Adobe Systems Incorporated announced the immediate availability of Adobe AudienceResearch, a new audience measurement tool that provides publishers and digital marketers with certified metrics on the size and engagement of digital audiences for websites, mobile applications and digital magazine editions. These key metrics are captured by Adobe SiteCatalyst, an online analytics application, and provide publishers with the information critical to attract advertising dollars. AudienceResearch is available at no additional cost to SiteCatalyst customers. In conjunction with AudienceResearch, the company also announced the general availability of the Adobe Audience Certification Program. Under this program, publishers become Adobe Certified Publishers, meaning Adobe has certified that their digital audience data meets certain criteria regarding the accuracy of data collection and reporting. Adobe Certified Publishers can contribute their data to the AudienceResearch tool. AudienceResearch provides census-based measurement of metrics, meaning that the metrics are generated by counting all relevant traffic, a method considered more accurate and representative of actual traffic and behavior than panel-based methods. Panel-based methods monitor the behavior of a small group of volunteer consumers (i.e. the panel) and then use statistics to generate estimate metrics. The statistically generated results from panel-based estimates often differ significantly from census-based results and have been a point of controversy in the advertising industry. Additionally, publishers using the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite to create digital magazine editions for tablet devices may elect to have their metrics automatically certified as analytics is natively built into the Digital Publishing Suite. This native integration ensures the integrity of data collection. http://www.adobe.com/