Media buyers who had hoped that the internet would offer the ultimate in accountability are still waiting. It is still not possible to be sure exactly how many people have been exposed to a particular banner, both because of proxy servers and because a banner at the bottom of a page might never actually be seen by its supposed target.
Even if the impression is a genuine one where eyeballs are indeed exposed to a banner image, clickthrough rates are sinking ever lower in a phenomenon known as banner burn-out. Nielsen shows that US clickthrough rates now average 0.25 per cent, although well-executed banners with clever media buying can reach rates of clickthrough of between 10 and 14 per cent.
There seems to be a reverse correlation between the degree of internet sophistication in a country and the clickthrough rate. The longer the internet has been widespread, the lower the clickthrough. Ukraine and Russia have clickthrough rates at least double the UK. France has the lowest clickthrough rate in Europe, probably because the long-standing Minitel has increased cynicism and emphasised banner burn out.
As a result of these dire numbers, media owners everywhere are searching for reasons to buy banners. As long ago as 1998, Millward Brown circulated research commissioned by one of the search engines, attempting to prove that banners were effective branding devices based on recall. Now Engage has come up with research showing that there is a link between banner exposure and later purchase, even if there is no clickthrough.
Engage does provide some evidence for the claim. Its research shows a higher "propensity" to purchase within a short time of the banner ad impression, with the highest propensity being within 30 minutes of seeing the ad. However, these figures are only an index, meaning they have not released the actual impression-to-purchase statistics.
Another chart that Engage has released seems to show there is a greater chance that a consumer will buy a product if they have not clicked on an ad than if they have. Using data from the US medical supplies site PlanetRx.com, post-impression (no-click) first purchases are said to be 60 per cent of the dollar value of sales on the site, compared to only 14 per cent of sales from post-click first purchases.
PlanetRx is one of those rare sites where products promoted in the banner can be bought on the site. Is this a case of never mind the clickthrough, feel the width?
EUROPEAN CLICK RATES
Domains Click rate (indexed) Ukraine 1.000000000 Russia 0.906019966 Poland 0.780225875 Turkey 0.726782293 Bulgaria 0.674800847 Croatia 0.641423818 Estonia 0.617626298 Romania 0.583593829 Portugal 0.568165776 Greece 0.559191288 Netherlands 0.546485832 Germany 0.503983059 Denmark 0.501512554 Italy 0.494655642 Austria 0.488302914 Britain 0.485025713 Spain 0.471059796 Norway 0.468639710 Switzerland 0.463597862 Belgium 0.442573359 Finland 0.414086921 Sweden 0.409199633 France 0.368206111 Source: AdKnowledge System
Nick Rosen is a director of the Online Research Agency. email: nick@online-agency.com or tel: 0797 1543703.
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