Occasionally we should do some self-criticism and examine if everything is as rosy as we would like it to be. And this is the case of the clicks percentage obtained in mobile advertising. Too tall to be good, many think. And in fact, some analysts have adopted a theory that has quickly been accepted: the fat fingers theory, which goes on to say that many clicks on mobile ads have an accidental origin. The combination of small screens and large fingers seems fatal in many cases.

It does not appear that this theory has been developed without any “scientific” basis. A recent GoldSpot Media study has revealed that in October of this year, 38% of all clicks on static banners were accidental as well as 13% of those that have taken place in rich media banners.

These figures have been calculated in analyzes carried out by analyzing the actions that have taken place after the click. If there is no consumer action after two seconds from the click, it is understood to have been accidental

Obviously, this exercise entails a significant reduction in the actual percentages. GoldSpot has calculated that of the 4% of clickthrough in rich media banners, once the accidental clicks are eliminated, the number is reduced in half. Static banners, which seem to suffer more errors originated by users’ “fat” fingers, are reduced from 3.1% to 1.1% success.

But not all bad news for advertisers and publishers, despite the reduction we’ve seen before, the success rates are still higher than those generated by standard web ads. 1% is still 10 times higher than the June global click rate of the MediaMind consulting report.