Google inspired by Wakoopa?

Search giant dives into passive audience measurement

Classical advertising research was all about the audience: did my ad reach the audience? Did they like it? Were they engaged? Did it have impact? With online advertisement, we forgot about researching the audience. We had a shortcut! If they clicked on it, it had impact.

At Wakoopa, we believe that we can deliver better service to the advertiser. By doing ‘classical’ audience measurement, in a modern way. Our passive audience measurement technology registers all online behaviour of the individuals that have installed our tracker-app.

We know their sociodemo’s (because we have asked for it), their online ad-exposure and their browsing and searching behaviour on the web. We can help you build single source panels, for doing in depth research on your target audience and their media consumption.

In 2009, the introduction of our technology in market research led to critical questions. Do people really want to download a tracker-app? How much do we need to pay as incentive or compensation? Does it really add value above server-side and cookie-based data?

The recent launch of Google’s Screenwise panel in the US shows that we were right in our approach.

The new panel is built ‘to learn more about how everyday people use the Internet’. It ‘is similar to those used by many market research companies’, works with a user-side browser extension (Chrome) and is used by Google to ‘improve products and services and make a better online experience for everyone’.

And yes, people do want to download a tracker-app and be a part of a panel. Within a day, Google received over 8000 applications and closed the subscriptions due to panel size limitations.

And yes, the economical value of the exchange of someone’s internet statistics are confirmed by the Google panel: Screenwise offers a $5-Amazon gift card as incentive for installation and for each quarter continuation. Wakoopa’s guideline is $12 per panelist per year.

And yes, the added value of audience research seems to be acknowledged. According to Google, the anonymous Screenwise data are to be shared with advertisers, academics, publishers and broadcasting networks.

We believe that individuals become - more and more - aware that their internet statistics are valuable. They are – more and more - willing to exchange these against something which is valuable for them. Wakoopa will cater this exchange. We will continue optimizing it for the individual and we give corporations true insights on the digital lives of all our fellow planet inhabitants. By the coolest possible technology.

I’m happy to see that we’re no longer alone in this.

- Piet Hein van Dam, CEO