Comscore just came out with this report that attempts to analyze who is clicking banner ads and with what frequency. The results are amazing.
Here’s a quick excerpt of what they found:
“The study illustrates that heavy clickers represent just 6% of the online population yet account for 50% of all display ad clicks. While many online media companies use click-through rate as an ad negotiation currency, the study shows that heavy clickers are not representative of the general public. In fact, heavy clickers skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40,000.”

In my own words, a very small part of the online population is doing all the clicking and do not represent the average consumer. On top of that, they have very little buying power. If you’re in the business of publishing ads on your web properties, you may see this as negative news, but all hope is not lost.

I side with ComScore’s EVP Erin Hunter who believes that “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.”

Well said Erin, but what could be tough is convincing advertisers to sign up based on brand awareness and not click-through rates. As an advertiser I know that its the clicks that generate the greatest ROI from my experience, but I also value the benefits of just having my logo or brand seen.

Either way I think we have a long way to go in terms of advertising mediums on the Internet so I don’t think things will slow down much anytime soon. :)

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