Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite to Include MPA Tablet Metrics

Back in May, the Association of Magazine Media (still using its old acronym MPA) released suggested metrics for tablet editions of magazines. This week,

Back in May, the Association of Magazine Media (still using its old acronym MPA) released suggested metrics for tablet editions of magazines.This week, Adobe announced that it will include four of the MPA metrics in its Digital Publishing Suite, namely:

total number of tablet readers per issue
total number of sessions per issue
average time spent per reader per issue
average number of sessions per reader per issue

The metrics will be available to all customers of Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, Enterprise and Professional editions. Adobe will also share the implementation methodology with the industry at large. (You can find out more about the analytics here.)That should help the MPA, which is also working with Zinio, Google, Nook, Adobe, CDS Global, Palm Coast Data and other production and fulfillment companies to develop software to track the suggested metrics, part of what’s now being called the MPA’s Digital Edition Standardization Initiative (DESI).Over the past year, digital circulation of magazines has doubled, but the number remains frightfully low at 3.3% of all paid circulation. However, the new MPA metrics will make tracking and ad sales more viable. But most importantly, they will allow subscription tablet publications to measure subscriber lifetimes and initiate retention marketing at strategic times to diminish drop-off.Image: (c) meedanphotos via flickr.