PLIWatch.org announces August/September 2006 metrics

October 10, 2006 - Alton, Illinois

Payday Loan Industry Watch (www.pliwatch.org) announced today its second set of metrics, which cover the period of August 1st to September 30th, 2006.

Managing Partner Robert James: "We have a good upward trend [since June] going into the peak payday loan season. We expect to see good numbers during the holidays as more people research the industry. We will just have to wait and see. I'm hopeful we can avoid the post-holiday slump because our audience varies."

Managing Editor William Stotler: "Our predictions were pretty close, overall, which makes us feel better about being able to do reasonable predictive analysis. What was surprising is that as more people come to the site the demographic of the audience is skewing more toward the institutional and away from the public/private. We didn't expect to see that--but we're happy that institutions can use us as a resource. What's really interesting is even when a segment 'dropped' its 'share' it still had more visitors within it than during the previous period [June/July]."

Current Metrics

PLIWatch's metrics for August and September 2006 are:

• On average, 1,563 unique visits per month. (+436)
• On average, 2.91 pageviews per unique visit. (-0.12)
• On average, 78% of all unique visits are from new visitors. (+5%)
• On average, 22% of all unique visits are from returning visitors. (-5%)
• On average, returning visitors revisit every 5 days. (+1)
• For 14 podcasts, between 161 and 245 listeners per podcast. (+44/+14)
• Considered in aggregate, the Site Audience is estimated to fall into the following segments:
  • 46% (-6%) - General Public (Includes loan seekers and activists [83%], and non-industry businesses, such as law firms [17%])
  • 26% (-1%) - Payday Loan Industry Operators, Management, and Other Staff
  • 18% (+4%) - Payday Loan Industry Affiliates (marketers, advertisers, and service firms)
  •  6% (+5%) - Organizations (government, community, other institutions)
  •  4% (-2%) - Unclassifiable (cannot determine segment)

Forward-Looking Metrics

Based on current trends, PLIWatch predicts the following metrics for December 1st:

• Unique visits will increase to between 1640 and 1910 per month.
• Average pageviews per unique visitor will remain steady at about 3.
• Of total unique visits, new visitors will account for between 79% and 81% of the total.
• Of total unique visits, return visitors will account for between 19% and 21% of the total.
• The returning visitor revisiting rate is expected to remain flat at an average of 5 days between visits.
• Podcast listener share on a per-podcast basis will increase to between 172 and 265 podcast listeners per podcast.
• A slight increase from 26% to 27% is predicted for the "Payday Loan Industry Operators, Management, and Other Staff" segment, as this group finds PLIWatch. A slight increase from 6% to 8% is predicted for the "Organizations" segment, as this group finds PLIWatch. Additional shifts cannot be predicted at this time as enough aggregate data is not available and the June/July to August/September shifts were, frankly, unpredictable.

Metric Analysis Methods and Accuracy

(1) All current metrics dealing with unique visits, pageviews, new/returning visitors, and podcast usage are quantitative unique visitor and unique visit metrics. The numbers are based on clean server log data. I.e., Prior to calculations "noisy" non-visitor traffic sources (such as spiders and remote XML pulls) were removed from the data set.

(2) All forward-looking metrics are based on Microsoft Excel trendlines with R-squared values of no less than 0.950 (considered "very accurate"). Polynomial or logarithmic regression trend types were used, as appropriate to the data set.

(3) All Site Audience statistics were compiled by cross-checking visitor Source, Referrer, Keyword Phrase (as applicable), and Pages Viewed to determine from browsing habits the interest of the visitor--and thereby the segment into which the visitor should be placed. Hence, the percentages shown are qualitative. However, the percentages and spreads can be considered reasonably accurate, with no more than a 6% margin of error shared between the top three percentage figures, with a skew away from "General Public" and into the "Payday Loan Industry" segments.

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Press Release Source

William Stotler, Managing Editor, PLIWatch
314.255.2242 / PLIWatch.org / 194 Sering Avenue / Alton, IL 62002 USA

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