Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE), like Regina George, PR professionals have a love/hate relationship with this popular metric. It is a no-fuss way to track and evaluate how much value a media coverage has, but whether it truly represents the value of the PR department is a debate that we don’t have to get into now.

At Meltwater, AVE is available for online editorial articles and calculated by multiplying the number of website visitors monthly (x) by the probability of 2.5% and a dollar value of 0.37 USD. 

AVE = x * 0.025 * 0.37

The monthly website visitors are extracted from our SimilarWeb partner. For sources with less than 500 website visitors monthly, reach and AVE values will be reflected as 0.

In this post, I’m going to cover ways you can:

• Extract the AVE value for individual articles;
• Extract the AVE value for a period; and
• Customize the AVE value

Follow the steps below to:

Extract AVE Value for Individual Articles

1. Go to Explore and click on the search containing the news articles
2. Select the articles that you would like to extract AVE values for

3. Click Download and select either CSV or Excel format

4. Once the download is ready, you will see a purple notification at the top-right under Alerts
5. Click on the notification, download the CSV / Excel file, and open the file.

6. Scroll to the column containing the AVE value (this is in USD)

Extract the AVE Value for a Period

Option 1: Using the Excel file downloaded following the Extract AVE value for individual articles steps, SUM up the AVE values.

Option 2: Create an Analyze Dashboard and use the AVE widget

Here are the steps:

1. Go to Analyze
2. Create a new dashboard by clicking Get Started

3. Select a Blank Dashboard

4. Click Add Insights

5. Select Total AVE to add to the dashboard

6. In the Update Settings panel on the right-hand side, select the Explore Search containing the online editorial news articles you would like to calculate AVE for and change the date range from the default Last 7 days to your desired calculation period.

7. Click Apply to generate the Total AVE for the period.

Customizing the AVE Value

By default, the AVE value is in USD. You can configure this to your local currency with a few extra clicks!

Using the downloaded CSV or Excel File:

1. Once you have downloaded the CSV or Excel file following the steps under the Extract AVE value for individual articles section, create a column beside the AVE column.
2. To convert the AVE value to your desired currency, use the Excel function and multiply the AVE value in USD by the exchange rate.

Using the Analyze Dashboard Insight:

1. Click on Edit Insight

2. In the Update Settings panel that appears on the right, click Configuration Settings

3. Convert the AVE value from USD to your desired currency and replace the AVE value. e.g. 0.37 US Dollars is 1.65 Malaysian Ringgit.

4. Click Apply to apply changes and voila! You have your AVE value in your desired currency.

This sums up the ways that you can derive the AVE value from our platform and customize it according to your desired exchange rate! As always, please feel free to contact us at help@meltwater.com to speak with our product team if you are facing any difficulties.