Declining Traffic?

…Not so fast!

Before assuming some companies are pushing less traffic and less profit to merchants there are some considerations which need to be made.

First the obvious information that can be taken from the graph is that some engines do appear to be seeing a decline in traffic to their main domain. This could be a result of decreased exposure and a declining costumer base. However, there are other points to consider before assuming that is the case.

Quality Traffic

Companies are focusing increasingly on the quality of traffic brought by each click. Online marketing is reaching a point of maturity where even the industry leader, Google, has seen a decline in ad generating clicks. One issue could be seen as a slow down in the market as many companies are seeing a slow down in sales from the economy’s condition and also a maturing marketplace where online purchasing is becoming more commonplace. Put simply, many people are buying online now, bought online before, and we don’t see as many new costumers.

Another point is the increasingly emphasis on the quality of traffic. Ad vendors are looking to focus on quality more than in the past. So networks like Google have recently decreased the available click space in text advertisements to avoid accidental clicks. Similarly, many CSE’s are focusing on weeding out poor quality clicks to merchants. This focus could mean not only decreased clicks being sent to the engines by their own internal marketing staff, but also more highly focused clicks sent to merchants.

Affiliate Networks

Another consideration is the use of affiliate networks by the CSE. As the CSE affiliate network expands, more traffic being sent to the merchant’s product will not be originating at the engine itself. Instead, the CSE will send the product to their affiliates, the affiliates will in turn push clicks to the merchant, and the CSE will still bill for the clicks but the traffic will not show on a graph like this to the CSE’s domain.

March 31st, 2008