Ignoring long-tail websites as an option for your online ad campaign could be a mistake, according to a study conducted by CONTEXTWEB, a contextual targeting firm.
The study analyzed more than 1,000 ad campaigns across 18,000 publisher sites in the second half of 2010 and discovered that ads placed on long-tailed sites (those sites reaching only 1.5 percent of Internet users) saw a substantial rise in clickthrough rates compared with larger sites. Long-tail sites lifted click rates by 24 percent, according to the study.
Alchohol advertisers saw a 50 percent increase while automotive advertiser saw 12 percent.
“The vast majority of time spent on the web is spent with long-tail sites, while the lion’s share of ad dollars is spent on the short tail,” according to ComScore.
