Firefox users click fewer ads.

Interesting, but useless statistic

[ionchannels]

Hi,
I was going through my adsense logs this morning and found a very dramatic difference between IE users and Firefox users. The CTR for firefox impressions is only half that of IE users - and the sample size is quite large - 300K impressions from IE6 and 45K from firefox. Just found it interesting...

[spaceylacie]

Firefox users are in general more tech savvy than IE users. For example, tech sites will have a larger percentage of their visitors who use Firefox than non-technical sites. The more tech savvy a visitor is, the less they click. Useful info if you are deciding between starting a tech or non-tech site.

[ionchannels]

That is true, but for that to translate into a lower CTR, you would have to equate clicking on ads with being technologically clueless, which may also be true. It could also have to do with FF users being more anti-corporate and therefore more leery about advertisements. Another possibility may lie in the fact that FF users are more intelligent than IE users and are less likely to be fooled by cleverly disguised ad blocks <ducks and hides...>

[spaceylacie]

Well, I use IE, which gives merit to your last statement. ;-)

[CarKnee]

It could also be that FF users are able to block banner ads with the use of a custom userContent.css file. I dont see any ads while I am using FF.

[mozilla.org...]

[stardoc]

Going by ionchannels analogy, firefox users should convert well (if they are more intelligent than IE users, they will be clicking only on ads they have genuine interest in) and thus keep your smart pricing high. So no loss overall!

[europeforvisitors]

I'd be inclined to go with the "fewer accidental clicks by technically clueless users" scenario.

A lot of users are easily confused: On a typical day, I get e-mails from travelers and business owners who think my European travel-planning site is a national tourist office, an embassy, or a cruise line. I even get e-mails from people who think I'm master glassblower or or the owner of a glass factory because my site has an article on Murano glass. (I also have an article on a cemetery; with my luck, a corpse will turn up on my doorstep for burial one of these days.) If these people can't tell the difference between a travel-planning site and a cruise line or glassblower, it shouldn't be surprising that they and people like them (who are likely to be IE users) can't tell the difference between a navigation link and an AdSense ad.

[andrea99]

IE users are by default those who accept default settings and less likely to be put off by commercialism and ads in general.

There are exceptions to be sure, but the clueless are more likely to use default settings and more likely to click on the first thing they see, which if you use AdSense placement guidelines is most likely an AdSense ad.

[netscan]

Or they're more likely to be "ad blind" than the average IE user. That is, they recognize it immediately as an advertisement and thus not worthy of closer review whereas the average user will look to it for information just as if it were "part" of the website itself.