Sometimes the results on our network of sites amaze me.  Sometimes I am floored.  But the funny thing is, I can call over to these companies and explain to them how their banners are performing at 10x the national average, and they still ask, "....so is this good?"

I love it when we can bring on a smaller advertister and blow their socks off with performance.  The key thing here is that we are both working towards the same goal.....making sure the ads are placed in areas of the sites where they are getting the most value.  Here is an example of a client that came on last week and their related CTR performance:

Report Metrics     Ad Slot Size Zone Name Impressions Delivered Clicks Recorded Click Rate 160x600 nme.dropzone/homepage 446 10 2.24%
160x600 nme.dropzone/forums 2580 24 0.93%
160x600 nme.dropzone/misc 907 17 1.87%
160x600 nme.dropzone/calendar 20 1 5%
160x600 nme.dropzone/videos 52 2 3.85%
160x600 nme.dropzone/photos 44 1 2.27%
160x600 nme.dropzone/homepage 474 5 1.05%

This may not seem like much on the surface, but consider this.  When marketers try to go for the "broad shotgun" approach and target a network, the network will say to them that a CTR rate of .08 - .15 will be a "very" good showing.

Take that same ad, and run it across a closed-network of enthusiast sites (targeting in this case Skydivers) and that rate of .15% skyrockets to as high as 5%.  The client above is averaging, overall across the entire network, a .72% CTR.

The next step in this campaign will be to optimize the placement for the client.  Once they hit 100,000 impressions, we will turn off the areas that are not performing and then move the related volume into areas that are performing. 

I suspect that this client is going to end up with a campaign that is well over 1% CTR.  10x the national average.  So the answer is yes.....it does pay to target your customers.