My thinking is that a click is a click, no matter where it comes from. That’s a statement we often here from newbies. Actually it is a widespread opinion even among smart beginners.
Unfortunately, however, they are wrong. Clicks tend to differ in terms of productivity according to various factors in relation to their source. Here, the word productivity is a reference to the commercial intent associated with particular clicks which finally boils down to sales, or conversions. (In a broader context, the value of a clickthrough may vary with the website they come from and the keyword which was matched.)
That’s why e.g. adult site promotion seems to be more effective in the late hours because during the course of the day youngsters may “eat up” all your daily budget out of pure curiosity without a real intention to become a paying customer. A somewhat different phenomenon is that clicks originating from a first ad position paradoxically often tend to perform pretty poorly because many users click on the ad just for fun or for other stupid reasons.
Clicks From The Content Network
With regard to the content network, it is generally accepted that the CTR is usually very low and the conversion rate is even much lower in regard to clicks from such websites. The probable reason is that users visiting content sites are mostly in search of background information which may very rarely result in direct profits for you. It is also generally accepted that we either exclude the content network or try to make use of much lower content bids (set to much lower values than search bids) in case our objectives are associated with sales. In most cases we only use the content network for branding, or to enhance customer awareness etc. i.e. for purposes not directly related to sales.
In a bit more scientific context, we may state that content match indicates a clickthrough in the relatively early “Attention” or “Interest” phases of Marketing Communications where conversion rates are typically low in contrast to the rather mature “Desire” or “Action” phases where conversions are more likely to happen.
