An article in today’s eMarketer nicely summarizes some recent comScore / Starcom USA research showing that fewer and fewer users are clicking on ads and those clicks are concentrated in an ever smaller share of the user base.  Not good news for fans of CTR as an “optimization” metric – and there are still too many of these.

The article includes a priceless quote from John Lowell, Starcom USA SVP and director, research and analytics, “A click means nothing, earns no revenue and creates no brand equity. Your online advertising has some goal—and it’s certainly not to generate clicks.”  Don’t mince words John.  Tell us what you really think.  We’ve seen the same with our own offline sales measurements, by the way.  CTR is not even remotely correlated with offline sales lift or associated campaign ROI.  Here’s an example of the lack of correlation from some recent campaigns:

Reading Lowell’s quote and considering the fact that this is still even a topic for discussion reminded me of Monty Python’s famous Parrot Sketch.

Advertiser: “I know a dead metric when I see one and I am looking at one right now.”

DR Network: “No, no it’s not dead.  It’s just resting.”