Click Currency Devalued Again

Online audience specialist comScore has released results from nearly 20 European studies, showing good performance by online ads in driving advertiser site visits - regardless of small numbers of direct clickthroughs in some cases.

The report, How Online Advertising Works: Whither the Click in Europe? underlines the latent view-through impact of online advertising, with those exposed to online ad campaigns in Europe 72% more likely to visit advertisers' web sites, and 94% more likely to conduct a trademark search query on the advertiser's brand, versus control groups. The results were observed 'despite minimal clicks on the ads in the various campaigns', according to the research firm.

The findings cast further doubt on the use of clickthroughs as a key metric in measuring online advertising ROI, and are 'rather provocative' according to Mike Shaw, comScore Director of Marketing Solutions. He explains: 'They not only demonstrate a clear view-through value of online ads independent of Internet users clicking on the ads, but the resulting lifts in behaviour substantially outperform what we've seen in the U.S.'

The average lift in site visitation and trademark search across hundreds of US studies was significantly smaller - though still arguably very healthy - 49% and 40% respectively. comScore suggests the difference could be the results of 'differences in online ad clutter, differences in creative executions or differences in consumer response to advertising stimuli' - and in any case 'augers well for the future of the European online advertising industry'.

Ad effectiveness can be latent - results indicate a sustained lift in behaviour in the weeks following initial exposure to an online ad, strongest in the first week after initial campaign exposure (site visits up 99%) but declining only slightly thereafter (above 70% for weeks 1-3). The lift in trademark search queries fell away even more slowly (91% and 81% respectively).

Shaw says the results help illustrate how online advertising works: 'Despite the long-held obsession with using clicks to measure campaign performance - which reflect only the immediate impact of an ad - the studies demonstrate that the Internet is clearly effective as a latent brand-building medium.' He concludes: 'ignore online as a brand-building channel at your own peril.'

A free copy of the findings is available via www.comscore.com/WhitherTheClick .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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