Easy Steps To Weaning Your Client Off CTR

After multiple years of Starcom/comScore's "Natural Born Clickers" study showing that clicks are coming from a smaller and smaller group of internet users - and a fairly defined demographic group at that - many clients still want CTR on their reports.  Here we'll explore three easy ways to wean your client from the CTR metric for good.

1. Research proves the point.  The Starcom/comScore "Natural Born Clickers" study shows that 67% of all banner ad clicks online come from just 4% of the population.  Think about this.  If you have a .10% CTR and consider that a success, realize that 96% of your campaign really has a .033% CTR.  Most clients who are satisfied with the .10% CTR would not be happy at all with the .033% CTR, but that's exactly what the very large majority of the online population is delivering.  To make it worse, 8% of all users deliver 85% of all clicks.  So now 92% of the population in this same campaign are clicking at a .015% CTR - terrible by most clients' standards that care about CTR.
   
   
2. Bounced visitors isn’t anyone’s real goal.  Many clients have told us that they simply want to "drive traffic to their web site."  This is rarely true since, when asked if it would be ok if the user clicked on the banner, got to the web site, and then hit the "back" button, most clients say that this is absolutely not ok.  (Wait so you DO want the user to do something on your site?!)  But let's say for a minute this really is true.  It's a pure branding play, and the bounced visitor is totally acceptable.  First, wouldn't a brand study provide the real metrics you care about?  Second, is the demographic you want on your web site the demographic that is actually clicking?  Look at the demographics in the study and you'll see it's a fairly defined demographic, often women who are looking for sweepstakes.  Is that your audience?  The reality is that no one really wants a bounced visitor, and therefore working with your client to establish a real post-click/impression goal is advised.
   
3. Embrace evolution (at least as it relates to online metrics.)  The final and most obvious reason people pay attention to it is that it's a legacy metric that was the first metric clients jumped on when online advertising started.  Much like the GRP/TRP in TV which is still in use 50 years later, old habits die hard.  If you are an advertiser it is incumbent upon you to learn best practices within the industry. Your agency and publisher partners will share in this process to the extent you invite them to the party, but only you can drive your own success in working with metrics that matter.

Simply sending the next campaign metrics report to your client without CTR is unlikely to win any points, but scheduling a separate discussion with your client specifically about goals, objectives, and the metrics that drive them will provide for a good forum to present these three tips here and begin to explore your online goals in more depth.