• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer, July 24, 2003

Media Companies Show Highest Click-Through (and Conversion) Rates

eMarketer reports that, according to Advertising.com, online ads for telecommunications companies yield relatively low click-through and conversion rates -- with index ratings of eight and 19, respectively. They rate finance companies' click-through rates (CTRs) with an index score of 78, while media companies achieve a score of 94.

Advertising.com bases its index ratings on a baseline of 100 for a run of network, derived from testing over 15 million users served with more than 168 million online ad impressions. The study determined that companies in the finance and media industries have conversion rate scores of 23 and 42, respectively. Still, Advertising.com notes, different companies have different ways to measure "conversion" and different industries advertise online for different reasons.

Online Advertising Click-Through and Conversion Rates in US By Industry (2003 index ratings)

	Click Through	Conversion
Admin, educational & support services	68%	23%
Entertainment	50	7
Financial	78	23
Media	94	42
Retail	18	5
Telecommunications	8	19

Index baseline=100 (run of network), 15 million users, 168 million impressions
Source: Advertising.com, May 2003

It is difficult to make generalizations about click through rates, but to help put the Advertising.com index ratings into better perspective, DoubleClick reports that over the course of 2002, CTRs for 630 billion online ads generated by its clients worldwide, began at 0.72% in Q1, dipped to 0.69% , then rose back to 0.72% by the last quarter of last year.

You can find out more here

.