Everybody Knows How Many Clicks You Got


This has raised the hackles of not a few people. Remember the old Interest bar placed below AdWords ads back in 2002?

interest bar

Well, Google is now revisiting that in a new form:

click counts

Yes, they're diplaying the number of clicks each advertiser has received, right under the URL. Thus giving favor to established advertisers. Inequality = more revenue. It's that way in every business. But Google will make no public announcement at this point.

If you've had 140 clicks over the life of your ad and your competitor has had 23,000, the world will now know it.

Hasn't shown up on any pages I've searched on, and perhaps you haven't seen it yet either, but it's out there somewhere being tested, like it or not. Kristie McDonald says,

"I think there is a huge difference between performance data being available to savvy advertisers and agencies versus the appearance of 'votes' being displayed to the user/visitor to encourage or discourage a click. ...  From the advertiser’s perspective, it sure will skew the ability to come into a brand new market and compete with the long standing players. I prefer to see the ads compete on messages and offers and matching the visitors search intent than on how that message or offer affected their peer or how long that advertiser has been in the game."

Here's hoping it's short-lived.

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