Recent analysis of 31 days’ worth of Chitika log data by Alden DoRosario showed something that many of us are already aware of: Traffic from Digg translates badly into ad clicks.
Looking at over a billion Chitika ad impressions and millions of clicks in the server log showed that, at least during the immediate and direct effect of a site being Dugg, visitors were over three times less likely to click on a Chitika ad than a visitor coming in from a Google search result.
Data was only collected for the beta Related Products Unit, because the ads are always placed at the end of blog posts, minimising discrepancies due to differing ad positioning. Those publishers who had never been Dugg were also filtered out.
The results of the survey showed that Google traffic had a CTR (Click Through Rate) of 0.97%, whereas Digg traffic’s CTR was 0.30%.
It’s an interesting analysis based on an alternative ad system. What’s important to note is that, as well as ensuring that your server can handle the effects of one or more Diggs, the benefits of these short-term influxes are often seen in more inbound links from other sources, more discussion, exposure for your blog as a whole, and some increase in regular readers/subscribers. All these factors should lead to better search engine positioning, which in turn can lead to higher revenue generation from search engine visitors – the 0.97% CTR brigade.