Way back in the mid 90’s I was driving home from work and
saw something very cool. A nice luxury
car passed me by. Probably due to the
fact that I drive like an old man in the fast lane and believe that traveling
65mph is plenty fast enough.
The cool thing was not that they passed me but that their license
plate read “ONLINE”. I thought to
myself, “Wow, that person has the Internet at home.” A somewhat new form of media/technology that
was not mainstream yet, at least not in my world or that of anyone I knew. It wasn’t long though before everyone I knew,
including myself, had an AOL account. I
remember the very first thing I did when I went online for the first time was
punch in: www.PinkFloyd.com. My life
was forever changed.
I learned how to use search engines and how to maintain my
equipment. I became quite good at this
new technology in a short period of time.
Well, times are changing faster than you could imagine and if you want
to stay on top of your game, you need to stay on top of technology. PC’s and laptops are becoming old school and
mobile devices like smartphone’s and tablets are hot. What is even more interesting is that there
is a trend that was not expected unfolding before our eyes, mobile advertising.
It is being reported that click through rates on mobile
devices are now passing out those on PC’s and laptops. I read a story on Smart Brief.com that said: “The smartphone click-through rate, which
measures the number of clicks an ad receives against the number of times the ad
is shown, was 1.25% in the fourth quarter of 2011. The rate for tablets was
1.31%. Desktops and laptops came in at 0.95%.” (Woodward)
Very interesting, what does this mean for those of us
planning to earn a living in the interactive communication field? It means we need to understand the reasons
consumers are more likely to click an ad on these types of devices. I could see the day when PC’s and laptops go
the way of VCR’s and cassette tapes. Do
people trust the ads on their mobile devices more? Or is it that they are away from home and
ready to shop or make a purchase immediately.
The article also stated that the content on mobile needs to be written “for
mobile” meaning shorter and more direct language.
I am not surprised by this trend and since it is so new,
there is not even year old data to compare it to. I am so glad I am getting into this field on
the ground floor, maybe someday I will be listed as an innovator in with the
ranks of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs….What, it could happen. We already share a common first name; the
rest will just fall into place.
Woodward, Kevin. "Smartphones and tablets best PCs in click-through rates." Internet Retailer. N.p., 26/1/2012. Web. 27 Jan 2012. <http://www.internetretailer.com/2012/01/26/smartphones-and-tablets-best-pcs-click-through-rates>.
http://www.internetretailer.com/2012/01/26/smartphones-and-tablets-best-pcs-click-through-rates
I really enjoyed reading this blog. It is so crazy to think that there was a time in my life where the Internet was not what it now is! It is so interesting to see how the technological world has evolved. To think we even once had car phones or beepers is insane enough. Now we have date coming at us from every which direction and we live in a world where we can't escape it. And Steve is totally right, in this field we must know it all! It is definitely a great field to go into.
ReplyDeleteI had never really thought about this stuff before, but upon seeing the graphic you posted, I actually think that makes a lot of sense. Speaking for myself, I am fairly certain I've never clicked an ad on the side of a website. Maybe I'm just too Internet-savvy or I see right through them or whatever, but I basically regard them as white noise. On tablet-based stuff, however, (in my case, my iPhone) I've hit ads multiple times by accident; there's just a lot less available space on, for instance, a smartphone, and a good portion of the screen is obscured by your hand.
ReplyDelete