apophenia: Who clicks on ads? And what might this mean?

Advertising is the bread and butter of the web, yet most of my friends claim that they never click on ads, typically using a peacock tone that signals their pride in being ad-averse. The geekier amongst them go out of their way to run Mozilla scripts to scrape ads away, bemoaning the presence of consumer culture. Yet, companies increasingly rely on ad revenue to turn a profit and, while clicking on ads ?may? be declining, it certainly hasn't gone away. This raises a critical question: Who are the people that click on ads?

A few years back, I asked this question to someone who worked in the world of web ads and I received a snarky (and condescending) answer: middle America. Over the years, I've read all sorts of speculations about search engine ads suggesting that people click on ads:

• Because they don't know that they're ads.
• Because they are perceived to be of greater quality than the actual search results (for example, in searches for travel).
• When they're searching for something that they want to purchase (intent to buy = desire to get to merchants quickly).
• When they're bored.
• When they think that they might win something or get something for free.

Over the summer, Dave Morgan (AOL Global Advertising Strategy) blogged about a study that they did to investigate who clicks on ads:

What did we learn? A lot. We learned that most people do not click on ads, and those that do are by no means representative of Web users at large.

Ninety-nine percent of Web users do not click on ads on a monthly basis. Of the 1% that do, most only click once a month. Less than two tenths of one percent click more often. That tiny percentage makes up the vast majority of banner ad clicks.

Who are these "heavy clickers"? They are predominantly female, indexing at a rate almost double the male population. They are older. They are predominantly Midwesterners, with some concentrations in Mid-Atlantic States and in New England. What kinds of content do they like to view when they are on the Web? Not surprisingly, they look at sweepstakes far more than any other kind of content. Yes, these are the same people that tend to open direct mail and love to talk to telemarketers.

Social media services like social network sites are not designed around the audience that Morgan suggests is the core of clickers, yet these too rely on advertising. I have a sneaking suspicion that a tiny percentage of MySpace/Facebook/etc. users make up the bulk of the revenue of these sites, just as with the sites that Morgan addresses. I cannot find any research on who clicks on social network site ads (does anyone know of any???), but based on what I've seen qualitatively, my hypothesis would be that heavy ad clickers are:

• More representative of lower income households than the average user.
• Less educated than the average user (or from less-educated environments in the case of minors).
• More likely to live outside of the major metro regions.
• More likely to be using SNSs to meet new people than the average user (who is more likely to be using SNSs to maintain connections).

In other words, much to my chagrin, I suspect that heavy ad clickers in social network sites and other social media are more likely to trend lower in both economic and social capital than the average user. Unfortunately, I don't have the data to test these hypotheses at all. (Does anyone? Are there any studies on class dynamics and ad clicking?)

Of course, while the ad world is obsessed with clicks because they can measure those, ad receptivity is more than just clicks. While people dream of adding clicks to TV, TV ads have been tremendously successful without the clicking option. Brand recognition, for example, is an acceptable outcome from the POV of many marketers. But the web lets us measure clicks so advertisers tend to care about clicks.

I am not an advertiser and I'm not invested in making better ads. Instead, by raising this topic, I'm curious whether or not web marketing is capitalizing on a niche group and, if so, what the societal implications of this might be? If my hypothesis were true, what would it mean if marketing is profiting primarily off of those who are economically and socially struggling? How do we feel about this philosophically, ethically, and professionally? Would we feel proud of living off of a business model that targets the poor?

Of course, my hypothesis may be wrong. Advertisers have historically flocked to the sites that draw richer, more educated, more urban populations. (As has media coverage.) They have to be doing this for a reason, right? Websites have historically tried to demonstrate that their users are such "ideal" consumers. Yet, I can't help but wonder if these "ideal" consumers are really the people who buy most of the goods being advertised. (I've always been fascinated by how poorer American families tend to have immense amounts of stuff while rich American families pride themselves on minimizing quantity and maximizing quality of material goods.)

I should note that consumer culture has historically capitalized on poorer populations, long before the web. Studies of consumer culture have shown how American identity has been constructed through consumption over the last century and how, not surprisingly, those who have a stronger need/desire to prove their American identity buy into the consumer culture.

While studies of consumer culture go back decades, I'm having a hard time surfacing what is known about the culture of web advertising. Who is being targeted? Who is responding? Why are they responding? What are the implications?

You might be wondering why am I raising such a web-centric issue on the Shift6 blog. Mobile advertising is primarily growing out of the web culture. It may not be about clicks, but the idea of user responses builds on that. As advertising becomes central to every interactive technology in our lives, I think it's important to step back and question who is being targeted, how, and with what consequence. Thus, as we are thinking about what it might mean to live in a world where mobile phone advertising is accepted, we must also concern ourselves with the implications of this.

是谁在点击广告？这意味着什么？

广告是网站的生命线，不过很多朋友都说他们从不点击广告，特别是招摇着自己广告印记的那些内容更让人反感。这些被广告公司称为讨厌鬼的家伙（他们从不点击广告）一边对现在的消费文化吹毛求疵，一边运行着Mozilla脚本浏览器略过网站广告。但是，企业的收益越来越依赖于广告收入，那么广告点击率的下降问题不可回避。这样，一个重要的问题就呈现在我们眼前：是谁在点击广告呢？

几年前，我曾向一位从事网络广告方面工作的朋友提出过这样的问题，并得到了以下答案（甚至可以说得上是恩赐）：美国中部居民。这几年，我阅读了大量关于搜索引擎广告暗示人们点击广告的文章，大概分为以下几种观点：

• 点击者并不知道这些就是广告；
• 点击者认为某些广告相比实际搜索结果更能提供一些他们所需的信息（例如当点击者搜索“旅游”的时候）；
• 点击者搜索网页的目的正是为了购买物品（购买意向驱使人们直接“联系”厂商）；
• 他们只是无聊罢了
• 点击者认为点击可能会赢得一些赠品或者其他奖励

用了整个夏天，Dave Morgan公司（美国在线的全球广告顾问）发布了一个研究报告——关于广告点击者的调查

从这个研究我们获得了很多经验。我们了解到，大多数人并不会点击广告，而即使点击了这些广告，对绝大部分的网络用户来说这根本没有任何意义。

以一个月为统计标准，99%的网络用户不会点击任何广告。至于剩下的1%，大部分只点击过一次。较常点击广告的人数仅占十分之二，注意，只是剩下的那1%的十分之二。其中横幅广告的点击占这一微小比例的绝大部分。

那么这些频密点击者都是谁呢？以女性为主，这一数量几乎两倍于男性；大多为老年人；他们大多为美国中西部的居民，另一部分集中于纽约、宾夕法尼亚、新泽西、缅因、新罕不什威尔等州（即美国东北部和濒太平洋的地区）。在网上，他们都对什么内容感兴趣呢？在意料之中，他们浏览彩票的时间远多于察看其他内容。不错，他们都呈现出这样的特征：喜欢直邮服务和广告以及电话销售员的推销。

提供社交媒体服务的机构，如社交网站并不是都按照Morgan公司的建议那样围绕点击者来设计的，但他们也不能摆脱对广告的依赖。我姑且提出这样一个怀疑的观点：就像Morgan公司所指出的，MySpace和Facebook等网站的这一小部分用户（通过点击广告）给这些网站带来了收益。而我却没有找到任何关于社交网站广告点击者的具体研究（有谁知道点什么吗？），但是根据我的观察，我认为那些频密点击者有以下特征：

• 低收入者占大部分
• 受教育程度低于用户平均水平（由于点击者含有部分未成年人，导致统计出来的点击者平均受教育程度较低）
• 大部分并没有居住在主要的新城区
• 相对于其他用户来说，更喜欢使用社交网站来结识新朋友（他们喜欢通过社交网络保持联系）

换句话说，我猜想社交网站和其他社交媒体的频密点击者，相对于一般用户，更多的是由低收入和较低社会地位的人们构成。很遗憾，我并没有足够的资料来证明这一猜测。（有人有吗？哪怕是能提供一些与阶级动力学结合的广告点击方面的研究成果？）

当然，由于点击率的可测量性，广告界陷于这个点击泥沼不能自拔，而广告的接受度并不只由这些点击率反映出来。在人们开始策划对电视增加点击服务以前，电视广告早已大获成功，这哪里看得到半点点击的影子呢？再举一个例子，许多行销人员的POV视点（point of view表示行为主体的主观态度，原指电影电视等记录工具需要预先确定好机位、角度、光圈、布局等，所以任何创作作品都带有创作者的主观意向——译者注）聚焦于品牌知名度，这是一个理所当然的结果。只不过网络提供了点击率（可以便捷考察品牌知名度的方式——译者注）衡量的可能，所以广告主们才会不由自主地倾向于依赖该指标的测量。

我不是广告主，我并没有在投资以制作更好的广告。但是，我很自然的想到了这些问题，网络营销是不是只针对一小群用户？如果是，那么它的社会影响力在哪里呢？如果我的推论正确，网络营销基本依靠那些所谓“低水平”的用户维持，这表示什么？我们怎么才能冷静地从社会角度以专业人士的眼光看待这一问题？我们还能对这种以“穷人”为目标的商业模式引以为豪吗？

当然，可能我的推测是错误的。历来广告主在网络投资广告是为了吸引更富裕的，更高教育水平的社会上层人群。（正如媒体报道的那样。）他们不可能无缘无故的选择投资场所，不是吗？历来，网站都标榜他们的用户都是“理想”的消费者。但是，我不得不怀疑是否这些所谓的“理想”消费者真的就会购买网站所广而告之的商品？（经济较拮据的美国家庭会重视同样价格所能购买商品的数量，反之，富裕的美国家庭却对所购买商品质量的在意程度越高于数量，对于这个观点我深信不疑）

我认为远在网络诞生以前，消费文化就以那部分较为“贫穷”的群体为基础建立。关于消费文化的研究表明，经过上个世纪的酝酿，消费已经在美国化里占有一席之地，意料之中，那些强劲的购买需求/欲望也证明了美国人已经踏入了消费文化的地盘。

而如果消费文化的研究倒回到几十年前，我就还要在什么是网络广告文化这样的问题上冥思苦想。目标群体都有哪些？哪些人会提供反馈？为什么会反馈？这意味着什么？

你可能诧异于为什么我会在Shift6的blog上提出这样一个以网络为中心的问题。移动广告首先诞生于网络，尽管可能不包含点击的因素，无疑，它构建了用户反馈这一理念。随着广告成为我们日常生活中交流方式的重要部分，我认为有必要进行反思：谁才是目标群体？怎么形成的？我们应该如何看待这一问题？因此，我们要思考生活在这样一个手机广告都被认可的世界意味着什么，这也是我们要关心的关乎切身利益的问题。