Does the click-through rate really measure the website?

Some people say that the internet is just another big hole unseen. This sentence is without a reason. Now, our understanding of the Internet regularly into a misunderstanding. For example, "What people click" is "what people read", "What people share" is "what people read" and so on. The price of sticking to the rut is an endless flow of capital, a never-ending failure, and a recurring cycle of errors.

Well, I'm sure you're still unconvinced. Then, listen to me.

In 1994, a mail marketer, Ken Macasi Ken McCarthy, came up with the idea of "click-through" as a measure of the quality of Internet content. Since then, the word "click" has become a decisive indicator of the performance of Internet advertising and has created giant companies such as Google. The word "Click" tells us that the future of the advertising world will be built by clicking, where consumer behavior and advertising are closely linked.

But is that really the case? The click-through rate brings too many negative effects. It makes the internet full of spam, phishing links, bad web design, and a lab mouse for netizens. TV ads are still trying to make you focus on the content of the advertising itself, the Internet is no matter how much you, only need you non-stop click, click, or click!

Now, 20 years have passed. All aspects of the Internet are already very different, but people's obsession with "clicks" persists. We are living in the "click-Through Internet" era. Now, the new technology is coming, the click Rate plummeted, the mouse continuous two clicks between what happened, more and more important. And the media are aware of all this and are trying to adapt to this change. Web sites like the new York times are redesigning pages to stop chasing seemingly omnipotent clicks. Emerging Web sites, such as Medium and Upworthy, are dedicated to allowing users to immerse themselves in the content itself and not consider "page access" and "Ctr". The main point of "native advertising" is to capture your attention, not just to leave a vague impression. What they want now is not your clicks, but your time and attention! Today is no longer the "Ctr Internet" era, welcome to the "attention of the Internet" era!

In this era, "click" This indicator, as if the playground tickets. After entering the amusement park, there are more data for Internet practitioners to analyze the operation habits and behavior of the network name by the second frame. With this data, we know that the facts that have been taken for granted are all fallacies.

Myth # 1: We clicked, that means we read it.

Over the past 20 years, media practitioners have been chasing page visits, that is, how many times a site has been refreshed and read, the larger the number, the more people are reading it, and the more successful the site is. Chartbeat company time one months, to 2 billion browsing done a depth of user behavior research, found that most people, click but do not read. In fact, 55% of people spend less than 15 seconds on one page. If you just pull the "article page" out alone, maybe this data will be better, but there are still 33% of people who spend less than 15 seconds on this page. People need to calm down and think about this fact.

If you dig deeper, the data will become more interesting. Our data team randomly tested the 2 billion page views generated by 580,000 articles in 2000 sites. We select the "key words" that are most frequently clicked, they often bring very high page traffic, which is the most interactive degree, such as the Netizen carries on the message discussion vote, and the degree of interaction is weakest, for example, after clicking on the flash person, and the two categories are compared. Articles that keep clicking and interacting with users are usually news in real life. In August 2013, the best words were "Obamacare", "Edward Snowden", "Syria" and "George Zimmerman", while January was "Woody Allen" and "Richard Sherman". The second category is the most clicks, but the Netizen less participates in the article, the general key words are generalities. In August, the worst-performing keywords were "best", "biggest" and "optimal". If you do not have any concept, you can recall the various eye-catching news on our Chinese Internet: "The most handsome 10 cars in history", "the best ten Views in history" and so on.

In fact, whether the degree of interaction is high, or weak. These keywords bring in exactly the same amount of traffic. Editors may feel that as long as the topic can generate "click-through" and "traffic", they do their job, but doing so means that we only see the traffic received on the page as a single metric, regardless of where the traffic comes from. In short, these editors, with their generalities and their eyeballs, are not going to get a loyal, valuable audience. Chartbeat's team of researchers has shown that if you can allow a viewer to stay on your page for more than three minutes, they are more likely to come back to the page than the viewers who have stayed a minute to go. The real value of the audience, is willing to continue to return to the page! Once, Internet practitioners are trying their best to use the "history of the highest level of the atmosphere of a certain" and other sensational headlines to cheat clicks. Nowadays, they have converted their ideas, reporting valuable content, producing real good stories so that audiences can patronize the page again.

Myth 2, the more we share, the more we read.

(above axis, y-axis social sharing level from low to high.) X-axis reading time from less to more. )

As the status of "page views" declines, brand marketers and Internet editors are starting to accept another metric: the number of tweets and shares that are shared on Facebook or Twitter. Social sharing is socially oriented, meaning that people are not only willing to read the content, but also actively recommend it. There is some truth in focusing on social sharing. If you share it, Internet traffic certainly improves. But people who are willing to share only a small percentage of the total number of visitors to the content. We've done experiments where only 8 out of 100 viewers are willing to share on Facebook and 1 are pushing on Twitter. It is generally believed that the more the content is praised or shared, the more interactions it brings, the more people are willing to focus on it. However, data is not supported. We examined 10,000 articles that could be socially shared, and found that the number of times the articles were shared was not related to the reader's attention. When we combine the two indicators of "user attention" and "Internet traffic", we find that: in an article, if a netizen invests longer, it does not get more than 100 of Facebook's praise and does not get more than 50 tweets on Twitter. Conversely, if a story is pushed or shared in a large amount, only 20% of the people will take the time to see it.

In short, social sharing is not a panacea in the era of "attention to the Internet".

Myth 3: "Native advertising" is the savior of the media.

(pictured above: the first act 71% of netizens are looking at ordinary content, and the second act 24% of netizens are watching "native ads".) )

First of all, explain the native AD (Native advertising), it is not a form of advertising, is a profit model from the website and app user experience, driven by the content of the advertisement, and integrates the visual design of the website and the app itself (in short, it's the integration of the website, the app itself) , such ads become part of the Web site, app content, such as Google search ads, Facebook's sponsored Stories, and Twitter's tweet ads.

A lot of media companies, are now a brain to the "original advertising" direction of the force, its content in such as New yokr times or fobes these large sites, the brand to the audience, and strive to do not affect the audience's browsing experience. However, we should also face up to this reality. In a general article, two-thirds of people are willing to spend more than 15 seconds. In the context of the "native ad", the proportion fell to one-third. Through the "page scrolling" indicator, you can also find that only 24% of people are willing to pull the "native AD" page down to the end, while the General page, 71% of the people will. This means that brand-makers spend money without paying enough attention. But there are exceptions. Some sites, such as Gizmodo and Refinery29, have optimized the browsing experience, striving to improve the quality of "native advertising", ensuring that its advertising content is seamless with the content of the site itself, and that the ultimate success in achieving "native advertising" and web content has been equally maximized.

The experience we need here is not to give up "native advertising" but to do it in the right way. The right way to help you connect with a wider audience and guide them to click on your brand website. Now, more and more brands are beginning to pay attention to the user clicks the mouse response. "Native advertising" has the hope to further improve its quality, no need to do any tricks to make it shine in the advertising industry.

Myth # 4: Banner ads don't work.

Over the past few years, people have often lamented the death of banner ads. The average hits have dropped to 0.1%. But the advertising industry's comments on banner ads are overblown. I admit that a lot of banner ads are bad enough, but there are also some banner ads very good! Microsoft,google,yahoo and Chartbeat have all initiated experiments to prove that viewers on the page active browsing, advertising in his field of vision, the longer the time, the better the effect of advertising. If a person looks at the page for more than 20 seconds, and the page has been marked with a banner ad, then Bell will recall the ad.

This is easier said than done. The brutal truth is. For a normal page, 66% of the viewer's attention will not be placed in a conspicuous position. A position above the center of a page? People tend to simply drag the mouse and skip the part directly. But even so, many customers want to put banner ads in the so-called "conspicuous" places that people simply don't notice.

But there are also savvy media, such as dour and Vox, and the old Financial times, which guide them through data rather than traditional practices. They optimized the web browsing experience, trying to get the attention of users, and placing "banner ads" in other places where they were more likely to be noticed.

So, the way to banner ads is simple. You have to conceive some very creative banner ads, put them in the carefully selected pages of the location, (these positions are often supported by data, rather than in the traditional sense of the top), for a long time before the audience.

Summary：

We should keep in mind that the future of Internet advertising, evaluation of the quality of advertising is not only depends on clicks, but the user's energy and time. As network media practitioners, we should strive to improve the quality of content. Because time is scarce, people tend to spend more time on valuable content and sweep away junk information. And only through a variety of indicators, a comprehensive reflection of people willing to give you the content to devote more time and energy, you are eligible to claim higher advertising costs. In the "Attention Network" era, we continue to explore, to find a sustainable development of high-quality business model. We believe that a website focused on improving page design and improving content quality will gain more recognition in the future in the process of Internet evolution.