6% of Users Are Responsible for 50% of Clicks on Ads
A new study conducted by Starcom, Tacoda and comScore aptly named “Natural Born Clickers” reveals that 6% of online users are responsible for 50% of all clicks on online ads.
Heavy clickers skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40,000. Heavy clickers behave very differently online than the typical Internet user, and while they spend four times more time online than non-clickers, their spending does not proportionately reflect this very heavy Internet usage. Heavy clickers are also relatively more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career services sites – a markedly different surfing pattern than non-clickers.
This study’s conclusion is that while click-through rates will remain a good metric for direct response campaigns, it’s use as a metric for effectiveness on brand building campaigns is somewhat questionable.
“For many campaigns, the branding effect of the ads is what’s really important and generating clicks is more of an ancillary benefit. Ultimately, judging a campaign’s effectiveness by clicks can be detrimental because it overlooks the importance of branding while simultaneously drawing conclusions from a sub-set of people who may not be representative of the target audience.”
Discussion on the subject on Techmeme.
[Via ReadWriteWeb]
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Comments
Date: February 14, 2008 | Time: 6:46 am
Very interesting study, but I’m not sure if the data should be relied-upon by site owners. What will keep the same people clicking over and over? Also, focusing on such a small percentage of users may cause you to neglect the majority of readers…
Date: February 14, 2008 | Time: 2:59 pm
This study does not suggest that you should design your site for this percentage, but that click-through rate is not the best metric when talking about an online ad campaigns success. You should always design your site to your primary target group and not just the people that click your ads.
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