Managing the amount of data that PPM provides is as big of a challenge as evaluating what the numbers mean. When compared to the diary data, every week is the equivalent of a trend (but more demos) and every month is the same as a book.

Here are ideas on how to manage the data. First decide what is most important for you. What demos, dayparts and details (weekly cume, daily cume, ATE, AWTE). Avoid trying to evaluate everything otherwise you will be buried in data for hours and days on end. Weeklies will fluxuate more than monthlies just like monthly trend releases did in the diary system. Use weeklies to identify trends, a pattern that has been occuring for three, four or five weeks is a pretty good sign that there has been a change. Use the monthly data to evaluate the performance of the station - how is each daypart performing against the overall station? You can also check specific days, shows, even down to the minute to see the impact of major stories and special programming. When you have a full three month span under PPM combine those three months and evaluate the data. It will give you a chance to evaluate performance against the last several diary books for your market. Also combining the three months creates a better statistical sample.

What do you look for in PPM? Share your thoughts here.