Morning Folks!!
I have had a running feud with Dan Warner (pictured below trying to smooch me) for many years. Dan is just as stubborn as I am, so I would imagine our "feud" continues. ;-) Of course I would describe myself as "determined" as opposed to "Stubborn". Dan is the stubborn one! lol
See we have a disagreement about one subject and my dear friend Dan is wrong. Still wrong. Of course he held his opinion while at Fabulous. Wonder if it has changed over time? So today I decided to see if we are any closer in our thinking.
Photo Courtesy of DNJournal.com T.R.A.F.F.I.C. 2006 show in Silicon Valley
Rick, what is this feud about?
Well it is about PPC pages and folks clicking on the links.
My take is that the clicking is a report card on the parked page and the options and links it presents. Of course the bottom line payout is still the key. That aside, folks VOTE by either clicking on a link or leaving the page. If they left the page, something failed by definition.
The links they were presented with did not motivate them to click because the results were not what they were looking for. When more than 50% leave a page with type in traffic the message is they did not find anything they liked or found of interest. So 50% is the threshold for me and that is being liberal. I think anything under 66% click thru on type in traffic could and SHOULD be improved along with the scaled upward payout.
And if a page really works? Then it should get over 100% as folks may come back and choose a 2nd or 3rd link to click if the results are properly targeted to them.
I can tell you that my current overall click thru rate is around 60%. If I was not so lazy I could go thru each domain and tweak it. I could remove the banner on top of the page and then I would be at my threshold 66%. Many of my domains get well over 100%. So at least today I have some control of the results and colors and other things that back in 2006 there was no way to control.
I would imagine our "feud" continues. ;-) Dan, hope you are doing well my friend!!
What say you readers? Do you see it the way I do? How do you see it?
Rick Schwartz
mediawizard
66% CTR, none of the parking companies I know off come even close to 10% of that!
Joe Parvin
High click-through rates would seem to apply only to “destination domains”, not to generic domains in general, where searchers are curious about the domain itself. About the latter, of which I have a few, and where a healthy sales rate is the main objective, I’d like to know if ad links are desirable at all. Where is a great sales page to be found? How would you design it? Would it contain any ad links?
adamstrong
66% CTR is pretty good.
I think the typical “industry standard” is around 20-30% , no ?
florida
why does sedo parking suck so bad?
LSM
You can’t judge porn the same as everything else.
Steve
Rick –
Very interesting – thanks for sharing!
Are you able to share any further breakdown of your CTR’s by domain type/category? Or even an indication on which categories perform ‘above’ or ‘below’ your “average-CTR”.
Domain types/categories, as example, might include:
GEO domains (e.g. HoustonPlumbers.com)
Product domains (e.g. InkJetPrinters.com)
Issue-based domains (e.g. EnvironmentalDamage.com)
Porn/XXX domains
Brandable domains
Typo domains
etc…
Thanks,
Steve
Steve
The list was combined together … it should have been:
– GEO domains (e.g. HoustonPlumbers.com)
– Product domains (e.g. InkJetPrinters.com)
– Issue-based domains (e.g. EnvironmentalDamage.com)
– Porn/XXX domains
– Brandable domains
– Typo domains
– etc…
Mike Robertson
To be fair, each parking company reports/records stats differently. Having worked previously at Fabulous.com, I know that they recorded EVERY valid click (and domain owners were paid for EVERY click), however, only report unique clicks.
So if someone clicked on three different advertiser links, they would only report one click. Whilst other parking companies may report all 3 clicks.
You have to ask yourself, which gives the more accurate reading of positive user experience?
My vote goes to reporting unique clicks. Why? Eg. a domain receives 10 uniques, 9 people don’t click on any ads, but that 10th visitor clicks 7 times. Would it be better to see a CTR of 10% or 70%?
Mike
DomainGuardians.com