“My numbers are different than your numbers, and these numbers don’t look like the ones that guy uses.” The vast discrepancies between analytics firms is borderline criminal. This is why page views and visits are crap measurements, and probably always will be.

This article may signal a long-needed change in Web advertising: Advertisers are beginning to understand — really understand — the strengths and limitations of data analysis.

Many advertisers have already jumped on the analytics bandwagon in a basic manner. Most know about page views, visits and other metrics, and they use this information to craft campaigns. The logical extension of this is to move headlong into full-on data analysis, where reams of information allow ad firms to make educated decisions and adaptations on the fly.

While I’m happy to see this happening, there’s a second component that still needs to be addressed: advertisers need to understand that Web-based audiences are inherently different than the broad-based groups aggregated by traditional media. Web audiences aren’t locked in to specific channels or mediums. They can go where they want, whenever they want. As such, people naturally form, disconnect, and re-form. A few massive channels remain (Yahoo, AOL, etc.), but that’s not the norm in the distributed Web world.

My hope is that a new wave of formal data analysis opens advertisers’ eyes to this change. Media companies can pound their chests over subscriptions and micro-payments, but advertising will continue to be a vital revenue stream for digital businesses. The sooner advertisers embrace the true nature of Web audiences, the better for all involved.