Schedule a FREE Internet Marketing Audit

What Is Your Click Through Rate?

Jay

What Is A Click-Through Rate?
Hey guys, it’s Beckton again. Today I sat in on a client meeting and learned quite a few things. One thing that I wanted to share today is about CTR or Click Through Rate. The click-through rate for an ad is the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions. An impression is measured anytime your ad is shown to someone, for example showing up as a banner ad on a web page or on Facebook. So if my ad was shown 1000 times to people, and out of those 1000 impressions 15 clicked the ad, that would give us a CTR of 1.5%. For more details here is Google’s definition https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2615875?hl=en
 
The Calculation

This example is a good simplification of a Click Through Rate, you divide the number of clicks by the total number of impressions. 1.5% is actually a realistic Click Through Rate, as very few people actually click through ads. In one of our client meetings, it was mentioned that a CTR of between 0.5% and 3% is what would be expected for a Google or Facebook ad.
For Pay-Per-Click ads, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad, so it might seem like the CTR doesn’t really matter. However, that isn’t true as a higher CTR usually means you will receive a higher ‘Quality Score’ from Google. Quality score is calculated as Google measures click through rate, website / landing page relevance and the actions someone takes on the website.  Having a high Quality Score lets you spend less to get a better ranking for your ad, as Google prefers relevant ads which make the Google search experience better.
 
What other factors can improve click through rate?
Relevance is a key factor in making ads more clickable. If someone is searching on Google for a new cell phone case, and your ad says “Get 50% off cell phone cases” there is a higher likelihood that you will get a click. Placement is an important factor for banner ads. If someone is scanning through Facebook or Instagram and you set the targeting to the iPhone X and your ad said “Get 50% off Authentic iPhone X cases” there is a higher likelihood you would get a click. Creative is another factor that influences click through rate. If your ad is catches peoples eye, is smart or witty or graphically interesting, there is more likelihood you will get a click. Lastly, you should run tests to help improve your Click Through Rate. Ten Golden Rules always recommends ongoing creative, offer and placement testing to continually improve click through and conversion rates (a conversion is someone taking action once they click an ad by making a purchase, filling out a form, calling an 800 number etc.)
In conclusion, I have learned a lot about how to calculate click through rate, and the factors that influence click throughs such as relevance, creative and A/B testing.