What is Click-Through Rate (CTR)?
In online advertising, the click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of individuals who view an element and then click on that specific element. This is a measure of how successful an Ad is in capturing a viewers attention.
Here’s the formula for Click Through Rate,
For example if you have 2 clicks for 1000 impressions, your click-through rate would be 0.2%.
Click-Through Rates Examples
Some common examples of where CTR can be measured include:
- CTA in Email Marketing
- Advertisement on Google
- Hyperlink on a Webpage
- PPC ad on a Google Search results page
Why does Click-Through rate matter?
Click-Through rates can say a lot about your customer behavior, what works and what doesn’t.
A low CTR can tell you that either you are targeting the wrong audience or your ads are not as convincing. This can be used as a metric for A/B testing.
Click-through rates also heavily affect your Quality Score (Score which keeps a check on relevance of Ads), Google Ads reward companies with good Quality score with pricing discounts.
This allows you to reach much larger audiences at a low budget.
What is a Good CTR?
A simple answer to this question would be “It depends”. CTR depends on a number of factors including your target audience, targeted keywords, your industry among others.
You can get CTR in higher double digits if you are using Brand names in your keywords (For example: Apple Iphone) and even get less than 1% CTR on broad keywords (For example: mobile).
When is High CTR bad for Business?
If a keyword isn’t generating sales, leads or branding, but has a high CTR, then a High CTR is bad for business.
Since you’re paying for every click, and clicks on those clicks aren't generating any sales, this is equivalent to spending money on Marketing without bringing in additional revenue.
Due to this issue, you’ll want to have High CTRs on keywords which are Relevant, affordable and most importantly the ones that can bring in business.
Unique Click-Through Rate
Unique Click-Through rate is a modified version of CTR which accounts for a user only once. In general, CTR measures total clicks by a user, unique CTR is a more precise version of Click-Through Rate.
Tips to improve Click-through rates
Here are four tips to consider which can help you improve your CTR:
Improve Headlines
Use good keywords in your headlines and copy, try to appeal to your customer’s needs, and show them how your product can help them.
Include Images
Using visually appealing Images are a great way to increase CTR and attract customers. You can run A/B testing to find out what works best for your campaign.
Include CTAs
Writing a great Call to Action or CTA is one of the best ways to improve CTR. It should be engaging and relatable to your audience.