Interesting article by Ted McConnel. It would be interesting to know what's the proportion of ad revenue is coming from "blank displays" or user clicking on a link by mistake. Here's the article:

This is the story of a blank display ad that notched twice the click-through rate of the average branding one.

It all started over lunch with my friend Charlie.

Ted McConnell

"When I want to make quick money on clicks," he said, "I just buy late-night impressions on women's gaming sites. I guess the users are tired. They click like crazy. I make a lot of money."

Maybe, I thought, there's an ambient mistake-click-rate on the web, like cosmic background noise. I wondered if that rate was high enough to create misleading conclusions about ad effectiveness or mess up the algorithms that drive automated buying and selling.

The online-ad ecosystem is constantly adjusting itself to place messages where they will get clicks. This learning loop takes mere minutes in the automated model.

Clicks are counted as a surrogate for attention, and still used as our most important currency (i.e. cost-per-click). They are also the principal signal in a control system that governs a giant machine.

Sure, every control system has a little noise in its signals. Sunspots cause garage doors to open, I suppose.

Read full article at http://adage.com/article/digital/incredible-click-rate/236233/