The more college educated a state is, the harder it becomes to advertise to, according to online ad network Chitika’s latest study.  The Massachusetts-based company compared the ad click rates of individual states to those states’ rates of college education (from the US Census Bureau’s data), and found a strong inverse relationship.

Do educated people click less on ads? If you are a marketer, what can you expect as far as click-through-rate (CTR) on your ads? These are the questions that are raised in this study.

“The more college educated a state is, the harder it becomes to advertise to” – Chitika Insights.

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 click-through rate and the demographics of the visitors.

By looking at the demographics and the click-through patterns, this study and insights were extracted. Read more about the methodology here.

Key Insights

The two states with the lowest ad click rate, Massachusetts and Washington, showed a much higher rate of college education than the national average.

West Virginia, which boasted the highest click rate, also had the lowest percentage of college graduates over the age of 25 in its population.

In between, the relationship between low click rate and high college education rate stayed relatively strong.

CTR vs Education

The study was conducted by Chitika’s research director for online insights, Daniel Ruby, who says the company “wanted a geographic idea of who was interested in ads.  By determining that, we could start looking at state-by-state census data and draw some conclusions about what demographics were best to advertise to.”

“wanted a geographic idea of who was interested in ads.  By determining that, we could start looking at state-by-state census data and draw some conclusions about what demographics were best to advertise to.” – Dan Ruby

So what, then, are publishers and advertisers to take away from these findings?

“Obviously, if you’re targeting a more educated demographic, you need to do a better job of making your ad worthwhile,” says Ruby.  “This, like everything, is an opportunity to push the industry towards the idea of content first, sales pitch second, even among advertisements.”

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