Category Archives: clicks

Stop Stressing About Clickthrough…Think Viewthrough!

This is not going to be another bit about declining clickthrough rates, but a quick analogy that should get the juices flowing about viewthrough measurement.


FACT: For many digital advertisers, the average rate of clicks on their display ad campaigns is about the same as the probability of being dealt a full-house in standard 5-card poker. That works out to 0.14%…actually based on the above industry averages – your odds in poker are much better.


Relying on clickthrough measurement today because it is easily available (and you have benchmarks) and not because it is meaningful or actionable exemplifies a digital marketing capability that is likely obsolete. Sure you can juice your CTR with rich media, incented video and even questionable calls-to-action on Facebook (Like Beer?), but immediate click response to display ads is often problematic.See ComScore’s Natural Born Clickers (originally from 2007, updated in 2009) study for additional information.

And if you are really serious about getting away from clickthrough obsession, you can get one of these from Visual IQ!

Reponse to Commenter Jaffer Ali’s "Driving In The Rear-View Mirror"

Jaffer Ali, the semi-retired CEO of EVTV1, and a jovial industry colleague is usually good for some creative commentary and periodic fire-starting.

Today’s piece “Driving In The Rear-View Mirror” published in Mediapost, required a response as I completely disagreed with it.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=113117

This notion is nothing new. In fact, I know it has been on the radar since the Web 1.0 days; check out the original 1997 Lilypad white paper discussing time-shifted response-behavior and measurement:

http://www.seicheanalytics.com/consulting/lilypad.html#bapm

(See Figure #C.)

Why the Click Is the Wrong Metric for Online Ads

Story in AdAge by Abbey Klassen. Amazing that in 2009 this is still being written about….the comments even more telling. Here’s mine:

Wow. It’s great that this issue is being raised. However, this is nothing new. Same story since the Web 1.0 days as this could have been written over 10 years ago…actually, I did in the Lilypad white paper!

The twist today is that too many so-called online “marketers” either protesth too much (like the effect of branding but want to pay like performance) AND/OR opt for the easy way out and fallback on search – a FUD mentality. The former is solved by better media-side negotiating and the latter by training and education.

It is called branding and it’s about way more than measuring clicks.