It might have been just a novelty affect. Users must have just been curious and clicked on it. The real test is the conversion rate. How many of those that clicked took further action.
Throw Out Everything You Know About Ads
121–128 of 128 posts
Re: Throw Out Everything You Know About Ads
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anytime someone emphasizes free, I instantly start to think where's the catch. Something like: "FREE TRIAL!!" - "wanna spam me with email?"
I do as well, but we're outliers. In an A/B test, the version which emphasizes free usually wins. I've even seen it beat an offer of getting paid to do something.
In what context? Because I definitely don't trust the internet to promise me money.
Re: Throw Out Everything You Know About Ads
#123Interesting, but the author is missing a critical point: the conversion after clicks. When I see the first ad, I clearly understand immediately that it's for a car game. I'm not likely to click, but if I click, I know what I want, and I'm very likely to actually download/install/play the game. When I see the second ad, I wonder what it is, so yes, I'm more likely to click on it. But I'm not interested in car games. S…
Both ads advertise Free, and it's clear that it's a car game in both ads... Also you need to consider the fact that higher CTR means higher relevancy score and potentially lower costs if you're paying by the click.
Re: Throw Out Everything You Know About Ads
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, it's the same as when Google came out with their text ads. They were different, so people clicked them.
Actually, it's more likely because 80+% of Google users couldn't (and probably still can't) tell the difference between the advertisements and the results: http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2005/Search-Engine-Users....
This is absolutely true. The background colour is slightly different, but on my laptop screen that's hardly visible at all, unless I tilt the screen at an extreme angle[1].
I have to say I kind of feel cheated by that trickery, every time, and it is one of the reasons (though not the most important one) that I use Google much less recently (in favour of DDG).
[1] no I'm not particularly happy about this screen, the rest of the machine is great but if I had known it would be this bad I might have picked a different model (I got an Asus EEE 1215B)
Re: Throw Out Everything You Know About Ads
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that my comment still applies. We've gone from a smaller number of people with a high concentration of those that are 'tech literate,' to a larger number of people with a smaller concentration of the 'tech literate.'
That's probably some of it. I could be wrong but I think the ratios have gone up more than that. Anyway, I don't think the "techies don't click ads" effect is really as strong as a lot of people assume. My guess is that (a) Google has optimized the ads for more clicks (b) advertisers have gotten beter at attracting clicks & (c) People are more aware of when to click on ads. If you're looking for a babysitter, you are…
> I don't think the "techies don't click ads" effect is really as strong as a lot of people assume.
I kind of doubt that myself and would like to see some numbers before coming to that conclusion. Especially if just talking about CTR instead of conversion rate. For the latter I'm willing to believe that if the techie clicks the ad, they're more likely to buy. Though that is a guess I'd also like to see supported with numbers :)
It might also be very different in the USA. If I see an ad with my search results, a lot of the time it's a US company and even if I would want to use a service on the other side of the ocean, I can only pay with either my creditcard or PayPal. I won't use PayPal and my creditcard is tucked away in some drawer somewhere. Actually, for any non-Dutch company (say, German), a creditcard or PayPal is usually the only option. On a Dutch site I can pay with iDeal via my bank card (zero transaction costs, authentication via text message on my banking account's site).
Re: Throw Out Everything You Know About Ads
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>"invented by a local mom" That is the first flag that it is a scam.
With the # of ads I've seen with that tag, I'd imagine the "local mom" to be some sort of genius, making $5000/week, getting dermatologists to hate her b/c of some wrinkle miracle while losing 800 lbs in 2 weeks.
> With the # of ads I've seen with that tag, I'd imagine the "local mom" to be some sort of genius, making $5000/week, getting dermatologists to hate her b/c of some wrinkle miracle while losing 800 lbs in 2 weeks.
800 pounds indeed. It's because of this incredible weight-loss that "local moms" have an extremely short half-life and are in fact rarely observed outside laboratory conditions.
Re: Throw Out Everything You Know About Ads
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
This also bothered me. Just reading through his blog post makes it clear that proper English isn't very high on his list of priorities.
Whoops, my bad, it's been fixed with the % sign.
You might also want to consider using promille (per 1000) or something similar, when dealing with such tiny percentages. (I don't mean they're tiny for a CTR figure, just that small numbers like that are harder to get a gist of than "1.37 clicks for each 1000 views".
Re: Throw Out Everything You Know About Ads
#128I have been running facebook ad campaigns for over a year now and consistently found that by hand writing something in paint on a relevant image, i get much better ctr than just the relevant image.