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%

The remaining 50% are made up of people who just gotta punch that monkey!

Re:The remaining 50%

Punching? I find spanking it to be much more rewarding.

Slogan

"Dummies. We click, so you don't have to."

Like thousands of other /.ers...

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.

Re:Like thousands of other /.ers...

When Mom calls long distance,

So calling the basement is long distance now? The phone company is ripping you off, man.

We must do something about this.

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.

Re:We must do something about this.

But what about those of us who are too lazy to even click on an ad, but still want this "experience" of which you speak!?

If only there were some way of putting the ads on the screen without even having to click on them. Perhaps the ads could even be in separate browser windows that are created and filled with ad content automatically--"popping up," if you will, onto the screen? That way, the user can take full advantage of valuable money-saving opportunities without having to complete the arduous task of clicking a mouse button!

Dare to dream, dare to dream.

Rates or targets?

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!

Low clickthrough is not necessarily a problem

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.

Sorry, had to

- 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!

Not surprising

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.

This is good news

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.

Re:This is good news

NOOOOOOO!!!! We NEED these people! The WWW is supported by ads, so as long as these people do all the clicking, no one will mind if the rest of use use AdBlock, custom /etc/hosts files, etc.

Now, killing all the people who buy from spammers, I still support, though I'd rather kill the spammers themselves. Spammers are truly evil; the people who buy from them are merely stupid.

Counter-argument...

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.

Well Duuuh...

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.

Think the industry is FINALLY getting it yet?

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.

Re:No Money

Wrong.

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 ... 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.

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.

Re:No Money

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.

Re:No Money

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.

Re:No Money

I'm not sure about poor impulse control = low income.

I'd say poor impulse control = low money. ;)

Re:No Money

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).

Re:No Money

Let's see some source for that, can we? If you want to continue spreading the myth that poor=stupid, then at least paste a link. The only thing that differs is what people buy impulsively. Rich people impulse buys cars, middle class people fancy clothes and poor people tickets to the movies.

Poor != stupid. Poor = low income vs high expenditure which => stupid.

This [bls.gov] (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.

Re:Who's on patrol at Slashdot?

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.

Why not? The summary was, as usual, quite inaccurate: "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." That's not what the article says.

The article says "While the click can continue to be a relevant metric for direct response advertising campaigns, this study demonstrates that click performance is the wrong measure for the effectiveness of brand-building campaigns." This is actually good news for sites like Slashdot and other technical sites that cater to a higher-end/less-clicky audience. It's essentially saying, "Don't assume the campaign isn't working just because you don't get click-throughs."

As such, I'd expect it to raise rates since it's basically eliminating the only "reliable" way of concluding that an ad is or isn't working. They're saying that that one metric that people thought they had is actually a poor indicator of success.

To me, this looks like something that will drive the industry back to pay-per-impression rather than pay-per-click--at least for branding campaigns. Which are really the most important for bigger advertising spenders anyway. If you put a banner up for a vacation to Hawaii, sure, a few people will already be planning a vacation to Hawaii and might click. And maybe a few will say "Hey, Hawaii, great idea, let's go." But for the vast majority, that's just one more thing that gets in their mind so when they do think of a vacation--perhaps months after the banner ad--well, they might just be a little more likely to go to Hawaii than some other destination.

The value of advertising is usually in targeting long-term spending habits, not getting a one-time sale. You think that when someone advertises for millions during the Superbowl that they actually get a million dollars of immediate business as a direct result of that ad? Nah... but over time it gets in their consciousness and leads to changes in long-term spending habits that do more than pay for themselves.

Re:Who's on patrol at Slashdot?

Advertising on Slashdot is a chancy business. Never mind the click through rate, if I were an advertiser, I'd be concerned about the likely high percentage of AdBlock users who never see the ads at all.

Re:HAHAHAAHAHHAHAHA

I wouldn't be surprised if googles text ads had a better rate than a lot of the banner ads I see.

Seriously, how many people are going to buy anything that was advertised with a "punch the monkey" style ad? How many people choose their mortgage company because they saw some flashing crap on the web. The people who are drawn in by these ads don't buy houses.

On the other hand, every time I do a google search I check those ads out. When I'm emailing about something in gmail I will often see related ads and they are often very relevant. Several times I have written an email to someone with a line like "I wonder where I could buy something like X?" and as soon as I send I see an ad up top for a web site that sells just what I am looking for. Thats good advertising. I'm not clicking through because I felt like playing some stupid flash game in an ad, I'm clicking through because I wanted to buy the product being advertised.

I think its really more an issue of the approach the advertisements take to get those clicks that has been resulting in less sales per click.