BlackBerry has the Lowest Click-Through Rates in Mobile Advertising

Posted
by
Kyle McInnes
on April 14, 2010, at 9:52 AM
in Editorials and News
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Comments: 21 responses
21 Comments

Smaato are a mobile advertising and ad optimization company and they’ve recently announced their March figures on mobile ad click-through rates (CTR). According to Smaato, Symbian leads in their global OS CTR index, followed by feature phones, Windows Mobile, Apple, Android, Palm and lastly BlackBerry.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing that BlackBerry users have a low CTR. It might have something to do with the way BlackBerry apps are serving these ads that aren’t appealing to users, or simply BlackBerry users don’t care for ads and don’t want to click.

I have personally never clicked on a mobile ad and purchased, although I’ve clicked on many ads to find out more about the product or service. Ads can be informative and easy to digest, as long as they don’t impeded the user experience to any significant degree.

I’m curious, have you ever clicked on a mobile ad, whether in an application or in browser?

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  • no

    no ! accidently clicks maybe

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=531242096 Tony Tedesco

    I think its because of the lackluster browser on Blackberry. I love mine, but I am weary of links just because it takes forever to load a page and half the time it doesn't load properly. I'm sure those numbers will go up as soon as blackberry releases a better browser

  • David McCormack

    I avoid opening any link on my BlackBerry if at all possible because the browsing experience is so appalling. And until their WebKit-based browser comes out this is unlikely to change.

  • http://caspan.com Caspan

    LOL yeah dido

  • Jim Baird

    I think it shows that Blackberry users are smarter that other smartphone users. Why would I want to click an ad?

  • Michael

    I agree. I have intentionally clicked on advertisements in apps and half the time I get a HTTP Error 413: Request Too Large – so why bother? If advertisers don't make sure their sponsored links are functional on BlackBerrys, they only have themselves to blame for low CTR.

  • http://www.blackberrycool.com/ Kyle McInnes

    I've had a similar experience with the ads in UberTwitter. I've even had “Request Too Large” for an ad in UberTwitter, for a BlackBerry service.

    BlackBerry serving ads to BlackBerry users, that aren't compatible with BlackBerry. Amazing.

  • DavidB

    Exactly what Jim said. Why would I WANT to click on an ad? ESPECIALLY from a BlackBerry?

    I don't click on ads on my PC, and go to pretty extensive lengths to block as many of them as possible. I white-list sites (like this one) that I deem worthy of my ad viewing potential, but for most web browsing I block as many ads as possible. That said, even sites I white-list end up getting blocked when they go the route of popup or popover ads. There is NOTHING more irritating to my web browsing than the sites that allow the context sensitive popovers that appear just by your mouse pointer passing over a word.

  • http://www.blackberrycool.com/ Kyle McInnes

    Definitely noticed Android. Impossible to miss the green line crossing through the whole graph. :)

    I would click on a BlackBerry ad if it were done right. For example, a free app that I would be happy to download such as Poynt, and clicking on the ad immediately takes me to the install screen with nothing else to bother me.

    Although, finding a business that is willing to pay to get users to download a free app is rare.

  • http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/vendor/1111 Eric at Ebscer

    Android advertising dropping like a rock is certainly the most interesting part of this data.

    Second would have to be that the the awful operating systems (Symbian,WinMo,J2ME) are all at the top. (Although this fails to explain why iPhone is still double BlackBerry and Palm)

  • http://seriousmobile.wordpress.com Donny

    Poynt is in a prime position, as an application, to effectively target ads suited to say: Restaurant searches (for particular Steak, Italian, Greek, Latin, etc), or Car Rentals (1 day free or no km overage charges), etc.

    Its just possible that ads are just not suited to the majority BB user that is actually busy doing stuff than simply “swiping” away at the screen just to play with the device or “look” important.;)

  • Billy

    I don't know about everyone else but most of my BB apps do not have ads. A quick run through.

    With Ads
    viigo – yes
    ubertwitter – yes
    WSJ – yes

    No Ads
    beejive, evernote, foursquare, google maps, google sync, syncje, tetherberry, todomatrix, facebook, twitter, opera, shazam, docs to go, flaslight, engadget, bb app store, crackberry app store

    I think that is most of my apps.

    The viigo ads are a little weak since you are normally looking down the page and not up at the ad.

    The ubertwitter ads did well but I am using the new twitter app at the moment.

    What popular apps have ads and which ones are easy to click through? I have used other apps but the implementation of the ads is usually poor.

    I am not sure how this impacts the numbers .. just a thought.

  • greggd

    I think it shows that blackberry's browser sucks compared tot he iPhone for readability. It could just be a size thing. Other than that I''ll take my 8900 over any iPhone.

  • RAS

    I think, generally speaking, BlackBerry users *tend* to be business professionals, and when they use the web it's to find something specific. Less BB users are just surfing the web randomly and are more purpose-driven. And as mentioned previously, the web browsing experience on BlackBerry is poor at best.

  • Billy

    I don't know about everyone else but most of my BB apps do not have ads. A quick run through.

    With Ads
    viigo – yes
    ubertwitter – yes
    WSJ – yes

    No Ads
    beejive, evernote, foursquare, google maps, google sync, syncje, tetherberry, todomatrix, facebook, twitter, opera, shazam, docs to go, flaslight, engadget, bb app store, crackberry app store

    I think that is most of my apps.

    The viigo ads are a little weak since you are normally looking down the page and not up at the ad.

    The ubertwitter ads did well but I am using the new twitter app at the moment.

    What popular apps have ads and which ones are easy to click through? I have used other apps but the implementation of the ads is usually poor.

    I am not sure how this impacts the numbers .. just a thought.

  • greggd

    I think it shows that blackberry's browser sucks compared tot he iPhone for readability. It could just be a size thing. Other than that I''ll take my 8900 over any iPhone.

  • RAS

    I think, generally speaking, BlackBerry users *tend* to be business professionals, and when they use the web it's to find something specific. Less BB users are just surfing the web randomly and are more purpose-driven. And as mentioned previously, the web browsing experience on BlackBerry is poor at best.

  • Pearl Jin

    Anyway, it seems to be worth while considering a brand exposure when it comes to the specific businessmen targetted. Meantime, is there any information comparing BB and iPone traffic ? Not necessarily CTR comparition, the impression of the two must be better information.

  • Pearl Y.J. Jin

    Thanks for this useful data.

  • Pearl Jin

    In addition, do any mobild ad's traffic comparison data of the each phone exist?

  • Andy Capaloff

    A matter of perspectives. I would suggest that perhaps the reason for the poor click-thru rate of Blackberry users is due to the considerably more difficult web navigation on these devices. Ease of use is probably a large contributor to click-thru, and BB navigation simply doesn’t fit this brave new world