Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Correction: Checkout Icon Makes Ads 10% More Clickable to Checkout Users, Google Says

Yesterday I mentioned Google claims that the Checkout badge on ads is causing an increase of 10% clicks on search result pages. But I had misinterpreted what Google said – Ben Milleare in the comments pointed out a correction to this:

Google isn’t actually saying that there is 10% gain in CTR. It’s saying there is a 10% gain in CTR for “Google Checkout users”

... the full phrasing of Google being: “Increase sales. Google Checkout users click on ads 10% more when the ad displays the Checkout badge and convert 40% more than shoppers who have not used Checkout in the past.”

And that is a potentially big difference because not everyone’s a Checkout user, and Checkout users may have a larger incentive to click on those ads. So how much does the Checkout badge increase clickability amongst all users, if at all? We can’t tell from that number Google provides – I guess only Google knows.

(One other quote Google presents, but from outside data of one advertiser and their specific campaigns and not Google’s own figures, says “The new Google Checkout badge that appears on our AdWords advertisements has given us a 23 percent lift in clickthrough rate.” But it could be that Google picked the best number from several feedback quotes, or that the campaign was not representative etc.)

[Thanks Ben!]

Please comment in the existing thread.

Correction: Checkout Icon ... by Philipp Lenssen

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