The click-through rate (CTR) is officially dead, according to Jordan, an Eyeblaster representative who visited our office yesterday.
In terms of effectively evaluating traffic on websites and banners, though, CTRs, as well as hits, have been on the way out for a long time coming.
Anyway, the dude showed us a really slick presentation on their latest campaign management tools for interactive banners, optimization options and a whole bunch of other stuff that would make the average web geek cream their corduroys.
So, people have finally begun to agree that interaction with banner ads rarely extends beyond instant gratification. But creating engaging, meaningful and more importantly, useful user experiences via a web banner, on the other hand, is another story.
I’ve always thought that CTRs were never a truly reliable way to ‘quantify’ brand engagement. I mean, how can you understand what makes a person want to click on a banner ad, or, even more ridiculously, speculate on what his or her chances of buying your product are?
Want to know how shit hot your banner is, on a scale of 1 – 10?
Ask someone.
Word of mouth!
