How Many People Click on Sponsored Results
Thursday, November 16th, 2006Yesterday I was wondering just how many people click on sponsored results when someone searches for a particular keyword. To estimate this, I used my Overture account from Yahoo and used the information that they provide. I used the keyword “tv show” because I figure that it wasn’t a very niche keyword and that the bidding structure was well established. I also selected it because there was space in between bids, so I could make a bid that was unambiguously in the position that I wanted it. The bid structure for “tv show” was as follows:
1st - $1.01
2nd - $0.75
3rd - $0.35
4th - $0.24
5th - $0.20
6th - $0.18
7th - $0.17
8th - $0.16
9th - $0.14
10th - $0.11
I then would make a bid that was one cent higher for each position. For each position, Yahoo would tell me the total monthly search volume for that keyword (69,746 for “tv show”) and what clicks I can gain from my position in the sponsored results. Here is how the data worked out:
Bid Position Est. Clicks
1.02 1 2,145
0.76 2 1,072
0.36 3 633
0.25 4 341
0.21 5 195
0.19 6 48
0.18 7 48
0.17 8 48
0.15 9 48
0.12 10 48
If this data is accurate, that means that the top ten spots get 6.63% of the search traffic. As a percentage of that 6.63% this is what each spot gets:
Position Share of sponsored clicks
1st 46.37%
2nd 23.17%
3rd 13.68%
4th 7.37%
5th 4.22%
6th 1.04%
7th 1.04%
8th 1.04%
9th 1.04%
10th 1.04%
This would be good information to estimate how many people would click on your ad in a PPC campaign without having to go through the monotony of using the Overture bid tool. You could simply use the same percentage laid out in a spreadsheet and the process would be much quicker.
Take this data with a grain of salt, though. According to this data, position 6-10 should each get 1.04% of the sponsored click. That doesn’t make sense that it would go flat like that. Really, it should continue down as it asymptotically approaches zero.
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