Re: True Cause of CTR Rate Decline?

From: Jonathan Roy <roy_at_idle.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 05:44:24 -0500 (CDT)

JOHNNY HO WROTE:
>I was just thinking about the decrease in ctr rate over the
>pass few years. I think the true cause of the decrease in
>ctr rate is partly due to the increase in content.
>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think the cause is more simple than that. Sites just
provide more and more impressions for the same number of
users. Look at all the sites that have reloading ads now.
Over and over the ads reload, even if you aren't there.
Heck, sometimes I minimize my browser and go play a game for
a few hours, and it's happily reloading ads I don't see
every 30-90 seconds. Automatically reloading ads can't do
anything but hurt your click rate really. Of course, you get
a lot more impressions and can sell more ads that way.

I agree a good way to handle things is to limit the number
of times a person see an ad. I know some engines like
Accipiter can provide cookies to track uses and limit the
number of times each will see your ad. If you don't use
cookies, use IP + user agent, not just the IP though, so you
can tell apart some of the people using the same proxy.

I haven't had time to look at the effect the # of times an
ad is seen in my own research, I barely have time to make
progress on my thesis at all, but it's be interesting to see
how CTR is affected based on the # of times an ad is seen by
the same IP+user agent during a single visit. Another free
tip if you ever pursue work in this area is to not just
limit the # of times an ad is seen by the ad, but also by
the insertion order, or even by the client. ie: If you have
20 clients with 80 ads, and a user only sees ~10 ads per
visit, may as well show 10 different clients to each person.

 Have a great day,

-Jonathan

--
Jonathan Roy - roy_at_idle.com - Idle Communications, Inc.


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Received on Thu Apr 15 1999 - 07:49:06 CDT