Click-through rates
The Message Matters!
11/10/2009 09:59 Filed in: Thoughts
on Internet Marketing
A recent examination of some of my clients' text ads,
and their positions on the search engine results
pages, brought back an age-old advertising truth:
the message matters. Despite the
technologies and targeting abilities of today's
Internet marketing platforms, advertisers must always
provide a compelling and relevant message. If your
message resonates with a customer, they're likely to
click on your ad and visit your web site, no matter
where the ad appears on the page.
I wanted to know if my clients' lower-positioned ads were being clicked less frequently. I plotted click-through rates for a series of text ads, against the positions of those ads on the search engine results pages. I expected to see a basic, inverted curve, with higher-positioned ads enjoying higher click-though rates, and click-through rates diminishing as the positions of the ads became lower. This theory makes sense, right? If an ad isn't at the top of the page, weren't users more likely to ignore it?
To the contrary, my simple chart showed that ad position was less important than I'd assumed. Click-through rates for this particular group of ads varied, with no negative effect on the lower-positioned ads. In fact, some of the highest click-through rates were for ads that had the very lowest positions!
The moral of this story? A few things...
Of course, the message matters above all else. If your [text] ad is compelling enough, and relevant enough to the users' intent, they'll click on the ad no matter where it appears on the page.
Secondly - and no less importantly - this was one study of an isolated group of ads. Each campaign may be different and users may react differently to another series of ads.
In the world of Internet marketing, there is a wealth of detailed data available to advertisers. This data should be used to drive decisions, write ads, select keywords and optimize your campaigns in response to real-world, real-time results. Our assumptions may help us get started, but as our marketing campaigns evolve, we should follow the paths that our customers' actions lay out for us. What works for one campaign may not work for another - but we'll have the data and evidence to tell us the difference.
Thanks for reading and good luck with your Internet marketing efforts!
- Jeremy
I wanted to know if my clients' lower-positioned ads were being clicked less frequently. I plotted click-through rates for a series of text ads, against the positions of those ads on the search engine results pages. I expected to see a basic, inverted curve, with higher-positioned ads enjoying higher click-though rates, and click-through rates diminishing as the positions of the ads became lower. This theory makes sense, right? If an ad isn't at the top of the page, weren't users more likely to ignore it?
To the contrary, my simple chart showed that ad position was less important than I'd assumed. Click-through rates for this particular group of ads varied, with no negative effect on the lower-positioned ads. In fact, some of the highest click-through rates were for ads that had the very lowest positions!
The moral of this story? A few things...
Of course, the message matters above all else. If your [text] ad is compelling enough, and relevant enough to the users' intent, they'll click on the ad no matter where it appears on the page.
Secondly - and no less importantly - this was one study of an isolated group of ads. Each campaign may be different and users may react differently to another series of ads.
In the world of Internet marketing, there is a wealth of detailed data available to advertisers. This data should be used to drive decisions, write ads, select keywords and optimize your campaigns in response to real-world, real-time results. Our assumptions may help us get started, but as our marketing campaigns evolve, we should follow the paths that our customers' actions lay out for us. What works for one campaign may not work for another - but we'll have the data and evidence to tell us the difference.
Thanks for reading and good luck with your Internet marketing efforts!
- Jeremy