French lead European internet users in ad click-throughs

Results from Adtech's annual click-through analysis across Europe found that rates vary considerably throughout the course of the year, with significant differences from country to country.

In general, click-through rates peak toward the end of the year while users tend to ignore ads after the major shopping period in January, fluctuating between 0.11% and 0.19% during that period.

French users were found to be the most affected by advertising with an average click rate of 0.18%.

British click rates also score at the positive end of the scale along with the French -- achieving 0.13%.

At 0.10%, the German click rate lies within the European mid range.

Compared with other Europeans, Scandinavian online users prove to be more cautious, with 0.04% for Sweden, 0.05% for Finland and 0.06% for Norway.

The study found that click behaviour also varies depending on ad size.

The majority of clicks in the display field go to pop-ups, layers and the half-size format ads, with an average of 0.5%.

In October, however, European users clicked on "skyscraper" ads (0.3%) more often than the traditional full-size ads (0.2%).

Video ads also performed well with 1.7% click through rates.

Adtech also revealed click through trends in Europe over the past four years, topping out at nearly 0.35% in November 2004, declining gradually until October 2008 (0.12%).

The Adtech study evaluated more than 10bn banner enquiries to its ad servers across Europe, wit data collected between October and December 2008 from 5,000 web sites.