As often quoted in all of the advertising industry pubs, Internet banner advertising and paid search campaigns are increasingly taking larger portions of advertising budgets, and there’s good reason for it. First, we know that the number of Americans using the Internet increases every quarter. And, we know that we can track how many people view our advertisement, how many people clicked on it and how long they stayed on our site as a result. This is incredibly powerful information – information that we cannot necessarily get from traditional advertising.

So with budgets being pulled away from such mediums as TV and out-of-home, those industries are working harder to show accuracy in their audience measurements. Most recently, the Traffic Audit Bureau (TAB), the US out-of-home media auditing organization, announced their “Eyes On” Project that will replace the age-old method of relying solely on traffic counts to guesstimate the number of potential viewers of a particular billboard location, without providing any real demographic type of information. Eyes On will allow us to more accurately place out-of-home advertising in front of the appropriate target audiences.

In addition, Nielsen recently teamed up with Integrated Media Measurement, Inc. (IMMI) to start measuring the number of people watching TV outside of their homes in places like bars, offices and fitness clubs. The TV industry is hoping to show more accurately the number of people who watch ESPN, for example, even if they don’t watch it at home. Ladies, how many of us have unwillingly watched Sports Center as we’re doing cardio at the gym, being served advertisements that have absolutely no interest to us?

As a media buyer and marketer who is guilty of swaying our clients’ media budgets toward online advertising because of the trackability, I am both excited for and wary of the additional data that the traditional advertising mediums are working to provide. For some, like out-of-home, I believe it will help us select out-of-home locations that make the most sense for reaching our target audiences. For others, like the TV metrics, it might start to dilute the accuracy of the information. How many of the people sitting in a bar while SportsCenter is on the five TV sets are actually watching as intently as they would in their own living rooms? Is this just an attempt to boost the numbers in an effort to show reach?

As is true with any data, it needs to be interpreted according to the goal and objectives of the campaign. If our goal is to target sports fans while they are gathering with friends at their local watering hole to sway them to try the newest light beer, then it makes sense. If not, then we need to narrow the data down to our specific target audience.