How Often Do You Click on Ads and Net Promotions?

Posted by | 11/18/2009 | 7 Comments

This has always been a curious conundrum for me. The web economy is based largely on advertising and getting you to buy something. It is also based on a marketing stable, collecting and selling your information to other sources.  In some cases ads and promotions require a click through for someone to make some money off of them. In some cases the pay off happens with an impression or a viewing of the ad. But, let’s talk about the click though ads and promotions for a second.

It is no secret to anyone who pays attention that there are a number of ways to create scams through advertising and promotions on the web. The Feds are doing an investigation of some of these post transaction scams where your data is captured and then sold time and again for a profit.  Some of these are obviously shady, and some skate the shady line by looking quite legit. You’d probably be amazed at how the laws are structured to allow this. Post transaction simply means that your data is captured and sold after the transaction is completed. Banks, supermarkets, and retailers have done this for years, and the Internet obviously followed suit and apparently is doing so quite well.

But here’s the conundrum. Who clicks on these ads? Maybe it is just the folks I associate with, but I know of no one who clicks on Internet ads or promotions.  Asking this question of strangers usually yields a “I don’t do it” response. But yet when you read articles like this you see whopping numbers of revenue generated. (Again, some of those numbers come from impressions versus click-thru). Someone must be clicking somewhere, otherwise it wouldn’t be lucrative for either the legitimate ad trade or the scammers. So, who is it? Is it you? (No judgment attached to that question.) I’d like to know from our readers, how often you click through on an ad or a promotion? How often do you purchase online? Sound off in the comments and let us know.

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Category: Software

About the Author (Author Profile)

Warner Crocker is a professional theatre director, producer and playwright and also a Tablet PC enthusiast. He is also a Microsoft MVP for Tablet PCs. Send email to Warner.
  • http://www.thinkpads.com Tim

    I pretty much never click on ads, but then again I don’t generally go to 3rd party sites looking to buy things. I use third party sites to find information and then generally go directly to a vendor to purchase. So I research product XYZ, then go directly to Amazon to buy. One exception would be looking for deals, where I may click-through the affiliate link of a deal site to get to the deal, knowing that their income relies on getting credit for that sale.

    Consider Google Adsense. Companies that advertise on Adsense are happy to get click-through rates in the 1% range, or less sometimes. Gives you a bit of perspective there.

  • http://twitter.com/c0rinne Corinne

    Never….

    Yup, never pretty much covers it. Unless I accidentally click.

  • John in Norway

    The only browser I use is Firefox mainly because it allows me to use addons that block all ads. Does that answer the question?

  • SAM

    Only accidently.

    Whats more annoying are the pop ups that cover the article you are trying to read and scroll with you or follow your cursor.

    The trick ads that say “close” and it takes you to more ads.

    Roll-over ads that display when your cursor accidently crosses the ad to click on the article.

    Ads that make noise, music, talking etyc.

  • Frank

    I never click on ads. I also use Opera with the adblocker activated, so every ad-site is blocked, so even if I accidentially click on an ad the site won’t load, because it does get blocked.

  • GoodThings2Life

    Add me to the list of “never” because I also use Firefox and its AdBlock Plus addon. A few sites like here I exempt from it, but I still don’t click them. Given a choice, I’d rather pay a subscription than see ads at all.

  • http://www.quillaja.net Ben

    Good question. I can’t understand how ad-based revenue works for companies like google. Why would any other company ever give money to google for advertisement? Who the heck clicks stupid ads? Sure, I’m just a simpleton and I don’t have a fancy MBA or anything (though I do have a roll of toilet paper, which is probably more valuable in many ways)…but I could never understand how ad-based revenues work on the internet, tv, radio, or whatnot. Other than little kids, haven’t we all adapted to tune them out?

    I’m glad that things on the internet are free because some companies think that, somehow, ads work. I usually don’t even mind unobtrusive text ads, but lately I had to start using ad-blocker because the ads are getting out of hand and slow page loading.

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