Advertising revenues are down, crippling many Internet companies' ability to stay in business. One company, MarketWatch.com, is fighting back by saying that click through rates are meaningless, and they aren't going to share them with advertisers anymore.

``We are completely de-emphasizing click throughs'' said Dan Silmore, spokesperson for MarketWatch. Instead of automatically including click through rates in its reports to advertisers and their agencies, MarketWatch says it will provide post-impression analysis and consumer surveys, which is similar to the way other media track results for advertisers.

According to a Reuters report, MarketWatch isn't alone in believing that click throughs are the wrong metric to watch. Robin Webster, President of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, told the news service that she created a list of 28 reasons for companies to advertise online. Only one mentioned that online ads let people click through to get more information. Other reasons, applauded by MarketWatch include general brand awareness, cross selling other brands and testing different pricing models, said the report.

Yet, the Internet was founded on technologies that allow greater insight into the actions of users, even it that insight proves inconvenient to Internet marketers. Click throughs, for all their revelations, do allow advertisers to count the actual usage of every page by visitors. But what do the numbers say? Are all click throughs qualified leads? Do they buy and if so, how much? How many people become customers who see the ad and don't click through?

As the Internet questions itself in its founding principals, the numbers could say that commerce online isn't so different from commerce offline. The Internet, because of its technologies, is actually held to a higher standard of performance than offline media. While offline media gets away with quoting subscription rates, there is no guarantee that subscribers will read ads. They will see them, if they flip every page, but will they buy because the ads are there? Perhaps not the first or even the twentieth time, but after seeing the name repeatedly, people do start to have respect for the brand. Does Coca-cola really have to advertise? Doesn't every human being in the world know it is the leading cola? Yet, the world's leading soft drink continues to spend millions building and maintaining its brand.

On the Internet, advertisers aren't happy with having their ad merely seen, they want to know how many clicked through. What does this standard mean to the real estate industry?

The online real estate industry is beginning to question itself, too. In the recent battle for supremacy between HomeAdvisor and Realtor.com's parent Homestore, for example, visitor traffic is leveraged by both companies to attract advertisers and sell onsite products such as loans and moving services, among others.

Taking the concept one step further, these companies have begun battle over new territory - leads for agents and offices. Homeadvisor fired the first shot by announcing the number of leads (click throughs) that it gives to its broker partners. Homestore is doing the same with a bold new I-LEAD lead generation package program for agents and offices which will allow both to track leads from I-LEAD web sites as well as other marketing tools such as virtual tours and school reports, so that agents can see whether or not enhancements are cost effective to their Web site campaigns.

When click throughs are used to shape campaigns as well as launch them, it puts a greater degree of responsibility on the part of the advertiser to try additional methods to reach the consumer. In the case of real estate, it will put more responsibility on the part of the subscriber, the agent or office, to sign up for and try more marketing tools and then track the results through the click throughs. This could be a greater revenue building source for advertising based companies than simple click throughs to ads.

If successful, Homestore and other companies which track click throughs for subscribers could have greater "advertising" results for consumers than if they tracked click throughs for ad purposes only.

Published: July 10, 2001

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Blanche is a renowned author of five real estate books. Her newest, Bubbles, Booms and Busts: Make Money In Any Real Estate Market, McGraw-Hill, was rave-reviewed by The New York Times. She was also selected from hundreds of real estate experts to contribute to Donald Trump's book, Trump: The Best Real Estate Advice I Ever Received: 100 Top Experts Share Their Strategies, Rutledge Hill Press, and is featured on page 68. Order Now Review - Honors In 2006, Blanche was selected among scores of candidates to author two consumer real estate guidebooks for the National Association of Realtors: The NAR Guide to Home Buying, and The NAR Guide to Home Selling, Wiley & Sons. She is currently planning two new books for the NAR and its members.       Known for her keen insight into real estate industry issues and for her ability to make complex subjects easy to understand, Blanche is a sought-after keynote and continuing education speaker. Real estate organizations from MLSs, to brokerages, to franchisors, to associations hire her to provide up-to-the-minute analysis of real estate industry news and advice on how to improve revenues. Her passionate delivery, peppered with stinging wit, is a huge hit with audiences and fans. Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors, Blanche Evans, Richard Courtney, president 2007, GRAR "The GNAR membership meeting last week featured Blanche Evans as the keynote speaker. Her comments and insights resonated extremely well with those in attendance and we have had many requests for copies of her PowerPoint Presentation. She was a terrific part of the membership meeting and convention program!" - Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors Coverage from WSMV, Nashville - 8-14-2007 That Interview Guy - Get Inside The Head Of Today's Generation 2007 AE Institute Session - To purchase 2006 AE Institute Session - Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 HouseValues Mastermind call - Parts 1 2 Blanche's fireside chat with Jeremy Conaway, HAR - Click here. For more articles by Blanche, click here.