While most people track Gawker Media's influence via reach metrics like pageviews or uniques, we've been quietly tending a metric that explains something more important — our depth.

While distributing content across the web is essential for attracting the interest of Internet passersby, courting these wanderers, massaging them into occasional visitors, and finally gaining their affection as daily readers is far more important. This core audience — borne of a compounding of word of mouth, search referrals, article recommendations, and successive enjoyed visits that result in regular readership — drives our rich site cultures and premium advertising products.

The Metrics

We've been measuring this recurring reader affection as branded traffic (direct type-in visits + branded search queries in Google Analytics) for a few years and are happy to report that we've seen a nonstop upward trend in the absolute volume of this segment of our readership:

In 2009, a total of 360 million visits to Gawker Media properties originated with branded traffic (typing gizmodo.com in an address bar or using the keyword 'gawker' in a search form). That means readers asked for us by name nearly 1 million times per day last year.

But it's not just an increase in volume. The composition of branded traffic against all traffic has increased as well. A full third of our audience sessions now begin with a declared intent to visit our sites — up from a quarter of audience sessions three years ago. This compositional increase is hard-won given the proliferation of content promotion across social media channels in the last year. Despite a distributed environment, our core audience growth rate has exceeded our overall traffic growth rate. With ever more ways to find content indirectly these days, that direct traffic achievement is impressive.

Looking Ahead

As reach no longer differentiates major digital properties, we're examining new traffic metrics that frame a richer understanding of the visitor segments that comprise these large web populations. Branded traffic is one such measure, illuminating a publisher's true following. These recurring visitors weave content engagement and advertising ROI into our communities.* And consequently, this core readership is the audience segment for whom a publisher's halo is brightest and for whom brand marketing is most effective. So yep, we'll be keeping an eye on this.

*Branded traffic visitors spend more time on our properties (1 minute and 31 seconds more than average) and view more pages of our content (nearly 4 pages per visit at mutiple visits per day). They are also the primary audience for front door roadblocks, one of our most effective advertising products as measured by brand studies and ad unit performance.