The Impact of Direct Appeals on Clickstream and Response at Promotional Websites.

Direct appeals such as Click Here! Buy Now! are commonly used in promotional programs online. The purpose of this study is to provide a theoretical model and empirical test of how direct appeals impact the clickstream and response. An experiment was conducted using a real web promotional program. Prospects were invited to a promotional website. Direct appeals were systematically either shown or hidden. The resulting clickstream and response were recorded for tests of the hypotheses. The findings support the proposed model and show that direct appeals work by inducing a direct clickstream by heightening or changing visitor motivation to an implemental state. As a result, more responses are received via a direct rather than an indirect clickstream path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]