Why Branding Campaigns Can’t Rely on the 6% that Click Display Ads

Starcom, Tacoda and comScore’s “Natural Born Clickers” study suggests that advertisers looking to increase their brand awareness should dump click-through rates as a measure of success.

The study found that, when it comes to display advertising, 50% of the clicks come from just 6% of the total US online population. And while these 25-44 year olds spend four times the amount online compared to non-clickers, they earn less than $40k a year.

What does this mean for advertisers who buy display ads for branding purposes? Don’t focus on the click!

Further preliminary Starcom data suggests no correlation between display ad clicks and brand metrics, and show no connection between measured attitude towards a brand and the number of times an ad for that brand was clicked. The research presentation suggests that when digital campaigns have a branding objective, optimizing for high click rates does not necessarily improve campaign performance.

“While the click can continue to be a relevant metric for direct response advertising campaigns, this study demonstrates that click performance is the wrong measure for the effectiveness of brand-building campaigns,” said Erin Hunter, executive vice president at comScore in a statement.

Of course, it could just be that the three companies set out to back up their own theory that clicks don’t relate to branding, but then again, don’t all studies start with a biased hypotheses?

Hat-tip.