Study: Non-UGC sites have better ad conversion

A recent study from BlueLithium Labs may have online marketers reconsidering the benefits of social networking sites. According to the research, ads on non-UGC sites have a 32% better conversion rate than ads shown on UGC sites.

by Kristina Knight

BlueLithium researchers studied more than 1.7 billion ad impressions and more than 700 creatives in the industry to find their results. Researchers studied UGC sites - social networking, photo and video sharing and chat services/forum sites - as well as editorial content generation sites as well as the 250 most trafficked sites editorially generated content sites according to the comScore Media Metrix.

They found that non-UGC sites have 32% higher conversion rate than UGC sites. Non-UGC sites also have a higher click through rate (30%) and a higher cost per conversion rate (58%). The cost per click rate was also higher (19%) on non-UGC sites than UGC sites.

Though non-UGC sites performed better, BlueLithium indicates that experimenting with ads on social sites is a good idea. "If marketers are not experimenting with UGC, they may be missing opportunities to deliver higher priced performance. UGC. . .provides a better place to invest advertising dollars to drive clicks and conversions," was written in the report.