i-advertising

Nothing identifies a newbie to the internet advertising industry more than asking the proverbial question: “Can someone direct me to the industry average clickthrough rate?” It’s right up there with discussions about “Hits”, “Average CPM Rates” and other terms that have absolutely no true relevance whatsoever to success online.

Folks in case you did not get the memo from 1996 - There is no such thing as an Industry Average Clickthrough Rate. When you think about it - really think about it - there can’t be. When you think about it even harder, why would you possibly be interested in a non-existent metric that has absolutely no relevance whatsoever to what your company is doing online?

Why it does not exist

There is no magical brotherhood with a decoder ring and secret handshake where all advertisers and publishers send in their response rates for (enter month and year here) that is fed into a database that spits out a number. And even if there were, such data would need to be self-provided and self-provided data is inherently subjective. For a time, years ago, there was a company that tracked such self-reported data, but experienced advertisers knew that it was just not relevant and severely skewed.

There’s the response rate other people get, there’s the response rate you might get and there’s the response rate you will get.

Why even if there were an Industry Average it would be irrelevant

If I’m running a campaign online, do I really care about the “average” of a hundred other campaigns that may or may not be targeted to my audience, may or may not be accurate, may or may not have used good creative, may or may not have had web sites that truly sucked ass, may or may not have converted well, may or may not have had similar objectives to what I’m doing? No, I don’t. Here’s why…

Whenever you’re thinking about asking a group of people what the industry average clickthrough rate is, Just Say No. Stop and think before you send that email message or call someone. Think about what it is that you TRULY want to know. You don’t want to know an “Average”.

Why not admit what you’re really after? What you really want to know is how YOUR CAMPAIGN might do. Maybe you need this information to try to project results and ROI. Maybe you have been asked by upper management what to expect. Who knows?

Whatever the reason, Just Say No to the temptation of asking about The Unicorn. Instead, spend your time running some very basic projections: Worst-Case, Likely, Best-Case.

What should you use for Worst-Case scenario? 0.1% sounds good to me. Whatever you use, understand that many advertisers online consider a good response to be 0.5% or higher. 1% to 2% response rate would be great.

The response rate other people get

Understand that even if you ask others what they’ve been seeing for a response rate on video, banner or email campaigns, this information is not necessarily going to be relevant to what you are doing. The variables are just too many - different market, different ad creative, different placements, different product, call to action, goals, etc. Is it useful to you to know that another person is seeing a 0.5% clickthrough rate on one of their placements? It might be. I’m not you. Should it be? I don’t know. Only you can be the judge of that. Myself I tend to focus on the bottom line.

The response rate you might get

There is one surefire way to determine what response you yourself might get, and that is to conduct a test or series of small tests. With valid data from your tests you can predict with a fairly high degree of accuracy what you might see from a larger campaign. By conducting small tests you can minimize your risk.

The response rate you will get

As you conduct small tests and ramp out your campaign, the nice thing about advertising in a dynamic medium is that you can literally adjust and optimize your campaign on the fly as it delivers.

Of course this is all quite irrelevant anyway. You’re not truly concerned with response rate, are you? You do want visitors to DO SOMETHING once they visit your site, don’t you? Hells Bells then, let’s measure success by whether or not your campaign generates downloads then, or sells product, or generates leads, or generates phone calls. Sure, response rates are important, but don’t be so myopic that you lose sight of what truly matters, which is the Bottom Line.

A super-connecter, Adam Boettiger is a recognized expert in the field of digital marketing. With twelve years of online marketing experience spanning agency-side and client-side positions, Boettiger has helped small businesses and large brands realize their full potential online. Consulting Services