Who Are the Ad Clickers?
For all the success of the pay-per-click advertising model, which has made Google’s AdSense program such a booming success, I’ve always been curious about who actually clicks on ads - PPC or otherwise.
It’s certainly not me, and I’ve never come across anyone who admitted they enthusiasticallly clicked on AdSense ads because they were so relevant and useful.
But there are 10s of millions of people who are ad clickers. Who are these people? According to adpophenia, a study done by AOL Global Advertising suggested that 99% of U.S. online users don’t click on ads, and of the 1% who do click on ads, most only click once a month. It turns out the heavy clickers are mostly older women living in the Midwest U.S. Their biggest interest is sweepstakes.
So should advertisers be discouraged by low click-through rates? Are low click-through rates being ignored because they would puncture the bullishness now surrounding the online advertising market’s rapid growth?
The is: yes and no. If you’re an advertising looking to do targeted advertising while have a tight control on your spending, the PPC model is a solid way to go. Since it’s performance-based, you only pay if you generate some interest, which is why it’s so appealing.
For advertisers using vehicles other than PPC, online advertising is no different than traditional media in that it’s about building brand presence. People may not immediately act on your ad but the idea, in theory, is it registers because it’s relevant and targeted. What makes online different than traditional media is you can deliver ads in a much more effective and measurable way.
Still, it would be interesting to learn more about the clickers, and whether low click rates are a result of bad advertising, consumer behavior or other factors.
December 3rd, 2007 at 10:26 am
“It turns out the heavy clickers are mostly older women living in the Midwest U.S. Their biggest interest is sweepstakes.”
That’s the greatest thing ever. If I were an elderly woman living in the Midwest U.S. reading your blog, I’d probably say otherwise.
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:50 am
[...] of my favourite Canadian new media bloggers; Matthew Ingram and Mark Evans both wrote about a recent report out of the US as to who is clicking on [...]
December 3rd, 2007 at 5:35 pm
A very timely topic, Mark. I have also wondered about who clicked my ads (but not complained, of course). Clearly it was a topic of concern to Google as well. As I wrote on my blog, they disabled my account as a “financial risk” without any explanation last week. I wonder if it is part of a broader effort to respond to advertiser concerns?
December 4th, 2007 at 6:41 am
Hey Mark,
I’d like to consider ourselves savvy Internet users
For that reason, we ignore these ads. I would wager that ‘less savvy’ users often mistake these ads as genuine results in the search results and elsewhere, and therefore click on them. This is just a guess, but it may explain at least a portion of the clicks…
Cheers,
Aidan
http://www.MappingTheWeb.com
December 5th, 2007 at 1:37 am
I would consider myself a savvy internet user who has placed many adwords ads on my sites. I often click on ppc ads if they look promising. If I’m searching for something, very often the ppc ads are more relevant than a lot of the junk “directory” sites that turn up in the organic results. And I’m not some granny in the midwest…
December 13th, 2007 at 11:05 am
[...] blog, comments, Dave Winer, fav.or.it, feed, OPML, outline, rss — alexbarrera @ 4:05 pm Mark Evans had a nice question on his blog some time ago and while commenting it I got an idea. One of the [...]