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 Even after all that's been written
and explained, even reputable online marketing
publications such as ClickZ.com still don't get RSS
metrics.
In an otherwise good RSS marketing article, Add RSS to
Your Marketing Mix (http://www.clickz.com/experts/crm/actionable_analysis/article.php/3526546),
Heidi Cohen has this to say about RSS metrics:
"From a marketing perspective, RSS's measurability is
still evolving and therefore limited. You can't tell who
has received your feeds as you can with e-mail."
Yes, RSS's measurability is still evolving and probably
will evolve beyond e-mail metrics. In some ways it already
has ...
And it's also true that you can't tell who has received
your feeds ... if you're using the most established RSS
approaches and just the basic technologies.
However, once you connect your feeds with your existing
user databases, you can in fact go beyond what e-mail
metrics offer.
Here are some possibilities ...
a] Use the "unique feed URL" approach, where
each subscriber receives a feed with a unique identifier,
based on which you can track precisely what feeds are
being requested ... namely what anonymous user is
requesting what feed.
b] If you'd like to integrate anonymous feed subscriber
data with named (registered) user data, you can easily
provide feeds only upon registration or only to logged-in
users, and actually connect each unique feed URL with a
named user. Especially if you provide feed customization
this won't be a problem at all. Once you've integrated
this data you can measure every and any interaction your
user has with your feed.
c] If you don't want to force your visitors to register in
order to subscribe to your feed, you can still use the
unique feed URL approach, which you connect with a user
session, cookie or other identifiable information. Once
your RSS feed subscriber registers you can integrate the
data you already collected based on existing feed
interaction and website interaction with his new user
account.
d] The other approach you can use is user authentication,
where you limit access to your feeds with a
username/password combination. If each unique users
receives a unique combination, you can track everything
based on this information.
There are other possibilities as well, and the actual
implementation of those above is somewhat more complicated
than it seems at first sight. It does for example also
require a more complex internet marketing strategy. It
does require using more complex tools than the simplest
RSS publishing solutions available on the market. It does
require integration with your user database and internet
platform.
But the point is that it's not only theoretically
possible, but also in praxis. And in fact simple for
companies with their own advanced internet platforms.
 Just a quick disclaimer ...
a] If your feed gets widely syndicated you can in fact
lose view of who's receiving your feed, even if you're
using unique feed URLs (you can of course measure this as
well, by analyzing user agent data). Using the user
authentication model solves this problem as well.
b] Even if your feed does get widely syndicated, that's
still comparable to your e-mail messages being passed
around by users. And if we take in to account that
measuring open-rates is getting increasingly difficult due
to users blocking images, e-mail metrics don't look that
shiny anymore.
If you'd like to find out more about RSS metrics, simply
start by reading our collection of RSS metrics articles,
reports, interviews and news at http://rssdiary.marketingstudies.net/content/cat_rss_metrics.php
I'm also hoping that there'll soon come a time when
responses like this will no longer be needed, because
marketers will finally understand the power of RSS
metrics.
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