Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Full article: [guardian.co.uk ]
My experience in the last few years is that clicks come in occasional short bursts. When this happens, I know that a 'Natural Born Clicker' has arrived. The vast majority of visitors don't click, even if the ads are fairly well targeted.
I've tried a lot of things to improve CTR but without any success. All it seems we can do is wait for that 8%.
In 2007, the market research firm ComScore reported that 32% of internet users clicked on banner ads in a given month. By 2009, that number had fallen to 16%. ComScore also concluded that a hard core of 8% of all internet users – christened "Natural Born Clickers" – are responsible for 85% of all banner clicks on the web.Everyone who uses the web has experience of the ineffectiveness of online advertising. If it's obtrusive, it's an irritant that gets between you and the content you're seeking and you hit the "Click here to skip this advertisement" button. If it's unobtrusive, you ignore it. Either way, it's ineffective. You can't build an industry on Natural Born Clickers. The inescapable conclusion is that anyone who thinks advertising is the key to sustainable online businesses in any field other than search should think again.
I think this bleak view of the future for web advertising apply to news, general information and social networking sites... but search and well focused niche sites, where people have a identifiable and specific interest, especially commercially oriented sites, can still do well.
I totally agree with this, it just seems Adsense ads are becoming less targeted since they started the "personalization" of the ads based on interest. Making it harder for even the targeted niche sites. They are serving ads based on the users history and I have been seeing a bunch of crap ads.
The inescapable conclusion is that anyone who thinks advertising is the key to sustainable online businesses in any field other than search should think again.
The person who wrote that obviously hasn't heard that most advertising is not direct-response advertising (and isn't intended to be).
Fact is, sites with decent traffic in the right niches can earn extremely good CPMs from direct ad sales or vertical display-ad networks. The really big corporate advertisers might use search ads for specific promotions, or to complement their branding efforts, but for the most part, they're spending their money on display ads.
Natural-born clickers wouldn't be nearly as much use to the average business as natural-born spenders.
one the net .those who can do ..and those who cant ...make up figures ( I mean conduct studies ) ..and so called tech journalists who dont know enough IT to change the batteries in their own mouse pay for or commission those studies ..
ComScore also concluded that a hard core of 8% of all internet users – christened "Natural Born Clickers" – are responsible for 85% of all banner clicks on the web.
No kidding!
Next you'll be saying something like 3% of all internet users are responsible for 64% of all banner clicks on the web! No, really!
What then?! Perhaps you'll say something like 20% of all internet users are responsible for 90% of all banner clicks on the web!
Welcome to the bell curve. No, it's not always 80/20 - sometimes it can be 90/20... and sometimes 85/8.
But it's the same pattern curve.
Yawn. Go away and do Statistics 101.
Natural-born clickers
every time I read "Natural Born ... " the word "Killers" comes to mind before I get to read the word "clickers". lol
anyone monetizing with adsense from social network traffic? I have a profile with a well known social network ( it has upto 100million members world wide). I have managed to get a wide network of friends connecting to my profile. the general picture of my profile is relevant to the subject of my Adsense site. but I haven't linked the site to the network yet. I am wondering, what would be the impact on my profile when linked to my ads website? will there be a good CTR? what steps should I consider before linking the tow?.
any opinions appreciated guys.
With that said, taking this route will cause you to bump up against Google's 'Smart Pricing'. My experience has been that it takes from a few days to a week for CPM to rebound after a big Digg or SU hit, leading me to believe that Smart Pricing temporarily depresses CPM until Search traffic balances things out again. This is only my opinion based on observation - some have said that Smart Pricing permanently affects CPM on ALL pages/sites belonging to one account. Since mid-November i've avoided promoting any of my content on Digg, SU or Fark and the result has been higher average CPM with some days showing surprisingly high spikes. YMMV of course but once you can count on daily impressions in the 5-figure area then search traffic will come and you can lay off social media. Hope this helps!
