• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, January 31, 2011

Driving tons of traffic and making sure it converts into clicks are what metrics marketers and Web publishers consider when it comes to generating revenue. Numbers out Monday from Chitika shed some light on the subject. As it become increasingly difficult to determine the worth of consumers, marketers must trust the numbers generated by analysis to more efficiently budget and drive campaigns.

Looking at a sample of nearly 70 million impressions across the Chitika ad network, the company found that compared with Facebook, Google does a "much better job" of driving traffic and making sure it converts. Also, Google sends about 89 times the raw traffic, and to Chitika, it becomes obvious that a Web publisher's most important goal should become maximizing traffic from search.

All marketers want to maximize traffic from search. Those that land on a Web site from a search engine arrive with the intent to find information or buy a specific service, product or information before moving on. The findings suggest that social-media traffic, especially Facebook, reflects the intent of the searcher's friends, which doesn't translate well to the traffic's desire to convert. 

Don't forgo a Facebook presence, although numbers imply that most activity on Facebook stays on Facebook; traffic doesn't convert with the same intent as Google. Search becomes much more focused. No marketers would argue that contextual is more efficient than search. Still, aimClear founder Marty Weintraub argues that Facebook's content network traffic converts much better, compared with Google's content network. "If the Google content network worked great it would look more like Facebook's," he says. "Facebook kicks Google's Display Network's Ass, in terms of the targeting focus, impression volume and, at least for us, conversions." 

Sure, the search click-through rate is 2% and higher when done well, compared with .003 to 1.0 CTR in the contextual space, but search can't serve up tens or hundreds of millions of impressions, he explains. While it's only one-third of a percent CTR, conversions are much better for aimClear clients on Facebook. 

The CTR is one-tenth or less, but Facebook's volume is "freakin' massive and the targeting is more efficient than any contextual network we've ever seen, with the possible exception of kissing babies and shaking hands at political rallies and car dealerships," Weintraub says. "Smart marketers understand this. If I serve 10 million impressions and do a third of a percent click-through rate, that's 3,000 visitors. And if I only pay 40 cents a click, I'm at such a CPM that I don't care if anyone clicks. I want the 10 million branding impressions." 

Weintraub says marketers shouldn't even care about the click-through ratio because the branding directly lifts search CTRs. If marketers have Facebook ads in the channel and no one clicks while running 5 million impressions, switch and run highly focused search in that same geographic territory to raise the CTR, he says. Raising the CTR raises the quality score and lowers costs.