Did people ever click on banners after like 2002? CTR on these things are abysma...

toddynho · on March 29, 2017

Carbon Ads has pretty solid CTR, ads perform, advertisers renew, etc. It's not all doom and gloom for online advertising when you respect users and work hard to combine quality advertisers and publishers.

fictioncircle · on March 29, 2017

It works with intent but "intent" is really only available to Bing, Google, etc. where the user is searching for something _specific_ to purchase.

For instance someone googling reviews of Samsung Dryers probably is considering buying a dryer of some kind.

The further you get from that initial intent the less valuable your ads are until they are basically worthless.

DLarsen · on March 29, 2017

CTR isn't the only KPI by which ads are sold. These days, publishers understand that ads still influence even if normal users don't actually click. When a purchase is preceded by an impression from my ad network, in some cases I can get credit for a portion of it.

jonathankoren · on March 29, 2017

Agree that CTR isn't the main metric that matters from a business perspective, but it's the one to verify the statement "no one clicks on banners".

8note · on March 30, 2017

Isn't that the wrong question?

what I'd really like to know is whether banners are a worthwhile investment, not if they get clicked on.