Users attitude to adwords

So do less than 1 in 10 click?

[Crush]

An interesting thing happened in the office the other day. I asked a girl who works for me to find something on google for me.

I was behind her and saw that she did not click the adwords even though it was for a commercial product she was looking for. I asked why don't you click the green results on the right and she replied " because the are all going to ebay to buy a book or something". So she thinks that they are not relevant

I wonder what the CTR rate is for being in the top 3 in the SERPS compared to being #1 on adwords/sponsored link?

I read here that 85% of users click the first 3 results. Anyone got any data?

[chiyo]

Interesting comment. I guess that is why Adwords require affiliates to enter the word "affiliate" in their ad, but in your office person example it is obviously not enough. Perceptions are very important, and i guess google should get very tough on whether the ad wording correctly idenitifies what people will really get when they click on a link - eg. will they get a way to buy that software, or a book written about it?

I know its just one case, but i still think its important, especially if there are other cases like it.

[BriGuy]

I can proudly say that I link AdWords clickers DIRECTLY to the widget of their choice (at the de facto web site of choice)

instead of sending them to one of the myarid of labrynthine comparison sites,

I've had hundreds of satisfied widget buyers so far! :D

[edited by: Shak at 8:49 am (utc) on Aug. 10, 2003]

[webdiversity]

I'm led to believe that the Premium Listings get 20% of the clicks, the Adwords in total get 20% (between all 8, if there are 8 advertisers) and the organic listings get 60%.

Within the organic it's probably 50% to #1 30% to #2 10% to number 3 and the remaining 10% to 4-10.

[dougb]

That story about Ebay really rings true with me -- Ebay has totally ruined AdWords for me as a user. So many of the queries I make are echoed back to me as useless Ebay ads (in the "premium" position) that I instinctively don't trust any of them anymore. For example, when I search for "Cambridge Brewing Company", a restaurant near my home, I get a premium ad that reads "Cambridge - Buy books and more on eBay"... great! I wonder if the only reason ads like these are able to maintain the 0.5% minimum click rate is the volume of "accidental" clicks they get in the premium spot.

(As an aside, I just searched for "pestilence", the least commerce-oriented term I can think of, to see if it brings up an ebay ad. It doesn't, but it does bring up an ad for a comparison shopping site: "Pestilence: Compare Prices, Tax, Shipping from online stores at NexTag". I demand free shipping for my pestilence!)

[hannamyluv]

You know what gets me about the ebay ads, is that they are not held to the same standard as the rest of us. Sometimes, you click on their ad and it brings up no results on their website. If my ads did that, they would be shut down. I suppose a million keyword purchase does get you somewhere. :(

Same goes for a couple of the other big guys (all comparison shopping sites)