Chrome

Google Chrome has only been around since 2008, but the company has pumped out 18 releases of the software in those five short years, with two more in working development. While users of older Chrome versions have a relatively robust CTR as seen in the graph below, users of the most recent versions are some of the most click-miserly on the Internet, with a CTR just under .02%. This isn’t due to a low share of traffic for the browser version – version 18 users make up nearly 83% of all Chrome traffic, accounting for 48 million impressions over the observed week alone.

Safari

Developers of Apple’s default desktop web browser employ a much more deliberate update cycle than Chrome, unveiling the software’s latest full-fledged release in 2010 – the browser’s 7th year in existence. Yet, the same pattern seen with Chrome is exhibited here as well – laggards on browser updates click at substantially higher rates than those using the latest versions.

In conjunction with an earlier study by Chitika Insights on Internet Explorer metrics, it becomes evident that savvy, long-time Internet users rarely click on ads, as they update, or migrate to new browsers frequently. Casual users on the other hand, are much more likely to click on an online ad and stick with the browser version that they familiar with – which is often the version that was preloaded on their new computer.