Click-Through Rate (CTR) | Definition
Click-through rate (CTR) is a metric that measures how often a link or advertisement is clicked. CTR can be used to measure various types of campaigns including:
- Email marketing campaigns
- Search engine ads
- Social media ads
- Display ads
This metric is used to understand what types of ad creatives and copy drive engagement and goal completions.
Related Terms
Why is CTR important?
CTRs help measure the effectiveness of online ad campaigns and content. It shows how many people who saw the ad were interested enough to click on it to complete a purchase or learn more about the product or service.
How to calculate CTR
CTR is calculated by taking the number of clicks an ad receives and dividing it by the number of times the ad was shown (total impressions). This ratio is typically expressed as a percentage.
For example, if an ad had 200 total impressions and received 15 clicks, the CTR would be 7.5%.
(15 / 200) x 100 = 7.5%
What is a good CTR?
A good click-through rate depends on the type of campaign you’re running, the keywords that you’re targeting, and the marketing channels you run the ad on. This makes it hard to give an exact number but overall, a higher CTR is better.
A high CTR indicates that the ad is attracting the interest of an audience while a low rate suggests that the ad needs to be updated to better capture the audience’s attention.
A good rate can also depend on the industry. Overall, though, an average rate across all industries is between 4-6% so anything above 6% is a great CTR.
However, high CTR rates are not always a good thing. You could be getting a lot of clicks on an ad but little to no conversions. This could mean that you’re targeting irrelevant keywords and/or attracting the wrong audience. This is ineffective because if you’re paying per click (PPC), a lot of clicks generate more ad spend. If an audience is clicking but not converting, chances are, you’re losing money.
Effective ad campaigns should have high CTRs on relevant keywords that have to do with your ad copy, website, and product.
How to improve CTR
There are many ways to increase organic CTR. You can boost your click rate by:
- Using the right keywords: Find one or two keywords that match your product or service and incorporate them into your ad copy, heading and image alt tags. Try appealing to your audience’s needs and emotions or be the solution to their problem.
- Add CTAs to your ads: Write a direct CTA that prompts your audience to click. Make it clear and actionable.
- Use images: Imagery is important in advertising. What cannot be said with copy can be projected through effective images. Choose images that work well with the type of ad you’re running. Consider running A/B tests to learn what images work best with your audience.
- Social additions: For social ads, consider using platform-specific tools such as hashtags. Figure out what hashtags or topics are trending and create new hashtags or use popular ones to increase the likelihood of being seen by your target audience.
These are only a few ways in which you can increase your CTR. Overall, focus on your audience and create ads that appeal to them. If you’re not sure what they want to see, consider sending out customer surveys or conduct interviews to learn more about your current customers.
CTR vs view-through rate (VTR)
Unlike CTR which measures how many users click on an ad, VTR measures the impressions, or views, an ad receives. VTR is a metric more commonly used with video or television advertising because viewers are less likely to engage directly with the content. However, these impressions still need to be measured. The success of VTR can be determined by how much of an ad a user watches.
For example, many YouTube ads allow users to skip the ad after a certain amount of time. If the ad is not skipped, the VTR is higher.
CTR vs conversion rate
The conversion rate is the percentage-based metric that measures the proportion of website or app visitors who take a specific action out of the total number of visitors. This metric provides an indication of the effectiveness of a website or app in terms of achieving goals, generating sales, or increasing engagement.
CTR measures what action a user takes before they go to a website or app while conversion rate measures that action users take once they are in the website or app. Both of these metrics should be used in your marketing efforts to gain a more holistic view of your users journey and ad effectiveness.
CTR and Kochava
Within the Kochava platform, marketers can measure and view ad campaign metrics to optimize the performance of mobile apps, including CTR for mobile ad campaigns.
Kochava makes it easy for marketers and advertisers to measure the effectiveness of campaigns by analyzing key metrics such as impressions, clicks, installs, and in-app events. Kochava provides real-time reporting and granular insights into your campaigns, allowing you to identify which campaigns, networks, partners, and channels drive the most engagement.
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