谷歌巧解手机广告“粗手指”误点难题

    它是十年来最困扰业界的技术难题之一：用户正在从台式机和笔记本电脑转向移动设备，但是移动广告的市场表现却惨不忍睹。在智能手机上卖广告尤其困难，它们卖得比传统电脑上的广告便宜得多，而传统电脑的广告已经比印刷媒体和广播的广告便宜很多了。现在谷歌公司（Google）认为它也许能部分地解决这个问题。

    今年8月，一项由一家移动广告分析公司发布的研究发现，大约40%的移动广告点击都“毫无价值”，因为它们要么是误点，要么是点击欺诈。很难弄清这个数字有多精确（而开展这项研究的公司很希望这个数字越高越好），但可以肯定的是，由于存在这两种类型的点击，要衡量移动广告的效果（以便借此搞清楚如何为其定价）几乎是不可能完成的任务。

    针对这种所谓的“粗手指”问题——用户划动屏幕或点击其他地方时出现了误点，谷歌正打算采用一个简单的解决办法：弹出一个带有“访问此网站”字样的确认键。

    这个办法当然能减少广告数量，但它也使合理点击的比例提高了。谷歌还表示，它可以提升能够带来实际销售的广告所占的比例。由于谷歌是移动广告领域的霸主，所以很可能众多对手也会跟进采用类似办法。

    两年前，移动广告市场是个可能带来滚滚财源的金矿。现在呢，各公司都被现实困住了手脚，跟这些尺寸较小的屏幕较上了劲。不过，它也确实揭示了移动广告市场存在的挑战，要让这种广告有效果，唯一的办法就是在用户和广告之间树立某种壁垒，不管这壁垒是多微不足道。

    译者：清远

    It is one of the chief tech conundrums of the decade: people are flocking away from desktops and laptops and toward mobile devices, but the mobile-ad economy is terrible. Selling ads on smartphones, in particular, is difficult, and they sell for much less than ads served to traditional computers, which already sell for much less than print and broadcast ads. Google thinks it might have a partial solution.

    A study released in August by a mobile-ad analytics firm found that about 40% of mobile-ad clicks were "worthless" because of erroneous clicks and click fraud. It's hard to know how accurate that figure is (and the company that conducted the study had an interest in the number being as high as possible), but it's certainly the case that measuring ad effectiveness -- and therefore, knowing how to price ads -- is near-impossible for both reasons.

    Google (GOOG) is addressing the so-called "fat finger" problem -- people clicking by mistake when they meant to scroll or click something else -- with a simple solution: a confirmation button that pops up, reading "visit site."

    The solution, of course, decreases the number of ads that are served, but it increases the proportion of legitimate clicks. And, Google says, it increases the proportion of ads that lead to actual sales. Since Google is the biggest player in mobile ads, it seems likely that its competitors will end up doing something similar.

    Two years ago, the mobile ad market was a potential Valhalla of profit. Now, companies are struggling with the realities of smaller screens. It surely says something about the challenges of the mobile ad market, though, that the only way to make it work is to erect a barrier, however small, between a consumer and an advertisement.