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6% of Web Users Generate 50% of Ad Clicks
pcause writes "A recent study finds that 6% of Web users generate 50% of the click-throughs. Worse news for advertisers: these clickers are not representative of the population as a whole, most have incomes under $40K, and their clicks are not related to any offline buying. (They are mostly males between 25 and 44 years of age.) The number of clicks on an ad campaign is also not strongly correlated with brand awareness for the ads' subject, according to the study. This is bad news for ad-supported Web sites and businesses, as rates should drop if the Net economy begins to take these findings seriously."
The remaining 50% are made up of people who just gotta punch that monkey!
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Maybe I am just evil, but I would not have posted this if I worked for a site that generated a lot of revenue through banner ads.
and with these statistics google is worth 100+ billion dollars???
hahahahaahahahahahahahahahaha
sell now suckerss!!!
I propose limiting their ad clicking on the ISP side with advertising traffic shaping. It is an unfortunate market reality, but these ad-clicking hogs are wasting valuable advertising bandwidth for the rest of the users, and it must be stopped.
Don't let 5% of the ad clickers ruin the internet "experience" for the rest of the users.
The only online advertising that this will hurt are the mass spam adds. Anything being targeted at a specific demographic can be easily and verifiably checked. As an example, anyone who runs adds on a site like Penny-Arcade can be quite sure that any click throughs are exactly the type of people they want to reach. Click throughs from adds run on Slashdot? They know the type of people doing the clicks. Random Click-here-for-hyped-product-of-the-moment? Not so much.
Personally, I think this is a good sign. Adds targeting specific audiences and communities tend to be more respectful and interesting. If these findings promote that kind of advertising instead of flashing spams adds designed to distract, then hooray!
The thing to bear in mind here is that the ads that were about before the internet- TV spots, posters on the street, pages in magazines and newspapers, jingles on the radio and so on have a click-through of zero. Yet people still bother with them.
The real problem here is that the pay-per-click method doesn't charge advertisers fairly. A combination pay-per-view, and pay-per-click model might be better.
Hmmm people who actually click on ads rather than blocking them are actually likely to click on other ads also? Then when they realize that they did not, in fact, win a free iPod, they don't buy the product that is being sold?
I am less than shocked.
Wrong.
... Surprise... Surprise... Young males college to around 35. These are most likely to buy crazy stuff even if it will hurt their pocket. Next worst offenders as far "financial discipline" is concerned are women right before they hit a certain "golden" age.
1. The impulsiveness of purchases is highest in low income categories. The middle class actually counts pennies much more and the rich have someone counting for them. Example, my wife nearly choked on her dinner watching BBC News awhile ago when they reported the failure of a pyramid "christmas present purchase" scheme predominantly used by the poor. She was very sympathetic until she heard the numbers lost by most families which were in the range of 400-800 pounds. We are reasonably well off and sorry, no way in hell for us to spend that for a Christmas budget. That is more like what we will spend in several years. So after that she immediately switched to a "well deserved, serves you right" mode.
2. The worst perception of his personal finance state in the developed world is
Overall, the study matches very well the actual "buy based on advertisement" demographic. I do not see anything particularly detrimental to the online ad business coming out of it. It is business as usual. Move along.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
If true, this 6% figure is good news. If it's really this small number of people, then it should be possible to track them down and kill them.
- Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?
- Not in our dreams! Only on TV and radio. And in magazines. And movies. And at ballgames. And on buses. And milk cartons. And t-shirts. And bananas. And written on the sky. But not in dreams! No sirree!
My 0.02 cents
The problem is that advertisers want to pay per-click to get per-impression results.
There's no "click" on TV or radio or newspapers, just an impression. But when people realized that there *was* a click-through to be recorded on the web, they wanted to pay for that under the assumption that click-through and impression were correlated and therefore that they could gauge if their intended audience was getting the ads by the level of click-through.
This makes things easy. If the click-through on an advertisement is high, clearly you need to keep it there. If it's low, it's clearly not properly targeted. This can be automated to run without human intervention. The survey disproves this.
So, really, what it's showing is that the web advertising market needs to be structured more like a traditional media buy.
I suspect the biggest winners in this market will be large web companies with enough folks to have an advertisement team and captured demographics information to be able to say "Sure the click-throughs are all 35 year old virgins with a crap job, but the *viewers* are actually mostly upper management level people with a wife and a mistress"
And, since this is Slashdot, we can make the logical conclusion that the companies in the article were paid by one of the aforementioned large web companies with enough folks to have an advertisement team and captured demographics information.
Gentoo Sucks
Seriously, the ads I click on are 99.9% accidental. I think I've clicked on about five ads I actually WANTED in the last ten years.
Is it any wonder that the people who are clicking on ads constantly are not the "average joe?" Most people hate commercials and other junk that gets in the way of what they were looking at.
"Oh, another ad for the same BMW I switched away stations on the radio, muted on TV, and flipped past in the newspaper. I think I'll click on this one because it's in the middle of my news story about Britney Spears' latest breakdown."
I wonder what correlation there is between this 6% and the people who click on the "V1agr@" spams in their email.
Ever heard of Brand Awareness? Getting a banner ad out there and seen by hundreds of thousands of people three or four times a day is worth it if you have a product to sell that already has good distribution. Even if these ads never generate clickthrough, they are still worth it.
Furthermore there are only two ads I click on and it NEVER leads to my buying things. The first are informational ads. Like I clicked on that Chevron Ad on Slashdot recently. I was interested in all the various energy distribution and generation methods they were persuing. The Second are Text ads for companies I really dislike. I will click the advertised link because I know it is costing them money. Ya it may only be one cent but it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.
Heavy clickers are also relatively more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career services sites
So basically they're unemployable opportunists with no ability to assess risks.
The surprise here is that it took three companies working together to figure this out.
Blank until
The Flash-based "Talking Woman" has helped me.
When Mom calls long distance, Talking Woman is cheerful and polite in the background. Mom thinks I've finally found a nice girl and given up computers.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
It doesn't take a "study" to realize that only imbeciles (or people new to the internet) actually click through internet ads. These are probably the same people that buy infomercial and home shopping channel garbage.
They're in Innsmouth, they look vaguely squid-like and they're totally insane. What more do you need to know?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
While people may not be clicking, that doesn't mean the ads aren't getting them thinking. Google holds the record as only site where I've ever clicked on an ad and bought something. That is because their ads are extremely targeted and they've been linking to sites actually selling something I want when I'm ready to buy. However, other ads still make me consider products. I've never bought anything from Think Geek by clicking on an ad, but the ad has got me thinking about something I might want, which I may then later go to Think Geek and buy.
Just because you can click on ads, doesn't mean you will, but just because you don't doesn't mean you weren't influenced by it.
Perhaps is just that advertising on a whole is questionable.
Exactly. Advertising is one of those businesses that seem to make a ton of money and carry a lot of weight when the so-called "important messages" are spewed at us nonstop during events or shows both big and small. I too ignore almost all advertisements as a general rule. Who in their right mind would take some slick video advice from the assholes trying to sell you their widget rather than do the research on your own, or just make an impulse buy and be done with it? When I had pay-for TV I just mute the sound and do anything else when an ad comes on. I don't listen to commercial-filled radio and I run adblock plus like most savvy net users do. I can't remember the last advertisement I've seen, nor do I care to. I make purchasing decisions based on the reviews and product info directly or via peers. The advertising businesses are a waste of time and money and I feel sorry for the assholes who occupy the airspace wasted by this so-called "industry".
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
I'm not sure about poor impulse control = low income.
;)
I'd say poor impulse control = low money.
"Dummies. We click, so you don't have to."
Let me know when your research grant kicks in. In the interest of the greater scientific good, I'll happily volunteer to let you give me a wad of cash and observe how I spend and/or save it.
Football Odds
Just an anecdote using myself as an example. When I am in a situation where I'm pretty poor, living from check to check, I find myself not even trying to save money as much. It's like a downward spiral, possibly brought on by a feeling of hopelessness about my economic situation. As if I figure: "why bother pinching pennies when the end result is still poverty?".
On the other hand, when I'm doing better economically I find myself becoming thrifty. As soon as I see that money piling up in the bank I want to see how much more I can save.
Thankfully, I'm in the latter state right now, and I find myself cooking a lot more (as opposed to eating out) and buying less unnecessary items like beer and snacks.
But maybe I'm just weird.
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
The whole premise of this articlie is that males 25-44 are the ones clicking all those adds.
I don't think that it's a coincidence that this is the major porn veiwing public, nor that most adds (and add supported sites) are for porn
Read my blog you know you want to
I'd say that poor impulse control certainly does = low income. If you extend impulse to hastily-made decisions such as "screw 4 more years at school, I can make $16/hour if I start work RIGHT NOW!", which may sound higher than some entry-level college student jobs, but they stay $16/hour until you retire, unlike more professional jobs. From this perspective, those who are unable to strongly hold out, plan, and think rationally, end up with low income jobs.
mattdev@server$ touch
cannot touch `/dev/genitals': Permission denied
Click advertising has and never will be a successful marketing mechanism for the internet as a whole. Sure there are some products and some sites that it works, but these are rare.
Just like television and other successful forms of ad generated industries it is all about product placement and brand recognition that has to be used.
The smartest advertising sites have ads for Coke, or Honda where the advertisers DON'T expect the person to click, but to just view. Just like TV...
After 100 years of influention psychology in advertising for brand recognition, it is scary that a 'bright' new technology doesn't understand the simplicity.
No matter if you go back to the begining of a 'want' instead of a 'need' consumer base that boomed in the 50s or even the first 'marketing' firms based on Freud during the 'need' based economy in the US prior to that, nothing has changed.
Do you think Burma-Shave would have worked if people had to get out of their cars and pick up a flyer on the product at each sign?
Sure things are faster and harder to notice on the internet, but still, you got 5 secs to grab someone's attention, don't disturb or annoy them and DON'T make them do anything and you have a successful ad. PERIOD.
Some of the best advertising that is working on the internet is from youtube type of sites providing commericial content. You can watch any TV show in the world legally, and at your own schedule and you have 4 or 5 15secs pauses of ads. Yet people are 'use' to it, and the ads are becoming the most successful because they live up to the simple rules from the above paragraph.
This can be done with static site and news as well, heck even do a cute Flash/Silverlight video on the page, just don't use sound and don't expand over crap to disturb the person. Product recognition is not a conscious thing anyway, so determining it by ad clicks requires concious involvement. Bad Idea, Bad Model, and Bad Method to test advertising success.
Since when is impulsive stupid? It's certainly not the best way to handle things, but neither is an impulsive person an idiot. There are benefits (my friends who are impulse buyers tend to be happier than those who plan their purchases) and disadvantages (the impulse buyers do tend to have less money on hand at any time, although in my group of friends they're also the ones with the highest incomes so it really balances it).
[quote]Rich people impulse buys cars, middle class people fancy clothes and poor people tickets to the movies.[/quote]
If anyone needs to cite a source and stop spreading degrading myths it would seem to be you, the guy implying that poor people can't afford anything besides tickets to a movie (seriously? That's like $7 per person, you can get some nice clothes for the same price as 2-3 trips).
What people buy depends more on who they are than their economic status (though not being able to afford something is an impedance, credit cards have made it possible to impulse buy things you can't afford). One of the factors (ONE!) in economic status, however, is how many impulse purchases you make (I'll repeat so I don't get flamed for saying that poor people aren't good with money, that's only ONE reason).
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
This (table 2) shows the very lowest income bracket spends more on random things then the two brackets above it. While the other demographics seem proportionate to their income with some skewing due to the cost of living. The literature about IQ and income clearly suggest a correlation with many other factors included and sibling studies suggest Intelligence correlates with income as well. So Poor = stupid may be ham fisted but it's well supported. Note correlation isn't causation and there is ample opportunity for outliers.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Not sure why, between emails from my girlfriend and not-even-spam messages from (straight) porno sites, but it does.
If you're @ the googleplex please make sure gmail knows I'm straight! I am much more likely to click if it seems likely there's nekkid womenz on the other end.
Of course people who click on ads are atypical. We know that already, and it's been statistically neutralized out of the equation.
There are only 2 goals for an ad, brand awareness, or profit.
I don't need to tell you about brand awareness, you've all seen ads that we're on the internet before, and can figure out why they're there.
For profit ones just break it down into ROI. You don't *want* everyone clicking on your ad. That's why you hear a lot more about "click-fraud" than "impression fraud" when you're in internet advertising.
The original article seems like it was written by people using very out dated methods of media buying. I don't know anyone who evaluates ads based solely on "clicks" for the same reason I don't know know anyone who evaluates websites based on "hits" anymore.
Sure, we still look at Cost per Click; because that ties back into brand awareness values to some extent, but the real vector is Cost per *Conversion*; what did we pay per *customer*. Ya figure out how much a customer is worth, you know how effective your ads are.
But internet advertising is still relatively new. It has a long way to go catch up to even Direct Mail in many cases. And as long as it's still profitable to do it clumsily, you'll see it done clumsily.
Which is also the reason that women see ads for Viagra, and men see ads for Oprah's book club.
How much garbage do you get via snail mail?
Last I checked, getting a 6% "click thru" via direct mail advertising was considered a really good run.
(That is... customer gets ad, and calls for info or comes in)
Direct Mail is still profitable...
Market research companies don't release studies like this for the benefit of general consumption. What they're really doing is suggesting that blind click-through rates are not sufficient measures of return on investment AND you need their service in determining which click-through consumers do generate higher return.
I was following you up to that last point.
Cooking at home is a GREAT thing to do....better for you, less additives (cooking from scratch), and can be fun alone or with friends.
But, "unecessary items like BEER"?!??! Dude, get your priorities straight, I mean, beer is a food group all of its own!! I would have a VERY hard time making a roux, without beer. I usually set out 2-3 beers, and that's about how long it takes to make a really good dark one.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The number of clicks on an ad campaign is also not strongly correlated with brand awareness for the ads' subject
On the internet, brand isn't near as important as relevance. That said, once relevance is achieved and the web surfer has a choice of web pages to choose from, then brand plays a more prominent role (ie: they'll choose a website they know over one they don't know).
As for the rest of the study's findings, I think you couldn't possibly convince a reputable marketer not to invest more money/talent/energy into online marketing. There's a lot of fluidity and change on the internet, but the upside is just far too great.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
The impulsiveness of purchases is highest in low income categories
Further note that impulse items are low-priced items. A person who impulsively buys a car, but can't pay for it, doesn't help the seller who has to go find it. An impulse item may be stupid rather than it's-ok-to-have-extra, like batteries or tissues, but it has to be affordable to appeal to many people.
Tasteful ads that don't need clicking but still get the message across ought to still create some business. The buyer may have to be reminded a large number of times that s/he still has yet to make that purchase. It actually is not that hard to interest a buyer who is in the market--for the most part, follow the buyer's line of desire and counteract any objections like "burns too much gas", "too hard to see in daylight," whatever. Also to consider for web ad success--buyers are used to getting satisfaction from bricks-and-mortars stores, and the same completeness of service needs to be apparent the instant a banner ad is displayed.
There are many things that I want to know about a product/service, but I see very few everyday items advertised on the Internet on popular web sites. And ads resembling the fearful popup just scream "fear this product" and "fear the Internet", or at the very least they say "we don't appreciate the paranoia". Would there not be an automatic distrust of banner ads if useful items like power saws, eminently sellable from a manufacturer, don't appear in online ads? If only weird things are sold on the Internet, then only weird people will even consider looking at an online ad.
Clicking on an ad has been stigmatized, but the ad could do better if it displays an actual URL. After the user goes to the company site, there has to be a "tell me what I don't know" presentation. The user with money is typically sitting with a fancy computer with a number of cool features--this user doesn't want a few silly words and primitive line drawings. This user expects the business to expose itself on the record, in depth and detail. And it has to be easy or else there are a million other web sites begging to be seen.
Consumer confidence needs to be maintained. McDonald's shows part of the kitchen to people placing orders. Online purchasers may feel better, and may well be attracted, with visual monitoring and presentation of factories, packaging, delivery, as well as features and how-to. Big stores present the I-invested-a-lot-of-money-so-I-have-to-serve-you-well feeling, and online ads have to get away from the I-couldn't-have-spent-much-to-make-this-cheesy-ad-so-what-the-heck-if-you-don't-care idea. If clicking an ad takes a user somewhere fantastic, the Internet will make the ad renowned. The point might not be spreading advertising money over a large number of web sites but instead concentrating more on developing a company image while having the ad appear on a few sites.
Many television ads are well-produced because television time is expensive, and the ad has to be a good seller in order to justify its existence. Web sites should charge big bucks and provide a powerful reason to captivate the audience. That would be a good thing for us who are tired of seeing weird, ugly crap littering web pages, all the reason to buy larger screens so that scrolling down won't be necessary--and of course that's why screens are wide but very short, ostensibly to show movies full screen, right? Not!
Although businesses will save anywhere and use cheap advertising where they can get as much exposure as possible. This may be detrimental to web ads as a whole, but improving technology may be making it possible for web ads to sell better, for consumers to learn more about products and services, and for transactions to be less risky. In the end, web advertising ought to evolve to the next generation while purchasing becomes less running-around. Revival of the Internet sales idea would work out as long as good service is assured in every detail.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
The impulsiveness of purchases is highest in low income categories. The middle class actually counts pennies much more and the rich have someone counting for them.
The rich tend to have product requirements to meet. They tend to be more technical and have better knowledge of the product they are looking for. Here is an example;
I am involved in a new building (a church) and in the design stages they are laying out the wiring, including the low voltage stuff. An impulse buyer will simply check the price on a box of CAT5 cable and make a decision. I too checked prices. I also checked my requirements. Do I need riser rated cable, plenum cable, shielded cable? We need cable for the alarm, low voltage lighting controls, networking, AV, and intercom.
The lighting if you do the popular DMX-512 stuff, by popular price, 3 pin microphone cable is often used. Advertisements are all over the place for very cheap "DMX" Cables. The spec for DMX clearly defines why mic cable is not to be used including the wrong impedance, and no UL aproval for fire code. Side note, it works for short runs as long as the connector shell is not connected unlike a true mic cable. Keep your 3 pin XLR mic cable away from your 3 pin DMX cable. On the legal side, these cables are not UL approved for in wall installation. RS-485 120 ohm cable is specified by the standard. Riser rated or even Plenum rated RS-485 cable is very expensive and can easly cost more than a lighting control board. The urge to go with something cheaper is very strong at this point.
Using the wrong cable is what fills up the forums on lighting. Just before the production my desk died is a common complaint. The frequent cause is the noise filters in dimmers put noise current into the lighting ground. A borrowed Mic cable with grounded connector shells, connects the frame ground of the dimmer pack to the isolated ground of the signal. Often the spike noise blows out the comm chips and the show goes dark and a piece of **** console is blamed, when the root cause was a cable with grounded connector shells and a poorly grounded dimmer pack. Check the forums. The gremlins that eat the show just befor opening is common. Follow the spec. It's there for a reason.
The CAT5 cable has been tested as a suitable replacement for RS-485 cable and exceeds the original performance ratings. As a bonus it is about 1/5 the cost in a FR4 fire rated classification. CMG is the most common. As a bonus, we don't have to buy 2 kinds of cable as one will now work in both applications for networking and lighting control. Further studies show the UTP cable both radiates and is subject to noise pick-up. STP cable is the next logical step. It is also easly located in riser and plenum ratings. It is much easer to source than plenum or riser rated RS-485 cable. As a bonus, it's a fraction of the cost while performing better.
In my research including checking prices and cable ratings, how many manufactures counted my clicks as a non-sale? The manufacture that got my sale didn't get it from a banner ad. They got it by having full spec sheets online. I found my riser rated shielded CAT5 cable in pretty colors for $108/box of 1,000 feet. Banner ads for cheap cable don't deliver enough information to qualify a product for considration of purchase.
I am now in the research stages of picking a wall mount dimmer system. Again, we have system requirements to meet. They are.. Multi-station. The janitor can enter and turn on the lights without turning on a lighting desk. Multi-system integration.. The house light system needs to accept a DMX-512 signal when present, so the lighting console can include the house lights in the lighting program. High power.. enough said. A dozen hanging fixtures with 6-8 100 watt bulbs will require a serious dimmer pack. Another set of PAR64 cans at 500-675 Watts each is a design consideration. Another 2 dozen recessed fixtures for stage, balcony and under the balcony will dictate the number of channels
The truth shall set you free!
Cool link, but I disagree with your interpretation. It looks very much like poor people are money conscious from that table.
First of all, I don't think that the lowest income bracket is 'poor' people, I think they are students on loans. They are 4% of the population, earn less than $1000 a year, and spend $20,000 a year. They spend their income in a very similar way to the $10,000 to $15,000 income bracket, except for education where they spend almost twice as much as the $50,000 bracket. The >$60,000 bracket spends much more on education, but I think this is rich parents paying for their children.
So ignore the lowest two income brackets for a moment, and look at the $10,000 to $20,000 income brackets. These are probably genuinely poor people who are working to make a living. You see that they DO spend less than higher earners. Furthermore, it looks to me like they are spending the bare minimum possible. All 4 of the income bracets below $20,000 spend a constant $3000 on food. This suggests to me that this is the minimum possible. Similarily, housing stays constant at $7000, and transportation mostly constant around $2000 in these brackets. These things make up the bulk of income.
So the total story I pick up from the table is that poor people spend the miminum it is possible to live on for food, housing and transporation which makes up almost all of expenditures. Your claim that they spend more on 'random things' doesn't seem supported at all. In fact, the highest bracket in that table, >$60,000, only spends about 2 to 3x as much as them for food, housing, transporation, but 5x as much for entertainment, personal care, and 10x as much on miscellaneous. They also spend 10x as much on education (presumably for their children) which I think points to the real problem poor people have.
So poor != stupid.
What kind of news is this? Is it from a newspaper? TV? Radio? No! Not at all!
The link leads just to a web page featuring the report. Where is it? A news site maybe? Not again!
It turns out to be an advertising agency website, Starcom MediaVest, one so obscure that doesn't even have its own wikipedia entry. They sure make advertising on TV and newspapers, so what surprise is it that they despise web advertising? The report comes from a biased source - fruit from a poisoned tree.
Remember the golden rule: A report has the credibility of those who sign it. Hence, only fools quote reports without stating their source. Slashdot just didn't. Thus, Slashdot was made a fool for today. I think it should have more care.
This is incorrect. Yes, many of those that don't go to college end up "stuck" at 16/hr jobs for the rest of their life. However, in my experience (I put myself through college doing blue collar work in petro-chemical plants) these are the same ones that couldn't have made it through college if their life depended on it. As in, they did not possess the mental capacity to do so. I was decent at high school level math and was able to move up from a 14/hr position to a 20/hr position after a single job in a fab shop by demonstrating I could work out blue print schematics for field labor.
Since my family comes from this area of work, I've been able to see first hand the potential it possesses for the diligent, motivated worker with 1/2 a brain. Many were able to increase their salaries from that 15/hr to 50/hr within 5-7 years in the industry. The more goal oriented could attain 60/70 per hour within 10. That's approx. 150k per year U.S. I now work in research at a university and many of my friends are making less then 1/3 of that after 8 years of college. After about 5-6 more years they *may* be making 2/3's of that pay. In private industry, they could approach this income but rarely exceed it except for a very small subset of career paths.
Of course, the work is extremely unrewarding intellectually and it's often dangerous work if not hard (upper management work isn't physically intensive).