A report on the "Natural Born Clickers" ("NBCs" from here on out) was released today by Starcom, Tacoda, & Hitwise. The data points to some head-scratchingly bizarre figures about the people who click on paid display advertisements (emphasis mine):

...heavy clickers represent just 6% of the online population yet account for 50% of all display ad clicks. While many online media companies use click-through rate as an ad negotiation currency, the study shows that heavy clickers are not representative of the general public. In fact, heavy clickers skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40,000. Heavy clickers behave very differently online than the typical Internet user, and while they spend four times more time online than non-clickers, their spending does not proportionately reflect this very heavy Internet usage. Heavy clickers are also relatively more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career services sites – a markedly different surfing pattern than non-clickers.

If you're worried about the online ad market taking the news badly, don't despair yet. It would appear that there's good news mixed in. Apparently, display ads, much like TV, radio, and print ads, don't demand immediate action to produce results.

...data suggests no correlation between display ad clicks and brand metrics, and show no connection between measured attitude towards a brand and the number of times an ad for that brand was clicked. The research presentation suggests that when digital campaigns have a branding objective, optimizing for high click rates does not necessarily improve campaign performance.

OK, so if as long as we're not targeting clicks, but rather attempting to garner attention and brand recognition with our display ads, we're in the clear. Winners in this scenario are probably big brand advertisers like Dell, Motorola, Apple, American Express, and Macy's, while losers might include that lovable brand behind the "punch the monkey" banners. In essence, the report's telling us that skimming over an ad is good for getting that brand into a person's consciousness (and making them more likely to recall that brand in future purchase decisions). Conversely, targeting the "click-heavy" demographic and getting traffic through display campaigns might produce much narrower targets than we might hope.

In simple terms, here's some probable winners:

The Movado ad at top targets wealthy readers of the New York Times, many of whom probably have gifts for Valentine's Day on their minds this week. The ad doesn't demand a clickthrough - it barely requests one. Instead, it's designed to make the reader consider the upcoming event and brand them with Movado's name. Similarly, the Sheryl Crow ad (which I found in the movies section on Salon.com) is barely targeted at clickthrough. It's much more like a TV ad - attempting to use endorsements from trusted sources to remind the visitor that this is a high quality album.

Now some possible losers:

Both of these require reading, not just scanning, and serve to entice a click, rather than attempting to simply impart a quick brand message. The first, from LendingTree.com, I found on Yahoo! Finance, while the second comes from HotJobs - obviously, these are both well-targeted from a content perspective, but the study would recommend that the clicks they receive may not only be less valuable than they think (as they're continually over-reaching NBCs), but that using CTR as a formula for success is a flawed metric.

The thing is - I'm not totally convinced that display advertisers should give up on the CTR, as the research suggests:

...said Erin Hunter, executive vice president at comScore. “For many campaigns, the branding effect of the ads is what’s really important and generating clicks is more of an ancillary benefit. Ultimately, judging a campaign’s effectiveness by clicks can be detrimental because it overlooks the importance of branding while simultaneously drawing conclusions from a sub-set of people who may not be representative of the target audience.”

If you can earn positive ROI on display ads, for goodness sake, don't stop just because half your clickers all come from a similar demographic. If you can pay for only unique IP address clicks or reach into sites whose demographic profiles differ drastically from the NBCs, you might have even better success, but it doesn't detract from the already existing value of the investment. I'm forced to wonder whether this study might have a negative impact on ad placement, or whether the advertisers will read between the lines and see the extra value that they're currently not calculating.

BTW - Has there been any credible research on over or under-represented demographics/psychographics among those who click PPC ads at the engines?