Report: Ask.com Beats Google, Bing & Yahoo When Measuring Online Ad CTRs

After analyzing ad click and traffic trends over the course of ten days last month, online ad network Chitika discovered Google had the lowest online ad CTR when compared to Ask.com, Bing and Yahoo.

Chitika used a sample of tens of millions of online ad impressions between October 1 and October 10 to evaluate online ad click-through rates by referring domains. According to the report, Google’s online ad CTR amounted to only 17 percent of Ask.com’s CTR when it came to referring domains. Yahoo and Bing also followed Ask.com, averaging 28 percent each.

“We observed Ask.com referred visitors as exhibiting the highest average CTR, a figure that we indexed as 100 percent, or the maximum CTR observed from any given traffic source,” said a Chitika spokesperson.

After search engines, “outside sites” averaged 14 percent online ad CTR by referring domains:

Users who come from outside sites demonstrate a higher CTR than in-site or direct traffic. This makes intuitive sense, as users going directly to a webpage are more likely to know what they are looking for.

Online Ad Click-Through Rate by Referring Domain – Indexed to Ask.com Rate

While outperforming Google, Bing and Yahoo for online ad CTRs, Chitika noted Ask.com represents only two percent of search engine web traffic for all of North America.

North American Search Engine Usage Share