Posted on 14 September 2009 by Leon Spencer
There have been many opinions as to the effectiveness of online display ads. Most of the articles I have seen recently state that display ads are still an effective way to get a message across, but that the click-thru rate of a display ad, not being real high, is not always that important.
I recently found a study that talks about this point and thought I would share it:
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007265
Posted on 24 August 2009 by Leon Spencer
Just about every month without fail I get emails from clients asking for a CTR report for their ads. This is definitely a measure that needs to be considered but I don’t believe it should be the sole measurement or the most important measurement when advetising online.
I recently read an article by Katie Risch, the Director of Media Relations for Centro. So,I thought I would share it.
Click Throughs, Not the Final Answer
By Katie Risch, Centro’s Director of Media Relations
We’ve all been victims of campaigns with never-ending optimizations. Just when you’ve finished moving impressions from one ad unit to another and have reissued new IOs, your client wants you to shift budgets to a different ad unit or site that is showing higher click-through rates (CTR). Oh, the infamous CTR. This rate seems to be considered one of the primary performance drivers in the industry, but when you think about it, how effective is the click through rate as a success metric?
In my opinion, CTRs shouldn’t always be the be-all-end-all measurements of campaign performance. A recent study conducted by comScore, ”The Silent Click: Building Brands Online,” focused on measuring ad performance beyond click-throughs and looked at three specific user actions across 80 brand campaigns on 200 sites over a month’s time. These specific actions were:
1) searches related to the advertisers’ brands;
2) traffic driven to advertisers’ sites; and
3) e-commerce tied to advertisers’ brands.
The control group (users who saw the ads) took action after they viewed the ad, which showed that although they didn’t click on the ad, they were still connected and engaged with the products they were exposed to. They were much more likely to visit that brand’s website later in the month and spent 50% more time on the product’s website than the average user.
Whether the user clicked on the ad or not, when they saw it they still were much more likely to engage with the brand at a later point in time than someone not exposed to the ad at all.
Another study conducted earlier this year by CBS Vision and McPheters & Company examined a similar theory stating that ads do not need to be clicked to be deemed “effective.” In their analysis, Internet users were asked to surf the web for 30 minutes. During this time, they viewed ads which were placed in relevant content and ads that were not. Ads running on Web sites with related content were 61% more likely to be recalled than ads running on sites with unrelated content. Search and portal sites generated the lowest recall levels. Local sites have a unique advantage in the industry. They have the ability to marry their content with advertisers who want to create a connection with the local community. Where else on the Internet can you do this?
The results of these studies bode well for marketers who are looking for other ways to measure and optimize campaigns versus solely relying on CTRs. This year more than ever, it’s important to reevaluate the placements on your site and be open to creative units that will suit online branding campaigns with a tailored local message. As more of these studies are released, advertisers will continue to see that click-throughs are not the final answer.
