Can more targeted pitches on Facebook and other sites reverse the shrinking response to online ads? In June, Luke Mitchell's student marketing service, Reach Students, ran a series of Web ads to promote an offer from a major parcel delivery service. The timing seemed perfect: just when college students decide whether to store belongings for the summer or ship them home. So did the placement--on the Facebook social network, where students hang out for hours.
Yet when the results rolled in, Mitchell was stunned: Only 0.04% of those people who got the ads on their screens bothered to click on them. He had expected at least 1% to respond. "We had just a handful of users come to the site," he says.The truth about online ads is that precious few people actually click on them. And the percentage of people who respond to common "banner ads," the ubiquitous interactive posters that run in fixed places on sites, is shrinking steadily.
The so-called click-through rate for those ads on major Web destinations such as Yahoo! (YHOO ), Microsoft (MSFT ), and AOL (TWX ) declined from 0.75% to 0.27% during 2006, according to Eyeblaster, a New York-based online ad serving and monitoring firm. It says that last March the average click rate on standard banner ads across the whole Web was 0.2%. This reflects a surge in new ads and Web pages, fueled by the rise in social networks.
About Me
- Marc A. Ross
- Washington, DC, United States
- Marc has an extensive background in business development for companies as well as directing the advocacy operations, communications efforts, fundraising programs and public affairs for nonprofits, corporations and political campaigns for the highest offices in the United States and the United Kingdom. Marc is available for consulting, workshops, panels, interviews, training sessions, advice, commentary and speaking on all things Advocacy 2.0. Marc can be reached via email by sending a note to marc (at) 2ndsix.com or by twitter at @microadvocacy.
