Publishers may optionally report recency of engagement instead of age of source.
Historically, AAM’s age of source reporting has required any nonpaid source to be less than 36 months old. In addition, all nonpaid sources are required to make an analysis of their age by 1-, 2- and 3-year details.
AAM recognizes that this requirement may be labor intensive and costly to maintain which is why we are expanding our reporting options to include recency of engagement as an alternative analysis to reflect the recipient’s involvement with the brand.
Publishers may now optionally report recency of engagement instead of traditional age of source information. Recency reporting replaces reporting the age of the initial recipient source by focusing on other channels where the recipient interacts. This allows the publisher to analyze how recently the recipient engaged with their brand such as digital editions, websites, email newsletters and events.
Key Components of Recency of Engagement
- Recency of engagement should be less than 36 months.
- The analyzed issue for recency reports engagement by distribution categories, such as direct request from recipient, direct request from recipient’s company, and communication other than request.
- Recency of engagement is reported under one or two-year columns. If there is no engagement within 24 months, distribution will be claimed under the “data not available” column.
- Recency of engagement is optional for paid distribution.
- Recency of engagement may be prorated once a year provided the variance to the previous year is less than 10%.
- Acceptable source documents to prove recency (all must be related to the publication brand):
- Purchase of any publisher product or service related to the brand - proof of payment of the product/service to include the purchase date that ties to the subscriber.
- Activation (open or download) of an e-newsletter related to the publication brand - log files or raw data to show opens or downloads of e-newsletters that tie to the subscriber.
- Download or access of any document (whitepaper, lists, etc.) related to the publication brand - log files or raw data to show proof of access that tie to the subscriber.
- Registration or attendance to any publisher event or webinar related to the publication brand - registration list of attendees to include the date and time of the webinar or event.
- Updates or changes to subscriber or subscription information initiated by the subscriber - the back-up information to support the change (e.g., the subscriber history that records the date the change was made).
- Visits to any page on the publication’s website - log files or raw data to show access of the website by the subscriber.
Publisher's Statement Example
