CPC ROIs Coming Up Short
ScanAlert’s “Digital Window Shopping” analysis has found that even though there is more shopping being done online today, customers are taking more time to choose purchases. This has led to the recommendation that pay-per-click advertising campaigns may need to be reassessed to use longer time frames to calculate return-on-investment.
The company’s first report on the subject was two years ago, and since then, ScanAlert has seen that the level of caution in shoppers is increasing. 26% take more than three days to complete a transaction, 18% over a week, and 6% over two weeks. Compared to the 2005 results, the figures have increased 23%, 28% and 50%.
The originally reported average time of a customer’s first visit to a Web site and the time of purchase was just over 19 hours, whereas now it is 34 hours, 19 minutes. This is an increase of almost half a day.
Nigel Ravenhill, director of marketing communications for ScanAlert suggested that online retailers focus on site desertion rather than shopping cart desertion since the act of deserting the cart is actually the consumer continuing to seek out comparisons. Ravenhill also proposes that retailers create and elevate comfort levels for prospective and current cutomers.
He states, “Someone who clicked on your $0.50 keyword ad and didn’t immediately convert is not necessarily a foregone half-dollar investment. There is a good possibility that she will return and buy. Make sure that your analytics data can reflect the origin of multiple subsequent return visits. Study your AdWords conversion tracking code data, for example, and take a holistic, long-term view of your campaign spending to arrive at more accurate ROI numbers.”
2.6 million online sales generated by more than 128 million visitors to 470 Web sites over the past two years have been analyzed by ScanAlert. This is an average site conversion to sales of 2.07%.
Reader Comments.
No comments yet
Leave a Comment
Article Sponsor
More News
-
Loading ...
Latest News
- Hulu’s Bringing Its “A” Game But… March 19th 2010 ADOTAS – Hulu’s sales team is actively subverting the ad [...] more »
- Yelp! A class-action suit? March 19th 2010 ADOTAS – One of three civil suits against Yelp filed [...] more »
- Viacom Accuses Google; Testing Digital Millennium Copyright Act March 19th 2010 Viacom has accused Google of turning a blind eye to [...] more »
- Google to Leave China April 10th? March 19th 2010 ADOTAS – According to the China Business News, Google Inc [...] more »
- [x+1] Creates The Smartest Tagging System Around March 18th 2010 ADOTAS – Today, if you happen to be at the [...] more »
- IAB’s Video Standards Tackled By ADTECH March 18th 2010 ADOTAS – ADTECH, a part of AOL Advertising and an [...] more »
- Google Search and Mobile and….TV? Oh My! March 18th 2010 ADOTAS – Google wants to dominate your screens…. Not just [...] more »
Features
- Growing Pains March 19th 2010
- For Better or For Worse? March 18th 2010
- Yahoo! Wants to Get More Personal March 17th 2010
- Creative Considerations for the iPad March 16th 2010
- Amazon Leaves Colorado Affiliates Out in the Cold March 12th 2010
Spotlight
AdBidCentral’s CEO, Vivek Veeraraghavan Talks Openly*What was the inspiration to start AdBidCentral? The conditions that inspired AdBidCentral came from a variety of factors in my personal [...] more...
Reader Favorites
Classifieds
- Sr Director, Marketing Services
- Senior Web Analyst
- Account Director
- Director of Analytics
- Manager, Business and Trade Media Relations
Recent Comments
- Jedd Gould: I think you miss the point. Publications have to charge because the content most are
- Gavin Dunaway: They're similar, but Ning is more a competitor to Facebook and MySpace while StumbleUpon considers
- Steve Feldman: Does StumbleUpon compete with and does essentially what Ning networks does?
- Bulent: I wonder how many of the clients would accept a media plan, that would -as
