Study: Mobile (And Particularly iPhone) Users Not Keen On Clicking Ads

techcrunch.com

7 points·satyajit··6 comments

Is anyone really expecting mobile users to be a viable market for traditional internet advertising?

I would have thought it was a foregone conclusion that users were adverse to the standard click-through path on a small modal-use device.

Doesn't this study just mean that Chitika's ads are half as likely to be cliked on from mobile users? It's only one data point without controlling for the type of ad. I wouldn't want to generalize to all mobile users based on just this study. Anything else out there that observed similar results?

Certainly for a mobile site I won't be using Chitika; instead I'll try another network. The numbers are clear :)

I would think certain cases might have far higher click throughs in fact. For instance, if I'm searching for $FOOD near $LOCATION on my mobile phone, I would be incredibly likely to click an appropriate ad.

But they take you, the user, away from whatever it is you're actually doing. This is another case where the advertiser is going to have to see if their marketing message succeeds without the 'click through' to give them the warm and fuzzies.

Isn't this an instance of the more general observation that people click less on links when loading is relatively slower (less bandwidth) and click more on links when loading is relatively faster (more bandwidth)?

Mobile users may also use the web for shorter sessions on average than desktop users, so they don't have extra time to click on ads. The average mobile user may also be savvier than the average desktop user.

Both those points are pure speculation on my part; data to confirm or refute would be welcome.

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