Do users who move the mouse and click on a button more likely to convert into a transaction or an ad click? How often do these button clickers – as opposed to those that navigate with just the keyboard, convert into various transactions? This is the question that this study delves into.
Before we proceed, let us look at the methodology here:
Study Methodology
This study was done using data from the Chitika network. Chitika analyzed millions of impressions from its ad network looking into the referring google searches.
By analyzing the referring domain and the pattern of queries, this study and insights were extracted. Read more about the methodology here.
Key Findings
People who search by clicking the button on Google’s homepage are fifty percent more likely to go on to click an ad than people who search by any other Google means, according to this online study by Chitika Insights.
“People who search by clicking the button on Google’s homepage are 50% more likely to go on to click an ad than people who search by any other Google means” – Chitika Insights
The study, which looked at just over 11 million impressions, shines a light on the possibility and importance of being able to predict web users’ activity.
When comparing the different types of traffic that come through their advertising network, the researchers at Chitika compared the different types of Google traffic:
- people who click on the “Google Search” button
- people who search by hitting the enter key
- people who search from browser toolbars, etc.
The overall clickthrough rate for the entire Google-searching sample was 0.95%
However, in a key finding, people who searched by clicking on the search button at Google.com clicked ads at a 1.56% rate – so almost 50% higher.
Raw Data
The table below shows the numbers of impressions for each group along with the associated CTR – which is a good indication of post-search transaction activity.
| Type | Impressions | Clicks | CTR |
|---|---|---|---|
| All Google Searches | 10,307,849 | 97,440 | 0.95% |
| Google Button Clicks | 767,209 | 11,934 | 1.56% |
But the question becomes, why such a high disparity? Why are people who type in their query and hit “Enter” so much less likely to click on an ad than someone who performs a search differently through the same website?
“Sophistication is my guess,” says Rand Fishkin, SEO guru and CEO of SEOMoz.org. “Hitting enter means you’re not moving your hands away from the keyboard and likely indicates a more tech-savvy (and hence, click-sensitive) individual.”
“Sophistication is my guess, Hitting enter means you’re not moving your hands away from the keyboard and likely indicates a more tech-savvy (and hence, click-sensitive) individual.” – Rand Fishkin, SEO guru and CEO of SEOMoz.org
So it appears that advertising click rates are inversely proportional to the “tech-savviness” of the people receiving the ads.
By defining a user’s tech-savviness, it’s possible that ad networks going forward will be able to target better and better, driving revenue for websites while showing less ads.
This insight also indicates the importance of optimizing your CTA buttons. The most valuable users are the ones who are clicking on these buttons – as opposed to clicking “Enter” on your forms.
And in case you are curious, our new company, Poll the People, will be doing lot more studies like this. And you can A/B test your own CTA buttons on real people in less than 60 mins – with our new service. Free Signup included.
Sign up for free to test on Poll the People and help us create checkout pages that are easy to use and fast. With your help, we can make sure that everyone has a great experience when shopping online.
Very interesting numbers. But it is not clear what stands behind “All Google Searches”. Toolbar is just one example.
This survey also shows that most of searches preformed not from Google main homepage.
.95 ctr? I haven’t seen anything near that..
“Clickers are more likely to click” – well no kidding? What an insight into human behavior 🙂
wow! this study is really interesting and I agree with this report. I don’t know if this post will really help me but I still find it interesting 🙂
Good news, but still need to work more on direct traffics from search engine.
Study is a good revelation.
Chitika, however, needs to acknowledge high Non US / Canada traffic too at its earliest convenience. It can match Google provided it spreads its wings
I can see how these number are correct. The reason might be that people who have to click the search button are less used to the internet world (thus clicking instead of just hitting enter) and trust the websites more. In some cases thay probably even cannot tell which links are part of the page and which ones are the advertisements.
I suspect webpages with posted computer programming advice get less clicks than pages about food or clothes…
Gee, guys, who came up with the title of the article, really? I guess, “mouse users” or, better yet “mouse addicts are more likely to click” would describe the findings a bit better…
Anyways, that’s not why I wanted to post a comment. What exactly do you mean by “clicking the button on Google’s homepage?” Do you mean “I’m feeling lucky?”. Because if you click the “Google Search” button, you are not leaving Google’s properties yet. You have to click on a text link in order to visit any site, so what ads exactly did you describe in your write-up? Google’s AdWords? (in which case what does Chitika care) or ads on sites visited from Google search? Then how in the world can you get there by clicking any button other than “I’m feeling lucky” and, more importantly, how would you know that they clicked a button? Anyways, if you clicked on “I’m feeling lucky” you must be so dumb you’d click on anything, really.
So, all in all, given that the audience of this respectable blog is little more technical that your average internet user, would you do us all a favor and put some detail in your future posts that would keep your reader from guessing too much?
Scriptster,
To answer your question, I came up with the name for the article. What I mean by “clicking the button on Google’s homepage” is that they execute their search by entering the search term and physically clicking “Search”, rather than entering the query and hitting enter. The click rate I refer to is, once someone has come to your page via different methods of Google searching, how likely they are to click the ads on your page.
Perhaps the best one-line summary is, “People who execute their Google searches by clicking “Search”, as opposed to hitting enter to execute the search, are fifty percent more likely to end up clicking an ad on your page.”
“I’m Feeling Lucky” has nothing to do with this research, and my apologies if it wasn’t presented clearly. Also, if the headline was too cutesy, again, my apologies.
Quick follow-up, the Google referral that comes in to your page is different depending on the actions of the visitor. The referral URL contains elements that determine where and how the individual visitor performed their search.
It’s similar to the way we target ads to a search query – while the search itself doesn’t take a user away from Google’s properties, when they click through to your site you can see from the referring URL what search query was used. It’s the same for determining where and how the search was executed.
This is a great post on human behaviour analysis. Does chitika have data for Yahoo and Bing search user click behaviour and CTRs.Probably it might help advertisers abit.
Daniel, I see what you mean now. I never noticed (or even looked for it) that the Google search page URL differs based on mouse click or hitting enter. Mouse click adds more parameters to the query, so this mush be how you determine if they use their mouse well.
It is a great find, now, let’s come up with a test that determines that “clickers” (“mouse addicts”? 🙂 ) should be shown a certain type of ad and not the other.
For example, there is no good reason to show inline ads to people that don’t have a mouse in their hand (or afraid to use it). You absolutely have to use your mouse to click on that link, so as a web publisher I might as well just keep the page cleaner and skip the inline ads.
Can someone else come up with a good practical application of the phenomenon the study has unearthed?
thanks for chitika i can shared
I will also give a big thanks.