Apparently, there are researchers questioning the value of the click as a metric of success.

comScore and Starcom USA have followed up a July 2007 study conducted with Tacoda that segments Internet users into heavy, moderate and light clickers and found that a decreasing percentage of users are making up an increasing portion of all click-throughs.

Here are the researchers’ findings:

• Heavy clickers only accounted for 4% of all Internet users in March 2009, but they were responsible for more than two-thirds of click-throughs that month.

• Both moderate and light clickers decreased in number and in share of clicks.

• Non-clickers rose as a proportion of all Internet users by 16 percentage points.

As a result, researchers asked themselves, ‘With just 16% of Web users clicking on ads in March, how informative are click-through rates?’

And answer themselves they did: “A click means nothing, earns no revenue and creates no brand equity. Your online advertising has some goal—and it’s certainly not to generate clicks,” said John Lowell, Starcom USA SVP and director, research and analytics, in a statement.

Are these people for real?

These researchers have suggested other metrics, such as the view-through rate, gross ratings points (GRPs) and dwell time as more appropriate gauges of success.

This is certainly not what we are seeing happening today.

Especially in this economic environment, marketers desperate to create demand for their products and services are relying very heavily on click-throughs as well as conversion rate (the “post click experience”) as key metrics.

It seems to me these researchers should have spoken to actual marketers, right down in the trenches, working hard and succeeding under very difficult conditions.

What we are seeing is that now, more than ever, click-through and conversion rate are the key metrics driving decisions around advertising and marketing spend.

While I acknowledge these researchers are talking mostly about advertising metrics and not direct-response metrics, it seems to me irresponsible of eMarketer to decry “More Trouble for the Click-Through” at a time when click-through as a metrics is more important than ever to marketers.

Perhaps the real question these researchers should be asking is, “What is the future of Advertising?”

In the article, Schonfeld presents the predictions of J.P. Morgan’s Imran Khan and Barclays’ Doug Anmuth, both heavy hitters Wall Street analysts.

Now here is a really interesting prediction for us, marketers interested in Conversion Rate Optimization:

According to Schonfeld, “Both analysts believe that performance-based advertising will continue to rise in importance.”

(This, of course, made me stop and do a little High Five with self.)

Yes, among all the 2009 tech predictions (see abridged list below), the ONLY prediction where BOTH analysts agree is that marketers will continue to become rational decision-makers and invest in strategies and tactics that align with their companies’ revenue models; they will continue to spend money and will do so “on performance-based advertising.”

What do you think? (and, care to see what your peers think?)

In the article, Schonfeld picked six predictions from each and listed them (see below) and then set up a poll so readers can vote for their favorite predictions, or the ones they think are most likely to happen.

You can vote as well, here

Imran Khan’s 2009 Tech Predictions (J.P. Morgan)
1. Potential search deal likely between Yahoo! and Microsoft
2. Net Neutrality should become an important mainstream issue
3. Challenges in monetizing video advertising should persist
4. Mobile usage should continue its strong growth momentum, but mobile
advertising will likely be challenging this year
5. Possible bankruptcies in brick-and-mortar retail should create opportunities
for eCommerce companies
6. M&A consolidation activities could potentially resume during 2H’09 (IPO market is dead until 2010)

Doug Anmuth’s 2009 Tech Predictions (Barclays Capital)
1. Yahoo and eBay will make major strategic decisions
2. Performance-based advertising will be more important than ever
3. Increased Competition For Search Distribution Via Toolbars, OEM Deals, and Partnerships
4. Proliferation of Smart Phones Will Drive The Mobile Internet
5. Small Strategic Acquisitions Will Re-Emerge
6. Ad Networks To Consolidate

Nice start to 2009!

eMarketer estimates that while the rate of search ad spending growth was down in 2008, search still grew 21% over 2007. “In fact, the rate of growth will fall over the next three years—but search ad spending growth will continue to be positive, in double digits every year—until 2012 when it will rise to nearly 14%.”

Search, it seems, is “recession-resistant.”

Smart Marketers will continue to spend increasing budgets on Search – and rightfully so, if they want to continue to make their ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend) accountable.

But are marketers managing and measuring ROAS properly?

Maybe not.

We are consistently seeing situations where two key areas are being overlooked:

1. There is no ongoing measurement of Search campaign performance or visitor behavior

2. Traffic is sent to a generic landing page (or the home page) and not to custom landing pages for segmented traffic

As a result, two bad things happen to smart marketers who are spending money on Search:

1. There is no visibility to the fact that a high percentage of Conversion come from a very small percentage of the Search budget (yes, the old 80-20 rule lives right here)

2. The Conversion Rate on the traffic is lower than it would be had they decided to create custom landing pages for segmented traffic (and this applies to even to ad groups that generate low traffic numbers)

Search marketing is a smart way to drive traffic to the site – but just investing in Search and not monitoring/dissecting the campaign to understand performance of ad groups, and just driving all the traffic to the same generic page is a big missed opportunity.

But wait! eCommerce sales were not down by as much as overall retail sales.

ComScore’s end-of-season online sales figures put the tally at $25.5 billion, down “only” 3% from a year ago. And MasterCard Advisors’ report says overall ecommerce sales ended the season with a decline of “only” 2.3% (the emphasis is mine).

But wait! Unique visitors to eCommerce sites were actually up.

According to ComScore, while e-commerce sales were down, unique visitors to retail websites during the holiday shopping season were actually up 5%

Yes, more people than in past years were actually shopping online; it’s just that they were not generating as many transactions or spending as much.

It occurs to me that there is an opportunity here:

The hardest and most expensive part is getting web visitors to come to your site. Once they are there, the opportunity to test different merchandising (ie. web page design) options; different checkout procedures; different offers; etc is there just like it is in stores, where retailers routinely test different merchandising options as well as signage to determine how to move more merchandise.

So you need to be ready.

Analysts agree the outlook for early 2009 is worse. Piper Jaffray & Co. analysts estimated that online sales will drop 10% next year as consumers “significantly rein in discretionary spending and save more of their income to rebuild wealth and savings in the coming quarters.”

On a more positive note, S&P analysts predict that sharp cutbacks in retail inventory in 2009 may strengthen retailers’ margins, even amid weak sales.

In this environment, eCommerce retailers must push all the buttons and pull all the levers available to them, and testing the way their web pages convert ranks high in terms of ease of execution and low in terms of cost. Worth a try, I’d say.

In other words, just 5 days before the start of 2009, marketers are becoming significantly more cautious about guessing.

Personally, I think this is good news. Us marketers tend to be very opinionated (who? me?) and historically have relied on gut feel and aesthetic preferences to make decisions. But no longer.

In these uncertain economic times, marketers can no longer afford the luxury of guessing. We need to become more data-driven and hard-nosed about the work we do and the marketing plans we propose. How else can we gain the respect of the C-suite? And, most importantly, how else can we make decisions that measurably improve our employers’ and our clients’ Financials?