Comments on: Digg Users Don’t Click Ads?

By: Digg, Stumble and the Madness of Crowds | Latent Semantic Indexing

Digg, Stumble and the Madness of Crowds | Latent Semantic Indexing — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 12:17:30 +0000

[...] and misspelled comments - and then vanish. Not only do they not click anything (although John Chow disagrees), but they (likely) never [...]

By: Digg, Stumble and the madness of crowds » Mathew Ingram: mathewingram.com/work

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 20:02:52 +0000

[...] comments — and then vanish. Not only do they not click anything (although John Chow disagrees), but they (likely) never [...]

By: Geiger

Geiger — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 12:46:00 +0000

I think that we are arguing two different points. If you know the demographic and interest group of your visitors, obviously tailor made ads can be best. However for “AdSense” and contextual ads, I’ve only experienced minor click through rates. When you hear people complaining, it is going to be AdSense people.

By: John Chow

John Chow — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 01:45:10 +0000

I’m a tech guy but I’m also an internet marketer, and as such I hardly click ads at all. It is believe that Tech users won’t click on as many generic ads are non tech users, but no one has actually done any studies to prove it. But I will say that all users will click if the offer is targeted to what they’re looking for.

Since I own mostly tech sites and so far it has been only the tech sites that has been dugg or /. I’ve done very well with finely targeted ads for the digg/dot readers.

Sites that complain about a Digg or Slashdot not making any money lack the targetting that their offers needs in order to convert the readers. I know tech users will click if targetting is there. I’ve seen it in my stats. I also see it in my TTZ Hot Deals page. The page sells $200,000 of stuff every month.

It’s all in how your present it.

By: Geiger

Geiger — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 23:25:39 +0000

John, what is your CTR? I don’t mean CTR of a site you have, I mean how often do you click on an ad? I would guess a technical guy like you does not click on every 1 in 5 ads.

Now if you know that your are going to be getting traffic from Slashdot for a specific article you can place a specific ad. Now if you don’t know this or you use contextual ads, the rate won’t nearly be as high with contextual.

Are you saying that a technical user is just as likely to click a generic banner ad as technical user is?

By: John Chow

John Chow — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 22:14:20 +0000

Geiger - There is no truth that tech users click fewer ads. And Digg traffic is definitely not worth less than other traffic. If anything it’s worth more. Tech users are among the most highly valued groups on the net. They are highly educated, make more money (and spend more) than average, and are much more likely to buy online than any other groups.

All this adds up to major dollar signs for advertisers. How else can CNet or Slashdot command $50 CPM for an ad on their site (their rate card says $80 but they’ll sell for $50)? Digg gets 200 million page views a month and is valued at $200 million. Dating site PlentyOfFish.com claims 500 million page views per month but would be lucky if he get even $25 million for it. Why? Because tech users are worth way more than a dating group. You won’t find many groups that are worth more than tech.

As for tech users not clicking, that’s just false. I once had a Slashdot for a USB knife with a perfectly targeted ad for it (the knife itself). The click rate was 20%! Tech users will click if the offer is targeted to what they’re looking for.

From my point of view, all this is pretty simple – anyone who can’t make money off a Digg just doesn’t know what they’re doing.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 21:31:53 +0000

Thanks for linking to that article. I went ahead and cleaned my keyboard. Now it looks like new :D.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 21:16:06 +0000

I agree with Moto. Never, ever, have I ever gotten dugg and NOT made money off it. All my CPC programs skyrocketed. If you don’t want that DIGG traffic, send it to me. I’ll make money off it, tech saavy, or not.

I can see why Tech Recipes is not happy. Their site is severely handicapped when a Digg happens because their ads are so poorly placed. All they stand to lose is money. If they fixed it, they’d be singing a different tune.

By: Geiger

Geiger — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 20:11:44 +0000

There is truth though, that more technologically savvy people click less ads. Also Organic search results bring the best visitor in terms of those results.

Digg traffic is not worthless by any means, but is worh-less.