Eastern Europeans are the most likely to click on online ads, while northern Europeans are at the opposite end of the spectrum, according to new figures and analysis from AdRoll, a mobile ad retargeting platform, and Priceonomics a data consultancy.
People in Ukraine were more than twice as likely to click on an ad than people in Finland, according to the data. Here’s what that looks like mapped:
The reason for the disparity is simple: internet access. Internet penetration in eastern Europe is between 60% and 80% of the population, while nearly 100% of western Europe has an internet connection, according to Priceonomics, citing data from the Internet Society’s Global Internet Report 2014 (pdf).
There are outliers in each region. Portugal, in western Europe, tops the list of click-happy internet users. That’s because it has relatively low internet penetration rates, Priceonomics said. At the other end, Estonia, in eastern Europe, has click-rates in line with Finland. Estonia has a fondness for tech-driven projects, and helped birth global technology successes like Skype.
The analysis dovetails nicely with Priceonomics’ earlier data trawl through US ad click-through rates. That analysis suggested that people in tech-savvier parts of the US appeared less likely to give their clicks to ads. Priceonomics declined to speculate on the reasons why more tech smarts were linked to lower click rates, but, it’s not hard to imagine that more sophisticated users might also be more jaded.