A Cautionary Tale about Mobile Ads

I’ve shared my strong opinions towards click fraud regarding various ad platforms such as Google AdSense and Facebook before, so I’m not surprised by a recent article I came across by MarketingProfs.

http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2011/4365/mobile-app-users-click-on-ads-mostly-by-mistake?adref=nlt020311

The article discusses data detailing how most mobile app users click on advertisements by accident more than they do on purpose.

Think about that! Let’s say it’s 50/50… That means you really need to double your cost (or divide your clicks by two) when calculating expected ROI and other metrics.

For instance, I know that 40% of the clicks on my Facebook ads never get counted by Google Analytics, meaning that those clicks don’t make it to my landing page (or a select few don’t have JavaScript/cookies enabled, which is very low). So I know that 40% of what I get charged by Facebook is a sunk cost, and provides no value. So when I calculate and try to predict the performance of future campaigns, I always make sure I factor in the 40%.

When doing mobile ads, it’s important to realize that your conversion rate may be a lot better than you see, because half of the people clicking your ad are going to abandon immediately. So divide that by two, and that’s a more accurate click-to-conversion rate.


%d bloggers like this: