Lies, Damn Lies and Click-Through Rates
Posted Jun. 12, 2009 by Casey Flanagan
Filed under: Digital / Interactive, Planning / Research
Statistics are good. No, statistics are great. The ability to quantify actions and reactions? Powerful stuff. Especially in the world of marketing. But as the amount of data at our disposal grows daily, understanding its context is becoming even more essential.
Our latest reminder comes from iProspect. Theyʼve been studying the relationship between display advertising and search engine marketing. Spoiler alert: When done well, they both work. But the statistic that caught my eye
was:
While 52% of consumers report actively responding to display advertising, only
31% do so by clicking on the ad itself.
Thatʼs 31%. Thirty. One. Percent.
What are the “other” actions taken? 27% reported searching for the product, brand or company using a search engine. Another 21% reported typing the web address into their browser and navigating to the site. There are many implications from this single graph. But letʼs start here.
We have often said that display advertising gets you more than click-through rates. Brand awareness, for starters. But, if these numbers are to be believed, click-through rates only tell about half the story. Or, more accurately, about a third.
