Mobile Advertising Click Through Rates of 5%, 12%, 25% and 29%?
I am not the only one who finds the recent high profile comments about Click through Rates hard to swallow.
It started with Vodafone’s Ray de Silva quoting 25% at Mobile Advertising and Marketing Forum in London in January.
Then, at the MoMo Peer Awards Blyk’s CEO quoted 29%. Both Vodafone and Blyk have not shown any proof about this and they do sound like figures pulled out of that hat.
I spoke candidly to AdMob about the “reality” of these figures and there was agreement that these figures can only come out of very controlled circumstances or campaigns managed within a week or month. These are not the industry standard for on-going mobile advertising services.
As a market leader AdMob says that its click through rate on average is about 10 to 15% - which is impressive and on top of that realistic. But quoting figures as high as 29% is doing little that building up home for mobile advertisers in the market.
I would actually go so far as to say it’s like a “please advertise with me” number that sounds appealing but without justification or signing up – one will never know.
We know mobile advertising is a growing market. But quoting figures without substance is a bad move.
If you look at the chart above it’s from a campaign that I ran with AdMob. I made the same charts in more detail for campaigns run with Decktrade, Google and JumpTap and others.
By using examples of bkimedia.zinadoo.mobi and gomonews.mobi in campaigns run over 2 weeks I managed to track to see what campaigns were more effective by terms of cost and click through over each vendor. If you would like to know more, then contact me – but in the diagram above over two days the sheer volume of impressions on AdMob drove down the click-through vs cost ratio. The above is only a very small example and the click through rate for the campaign was about 2% - but then the cost of the campaign was also only pennies.
Finding a rational between cost vs click through vs impressions is the first step that companies need to take in the mobile advertising and marketing space before quoting unrealistic click through rates.
Related News:
- Nokia Hyundai Mobile Advertising pushing click through rates of 3.41%
- How to measure the value of mobile advertising?
- Pepsi Mobile Advertising Campaign huge click through rates very early on
- Mobile Advertising click through rates of 500%? Give me strength
- Yahoo! oneSearch uses Greystripe for mobile advertising
Yikes!
I just heard from AdMob - I wrote down our chat wrong - the rates they quoted were .1 to 1.5 % (my fast typing much have done it!)
Sorry for the confusion.
But if AdMob is quoting this -then 29% is just not possible.
Cost vs Click Through Rate is not the right parameter to analyze.
You can get high click throughs for pennies per click in Emerging Markets, for example, but the audience might not be relevant to an advertiser.
Different players in the value chain look for different metrics.
Mobile Companies that drive financial transactions from the phone are looking at cost of user acquisition (CPC translating eventually to a CPA model) vis-a-vis the transactional revenue or the lifetime value of an acquired user.
Brands are happy to pay high CPMs if they reach the right audience with the right level of engagement. Click through Rates and CPC’s are just more criteria in the mix.
But…Cost vs Click through Rate metrics does not mean much because for a CPM campaign I would calculate eCPC - effective cost per click and
for a CPC - that number is transparent.
it is a shame that the mobile media is selling ist self as a response based network and not concentrating on the value of the users, their engagement and the targeting options that are available. The industry is leading itself down a path of becoming a response based mechanism like the internet has been suffering recently.
strong campaign results come from compelling messages in the right context delivered to the right audience.
HI Angus - its great to hear that operators are on the same page - thank-you.
HI John, thanks for this. I realise this for the brand -but I am starting to run campaigns for young brands and start-ups - where every penny counts.
Mobile is starting to be used as a means to an promote ODP’s etc.
If you have any more ideas on this - let me know!
thank-you Bena
I have been running a decent mobile advertising campaign (animated banners)on Vodafone live for the past week and am seeing an average of 2% click through to the wapsite. Over the weekend traffic increased dramatically and CTRs rose to 2.33%.
To be honest we were expecting higher click throughs based on a previous experience but have been assured that this number is up there with the best. Plus the campaign ran in the past was back in the days when there were virtually no mobile ads and therefore clutter was low.
We are thrilled with the activity on the site itself and are kind of taking Vodafone’s word for it with the click through rates.
Lisa,
Thanks so much with sharing. If you listen to AdMob then 2% and 2.33% is very good.
But the trouble is there are issues vs visibility and click through - sometimes the right caption does more than a click through to promote the brand.
Please keep sharing and let me know how it goes.
bena
I think I have clicked on a mobile ad once in my life, and God knows I get enough on my iPhone. I go online on my phone for a purpose, not to be distracted by poorly animated gifs that suck the life from my load time, even on 3/4g. I agree with Bena that the right caption would drive me to a brand more than a traditional gif, or cooky crazy ploy. 29% is a flat out lie for a CTR. Unless you’re giving away diamonds, you will never see a 29% CTR. For the record, I have experience in all aspects of advrtising, and in the last 5 years have only focused on branding, which is split for our agency 40% web 30% print 30% new media/radio/tv