The company will shift the focus of its ad performance reports towards campaign reach, post-impression analysis and brand awareness. These methods are similar to those used in offline performance measurement, the company said.
Scot McLernon, executive vice president of advertising sales at MarketWatch, said, "Click-through rates are a misleading statistic -- they aren't indicative of raised awareness or of consumer interest. Too many web advertisers and potential advertisers have been misled by this metric."
Earlier this year, MarketWatch warned that full-year revenues would fall 5% because of a decline in online advertising. Chairman and chief executive Larry Kramer said that the advertising market would be slow for some time and, after an increase in the second quarter, the third quarter will be less positive and the fourth quarter will see an upturn.