a direct excerpt of the full "story" or a summary of the "story".
RSS Item Details Page
This is the web page that contains the "full text" of an RSS headline item. So if you are running a newsfeed, for each item you will have a headline, a description (summary), and the full-story. The full story usually appears by itself on a web page. Depending on the services you are offering, the full story may be on your own web site or elsewhere (we assume here that it is on yours). Note that the some RSS Feeds display the full-text of each item in the feed instead of descriptions. We are assuming here, that we are not dealing with such Feeds. All RSS Readers display a link from an item's description to the full-text story's web page (providing the feed contains such links).
DR - Daily Readership
The ADR, Average Daily Readership, was explained in a previous posting. The DR is the Readership for a given day. It is the number of unique IP addresses that requested ANY details page. For example, if 1000 unique IP addresses requested anywhere from, say, 1-10, details pages each today, then the DR for today is 1000.
DS - Daily Subscribers
This value is an upper bound on DR. DS is the number of unique IP addresses that requested the RSS Feed URL on a given day (via an "update feed" command in their RSS Reader). Note that the reason DS does not usually equal DR is that not everyone who updates a feed reads any of the items. If they do read an item, they may or may not click on the "read details" link for an item. So while there may be 1000 unique feed requests on an given day, maybe only 300 subscribers actually read any details pages.
Item Click-Through Rate - I-CTR
This term refers to a metric that measures the relative popularity of a particular RSS Feed headline item. The assumptions are that all subscribers use a standalone RSS Reader to view a feed. (For simplicity, we are ignoring web-based RSS aggregation services.) Furthermore, we are assuming that all RSS Reader applications only show a headline's description if explicitly requested when the subscriber selects a headline. (Compare this to some RSS Readers that simultaneously show all item headlines and their descriptions each time the feed is updated.)
The Feed CTR (F-CTR) for a given day is just the DR divided by the DS, both for the same given day. So if 1000 unique IP addresses requested the Feed URL that day but only 300 unique IP addresses requested one or more details pages, then the F-CTR = DR/DS = 300/1000 = 0.3 = 30% click-through rate for the entire feed.
If you want to calculate the I-CTR (CTR for a single item), calculate the DR(i) = DR for this item. For example, let's say you want the DR(i) for item 1 in the feed. Let's say that 150 unique IP addresses requested the details page for headline item 1. So DR(1) = 150. Then the I-CTR for item 1 is I-CTR(1) = 150/DS = 150/1000 = 0.15 = 15% click-through rate.
There is a way to achieve a more accurate I-CTR, however it depends on being able to tell when the description of a particular headline item is viewed. There is a method called "pixl tracking" that places a visible or invisible image into each Feed item's description. The image must reside on a web site that you have access to. Futhermore, you need a unique way to identify each Feed item. You can then count the number of times unique IP addresses viewed the description for a particular item by counting accesses to the image. I'll refer to this as DS(i), or the number of subscribers for the day for item i. DS(i) is less than or equal to DS. We'll discuss pixl tracking in greater depth in a later post.
(c) Copyright 2005, Raj Kumar Dash, http://netmetrics.blogspot.com
Before we can calculate I-CTR for a particular day, we need to define some terms:
RSS Feed URL
This is the URL of the RSS/XML or Atom/XML file, or generator, that represents the RSS Feed. (By generator, I mean any web script that dynamically generates RSS or Atom content.)
RSS Headline Items
When you view an RSS Feed in a typical standalone RSS Reader, you usually see a Feed list in a left window pane, a list of headline items in a top-right window pane, and the description of the selected headline in a bottom-right window pane. Each time you click on a different headline item, you will see the associated description displayed in the bottom pane.
RSS Item Description
Each headline has an associated description. This is usually either a direct excerpt of the full "story" or a summary of the "story".
RSS Item Details Page
This is the web page that contains the "full text" of an RSS headline item. So if you are running a newsfeed, for each item you will have a headline, a description (summary), and the full-story. The full story usually appears by itself on a web page. Depending on the services you are offering, the full story may be on your own web site or elsewhere (we assume here that it is on yours). Note that the some RSS Feeds display the full-text of each item in the feed instead of descriptions. We are assuming here, that we are not dealing with such Feeds. All RSS Readers display a link from an item's description to the full-text story's web page (providing the feed contains such links).
DR - Daily Readership
The ADR, Average Daily Readership, was explained in a previous posting. The DR is the Readership for a given day. It is the number of unique IP addresses that requested ANY details page. For example, if 1000 unique IP addresses requested anywhere from, say, 1-10, details pages each today, then the DR for today is 1000.
DS - Daily Subscribers
This value is an upper bound on DR. DS is the number of unique IP addresses that requested the RSS Feed URL on a given day (via an "update feed" command in their RSS Reader). Note that the reason DS does not usually equal DR is that not everyone who updates a feed reads any of the items. If they do read an item, they may or may not click on the "read details" link for an item. So while there may be 1000 unique feed requests on an given day, maybe only 300 subscribers actually read any details pages.
Item Click-Through Rate - I-CTR
This term refers to a metric that measures the relative popularity of a particular RSS Feed headline item. The assumptions are that all subscribers use a standalone RSS Reader to view a feed. (For simplicity, we are ignoring web-based RSS aggregation services.) Furthermore, we are assuming that all RSS Reader applications only show a headline's description if explicitly requested when the subscriber selects a headline. (Compare this to some RSS Readers that simultaneously show all item headlines and their descriptions each time the feed is updated.)
The Feed CTR (F-CTR) for a given day is just the DR divided by the DS, both for the same given day. So if 1000 unique IP addresses requested the Feed URL that day but only 300 unique IP addresses requested one or more details pages, then the F-CTR = DR/DS = 300/1000 = 0.3 = 30% click-through rate for the entire feed.
If you want to calculate the I-CTR (CTR for a single item), calculate the DR(i) = DR for this item. For example, let's say you want the DR(i) for item 1 in the feed. Let's say that 150 unique IP addresses requested the details page for headline item 1. So DR(1) = 150. Then the I-CTR for item 1 is I-CTR(1) = 150/DS = 150/1000 = 0.15 = 15% click-through rate.
There is a way to achieve a more accurate I-CTR, however it depends on being able to tell when the description of a particular headline item is viewed. There is a method called "pixl tracking" that places a visible or invisible image into each Feed item's description. The image must reside on a web site that you have access to. Futhermore, you need a unique way to identify each Feed item. You can then count the number of times unique IP addresses viewed the description for a particular item by counting accesses to the image. I'll refer to this as DS(i), or the number of subscribers for the day for item i. DS(i) is less than or equal to DS. We'll discuss pixl tracking in greater depth in a later post.
(c) Copyright 2005, Raj Kumar Dash, http://netmetrics.blogspot.com
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