I noticed that Greg Sterling just reported [1] over at Search Engine Land that Idearc Media’s Superpages is going to begin factoring in ad click-through-rates into the measures used for ranking ads on the vast networks of sites where Superpages content appears. I was aware of this plan prior to my departure from Superpages, and I think it’s one of the cooler things my old teammates are developing.
[2]
Naturally, this follows other major ad networks who do similar things. Google, for instance, has begun using quality scores [3] to decide ad rankings and the pricing of the ads.
This is a cool change to institute because it can simultaneously improve user-experience while theoretically increasing Superpages revenue. Ads which aren’t performing as well will fall in their rankings, and ads which are doing more to grab consumers’ attention will stay up higher and more visible.
The only downside that I see to it is that it makes it harder for Sales folx to explain to advertisers where their ads will appear in the search results rankings. 🙁
But, the fact of internet life is that the biz models are constantly evolving and typically becoming more complex, so the best Sales folx have to be the ones who can understand the market and translate the processes into something that advertisers can understand.