• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, October 9, 2014

According to data analysis from MarinSoftware, smartphone click-through rates have been trumping desktop and tablet click-through rates for some time. But, the report asks, how important is ad position for marketers looking to capture the attention of their audience? The study, from a large sample set of all Marin US clients. looks at click-through rates by ad position to examine just how important this is.

By examining click-through rates, we can already see that position #1 for smartphones is much more important than that of desktops. Surprisingly, tablets show a similar trend to smartphones, even though they use the same SERP format as desktops. Upon closer examination, however, we see that smartphone CTR drops off much more rapidly than either desktops or tablets, at an average of 30% per position, versus 22% and 28% respectively.

SERP: short for "search engine results page," and as marketing through search continually entrenches itself as the dominant medium for online success, it becomes vital… Wickipedia

By looking at the CTR-share by ad position, almost 40% of click-throughs are made in the first position. This is a third more than on desktop, and 10% more than on tablet. Taking a look at the differences between the desktop and smartphone format, the study finds that many times on mobile, only a single ad is displayed on the top of a SERP. Meanwhile, on a desktop SERP, three or more ads are seen on the exact same search. This means that smartphones will see a much larger percentage of clicks go towards the first result, concludes the report.

For additional information, please visit MarinSoftware here.