In order for any digital or internet marketing to take place, placement of advertisements and marketing tactics need to be taken into consideration. All that is the internet relies on the functionality of one thing: the internet browser. Everyone who has ever seen a commercial or visited a web page is aware of the biggest names in the web browser industry. Most people judge the success of these browsers by their respective market shares. As October 2012, the market shares were as follows, provided by W3Counter:

• Chrome: 29.1%
• Internet Explorer: 27.4%
• Firefox: 22.1%
• Safari: 14.1%
• Opera: 2.4%

Upon glancing at this list, anyone could feel confident in saying that Google Chrome is the best choice for marketers when it comes to browsers. However, this list does not account for mobile browsers, which are becoming a huge portion of the browser use numbers. Also, this list only focuses on market share, which is not as important to marketers as are things like CTR.

A new datagraphic from a company called Chikita Insights shows what browsers are actually the best choices for marketers. The first bar graph in the graphic shows us that it is actually Opera that receives the highest CTRs, with 2.12%. After that, Safari Mobile is another considerably valuable browser for marketers, with a CTR of 1.54%. What’s interesting is that, though Chrome seems to hold the highest market share, it has the lowest CTRs, both on its desktop and mobile platforms.

The graphic also shows the average query lengths for each of the top browsers, both on mobile and desktop, which could be valuable information for search marketers. The highest in this category, for desktop browsers, is Safari with an average of 5.08 WPQ. It also has the highest WPQ for mobile browsers, with an average of 5.17.

Now, according to the clever pie chart oriented map of the U.S., in many of the most populated states in the nation, Internet Explorer is the most popular web browser, which also contests Google Chrome’s standing as number one. New York (36.15%), Florida (42%), Texas (45.63%), and California (33.64%) all showed Internet Explorer as having the highest percentage of users in the state. Even though Internet Explorer has been endlessly questioned regarding the functionality of its browser by people across the web, it still seems that it is receiving a lot of use, therefore telling us that marketers should not be swayed by opinions that they may have heard before.

The truth is always in the numbers, and without seeing the full spectrum of these numbers, many people have been led to make the wrong decision about who leads the way in the browser value. For marketers, it seems like Opera may be the best choice of browser to trust with advertising, as CTR means everything in the marketing world. Sure Google Chrome offers a great internet browser, but it seems it is not quite as great as everyone has been making it out to be.

The infographic from Chitika Insights is here.

Written by Michael Levanduski

Michael Levanduski is a news reporter at Performance Marketing Insider. He’s been a writer at one level or another for the past 15+ years. He has three kids and lives in Grand Rapids, MI.

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