Did you stop clicking on Adsense when you learned how it worked?

I learned about Adsense several months ago, and once I understood the business model (webmaster gets paid and advertiser pays) I have hardly ever found myself clicking on Adsense anymore!

It seems that it's pretty common in Internet marketing-related sites, that the CTR is lower, just because marketers are more wary of clicking on ads...

So, I'm wondering, in another 2-5 years, once the general population understands Adsenese... will CTR's in all niches go down???

Just a rambling thought... what do you think??

 

Interesting and good point.

You must remember that we are on the inside of this loop and most people don't even know what Adsense is...all they know is that there happens to be a relevant ad for what they are looking for, and may or may not click on it.

I've clicked on Adsense a couple of times recently, and to be honest it was mainly because the headline really caught my attention. In fact, it was how to make money from Adsense, something like "Google won't stop paying me $10,000 a month..."

Even if the whole business model of Adsense, and now YPN, goes away, something will replace it...and it will be a slow transition, nothing overnight. By that time I'm sure we'll all have found a new source of income or two online.

 

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I think we are a very long way from that, maybe 10-15 years or more. Most Internet users don't know what adsense is.

Personally, I still click on an ad if it interests me.

 

I think more of the reason that most of us Adsense publishers have stopped the AD clicking is because of the fear of accidentally clicking our own ads.

In the last two months - I have visited about 30 adwords ads but have NEVER clicked on them(not on my site, Google or any other publishers site). It has become habit to right click and copy the URL to avoid missing out on a good website.

There are just too many GOOD ads to prevent the general public to stop clicking even if they do know how it works.

 

Yeah , Mostly I will click it , If i'm support that site i viewing.
Otherwise , Up to me. Sometimes Click , Sometimes type URL.
It's the win-win-win situation
Google get paid (Yeah , G has too rich now) , Advertiser get traffic and customers (And may be affiliate)
and Publisher get shared from G again

 

First, I don't think the "general population" will ever understand, or care about, the mechanics of Internet advertising. The majority of that population today doesn't even understand the basic mechanics of how the web works -- nor do they care.

Second, as long as Adsense ads are relevant, promise additional information about the topic of interest, and generally deliver on that promise, they will be clicked on, regardless of how well the mechanics are understood.

The bottom line is, do we as Adsense users have to worry about loss of income in the next few years due to increasing audience awareness of ad mechanics? I think not.

 

Did the general population stop calling companies that advertise in the newspaper? Why would they care about ads online if the ad gives them what they want?

 

Why would people NOT click on an ad if they know the webmaster will get money from it? I'd like to think my own readers would be MORE likely to visit advertiser sites!

 

As long as the ads are relevant, people will click on them. I think the "ads by google" branding is interesting. If too many people learn to game adsense, perhaps people will begin to associate the brand with spam and stop clicking. On the other hand, if the ads are very relevant, perhaps the branding will inspire trust. Any thoughts on the impact of the "ads by google" branding on CTR?

 

There is no doubt that people click less when they become aware of adsense. However, these people do not stop clickking if they come across ads that match their interests. The people that stop clicking ads are us, the people that are fully aware of what adsense is and use it on our sites to make money.

 

I find I click adSense for search (on Google) more then anywhere else. I find that the one or two sponsored links at the top of the page end up being more relevent than many of the search results. However, this is only true if I am looking for a product of some type, typically software in my case.

 

Well I tend to be the other way around. I am well aware of how adwords works, and on a Google search will view the adsense and also the organics. I tend not to click on the adsense if the organics are spot on. A fine example was the house we are refurbing. I was looking for some stuff, despite putting UK in the serach, and selecting UK only on google.co.uk, I was getting US and rest of world ads. it was driving me nuts.

I did a generic search for the product name. I viewed the adwords, selected one that was well written, clicked on it, ordered samples which were delivered, within 48 hours, then went and spent some £2000 with them. I also completed the google feedback on them.

I am morw aware that adwords cost the advertiser money, and I am also aware of badly written ads that cost advertisers money. So I guess the answer is that yes I do treat them differently now I know how they work.

 

I am actually more likely to click on them now (not my own site, of course! LOL) than I was previously. I like pages that have seriously relevant ads on them. If I am there because of the page content then, yes, I am going to go for some of the google ads as well because they in turn lead me to more interest. Knowing the mechanics behind it (some poor webmaster hanging on every refresh of their adsenses stats) doesn't turn me off at all.

 

Well said, exactly my words .
Why should people stop clicking the ads, if they find the ads interesting and relevant.

And ofcause the majority of people will newer understand how adsense works, mainly because they just do not care.

 

Interesting comments, guys.

My site about raising children gets pretty relevant ads even though I did not do much "keyword stuffing" in my articles... and it has a nice CTR (Now gotta get the traffic up, so I can actually focus on raising my kids, LOL

 

I click other peoples' ads once a month or so, when I'm looking for something to buy or interested in the description. And I'm not at all naive about the fact that they're ads, but sometimes they lead where I want to go. That's a virtue of contextual text ads that isn't going to go away.

 

I always click and smile when think about web owner got money when I click.

 

I click on ads just like I click on ads when I didn't know about Adsense. It doesn't matter if the general public realises about Adsense, because there are still CPM companies

 

Sometimes i click, sometimes i type url by hand. But i think most of visitors (depends on the site content) don't know how adsense works.

 

I do click on ads if they match something that I'm looking for, same as I did before.