A look into the accuracy of click through rates, and the best way to measure online ad metrics.

1. Why Do
People Click?

2. CTR (Click Thru Rate)
• Has emerged as the benchmark, or primary
measurement criterion around ad effectiveness
• Today’s average CTR: 0.3%
• Offers a small part of a much larger picture
• One of the most misleading metrics available
• No measure of consumer intent

3. Industry average for Flash by category

4. Click-Thru Behavior
Clickers per Month How Much Clickers Click
Majority of Banner Clicks
Click Only Once
Clickers Non-Clickers
Click More Often

5. So who is causing all this
misleading information?

6. Heavy Clickers:
Consumer segment most likely to respond to online
display advertising

7. % of
% of
Clicker Type # of clicks Internet % of clicks
clickers
Population
Heavy 4+ 6% 18% 50%
Moderate 2-3 10% 31% 30%
Light 1 10% 51% 20%
Non 0 68% - -

8. Heavy Clickers: Who are they?
• Not representative of the general public
• Ages 25-44
• Tend to be in the lower income brackets
• Spend 4x more time online than non-clickers
• Consume more online media than non-clickers
• Entire web experience appears to be leisure time
• Same people that tend to open direct mail and love
to talk to telemarketers

9. Other Characteristics...
• Their spending does not reflect their level of participation
• Have a markedly different web-surfing pattern than non-
clickers
• Visit auctions, gambling, job search, and gaming sites, as
opposed to portals, search, news, and finance websites often
visited by non-clickers
• No relationship between the measured attitude towards
a brand and the number of times an ad for that brand
was clicked

10. As A Result...
• Advertisers are letting somewhere between 6-16% of
the Internet population dictate their online strategy
• Lead to misleading CTRS
• Show us that we can’t count on CTR as our primary
success metric for display ads

11. What Can We Do?
Find an environment where typically
“normal” clickers enter into the
heavy clicker mindset:
• The category where user set is
spending disproportionate
amounts of time to utilize their
interest

12. Importance of the Creative Format
Rich media
• Not effective in generating clicks when compared
to non-rich media
• 4 times more effective in generating conversions
Non-rich media
• Less expensive
• Non-rich media campaign can perform as well as
rich media if campaign intent is to generate clicks

13. Consumer Intention
• One of the most valuable metrics
• Need to Measure:
• Reason behind the click
• What takes place after the click
• In order to effectively identify those site visitors who
show intention behaviors vs. those who don’t

14. What is the cause of a higher
than average CTR?
• The type or quality of the offer that drew interest?
• The design?
• The format?
• Great media placement?
• Targeting?
• Perhaps it’s truly a combination of many variables

15. The Importance of
Understanding “Why”
• There’s a huge difference between the intentions
of visitors to a website (sometimes it’s by mistake)
• Would you rather have a click from someone who
you KNOW is interested in your offering, or from
someone who MIGHT be interested?

16. Behavioral Targeting
• The value of each click-thru to the site can be directly
determined
• Identifies the “why” behind each click
• Offers advertisers the alternative of “smart CTR”
• Gives them a serious advantage over those still
relying on CTR alone

17. Adding a record of:
• pages visited while on the site
• topics covered
• features interacted with
• length of time each visit
• when key performance indicators (KPIs) were
achieved
Gives advertisers access to data that tells
a much more complete story

18. CTR Pro’s & Con’s
Pros Cons
Relevant for Direct Response ad Wrong measurement for brand-
campaigns where users are looking to building campaigns. Should be
make an immediate purchase of measuring Impressions for
tickets or other products brand-building.
Good at building awareness Not good at generating leads
Overlooks the importance of branding
If exposure, as opposed to sales, is a while drawing conclusions from people
goal, CTR can be useful who may not be representative of the
target audience

19. Conclusion
• Cannot rely on CTR alone
• True Measures of Online
Advertising Efficacy:
• shifts in brand attitude metrics
• analytics
(tying online exposures to sales)

20. Sources:
• “Banner Ad Clickers Not Like Other Web Users: Study” -Richard H. Levey, Chief Marketer
• “BT: Beyond the Click” -Jeff Hirsch, Media Post Publications, January 14, 2008
• “Know Your Limits, The Push Beyond Them” -Stuart Derrick, March 21, 2007
• “Natural Born Clickers” -Erin Hunter, comScore, Kim McCarthy, Starcom, Greg Rogers, TACODA - Media
Brand Summit
• “Natural Born Clickers: These people aren’t helping results, they’re ruining them” -Julie Powers, Internet
Marketing Report, February 15, 2008
• “New Study Shows that Heavy Clickers Distort Reality of Display Advertising Click-Thru Metrics” -Andrew
Lipsman, comScore, February 12, 2008
• “Online Consumer Behavior and Interactive Marketing” -Advertising.com, Inc., May 2003
• “Some consumers are click farms themselves” -eMarketer, Febuary 28, 2008
• “Study: Heavy Clickers Account for Half of Display Click-Throughs” -Mark Walsh, Media Post Publications,
February 12, 2008
• “Web Site Click-Through Rates Soar WIth Human Touch” -Tanya Irwin, Media Post Publications, Augst 6, 2007
• “Which Rich Media Type Works Best?” -eMarketer, September 14, 2007