“Uniques” Are Not That Important

If you work in online advertising (and really, who doesn’t), then you have probably been on either end of the following conversation thousands of times:

A: That website gets a ton of traffic.
B: What does “at ton” mean?
A: Last month, they had ten quatrillion pageviews.
B: How many uniques?
A: Only a hundred and fifty billion.
B: Heh. That’s what I thought.

It’s very common to talk about a site’s number of unique users as some kind of litmus test for how much traffic the site is really getting. Perhaps the overwhelmingly positive connotation comes from the world itself. That is, hearing the word “unique” reminds us of those cozy bedtime tuck-ins when our mothers told us that we were special snowflakes destined to save the world from Nazis or something.

But in reality, uniques aren’t that special. For example, my recent post about my relationship with Kari Ferrell has received over a thousand pageviews, and almost all of them were uniques. All that means is that very few people have bothered to come back (so far) to check out what else I might have to say. In other words, I got the traffic, but it’s not “sticky.” This is common. Sudden increases in traffic to a website are almost always accompanied by a sudden increase in the percentage of unique visitors. Then the moment passes, and you’re back to dealing with your regulars again (plus, hopefully, a few additions).

If you are a direct-response marketer with no desire to actually build a loyal audience, then you might be happy with a high percentage of uniques. Advertisers like that are interested in quantity, not quality, so they often figure, the more eyes, the better.

But, even in the most cynical scenario, maximizing uniques is still the wrong approach. Read the rest of this entry »