What is a click-through rate? Read this article to find out more.

The term ‘click-through rate’ (CTR) refers to the ratio of users who click on a particular link versus the number of total users who view a page, email or, alternatively an advertisement. The mathematical formula that is used in order to determine CTR is clicks ÷ impressions. For instance, if you had five clicks and 100 impressions, then your CTR would work out to be 5%.

CTR is usually used in order to measure the success of an online advertising campaign for a specific website as well as the effectiveness of email campaigns. This means that it’s not just Google Ads which makes use of click-through-rate as a metric. Any type of advertising platform will enter into the process of measuring some form of click-through-rate. Email marketers measure click-through-rate as the proportion of people who click through on a hyperlink which is present in the email content.

The CTR metric is used anywhere and at any time that digital marketers can make use of data-driven decision-making. It’s especially useful if you’re paying for impressions and clicks such as you do in PPC.

Little-known facts about CTR

There are a number of facts about CTR and Google Ads that you may not have known and will help you enormously in your digital marketing. Here are some of them:

• Each of your adverts and keywords have their own CTRs. It is possible to see these listed in your Google Ads account.
• A high CTR is an excellent sign that users see your ads are being helpful as well as relevant. CTR also makes a contribution to your keyword’s expected CTR. (This is a component of Ad Rank.) Remember that a good CTR is dependent on what you’re advertising and on which networks you’re using.

It is possible to use CTR in order to gauge which ads and keywords are successful for your organisation as well as those which need to be improved. The more your keywords and ads have a relation to each other as well as your business

What is Ad Rank?

‘Ad rank’ is where a pay-per-click (PPC) ad is on a page in search engine results. The position of this ad is dependent on the position of each keyword which is included in the ad. This position is determined by your bid for that particular keyword or ad group and is multiplied by the matched keyword’s Quality Score.

What is responsible for affecting click-through rate?

There are a number of factors which affect CTRs. Here are some of them:

• Relevance of your keywords, ad copy, placements as well as landing pages. The keywords as well as ad copy should be communicating the same message that ultimately should be targeted at the right audience.
• Ad rank – While your relevance score could be high, at times ad rank is still low. As we previously mentioned, ad rank is responsible for ultimately deciding on which ad will show in where on a page.
• Viewability – This metric measures only those impressions which can be seen by a user of the Internet. It means an ad is able to be seen when it is available in the space of your screen. If someone has to scroll to see it, it means the ad is below the fold. As such, it has no viewability until the consumer engages in the process of scrolling down the page.
• Device – Click-through rate on mobile devices is actually higher than it is on desktops. This is due to consumers having a heavy reliance on their mobile devices as well as smartphones. This is not to say that you shouldn’t place ads on desktops at all. Just keep mobile rates in mind.
• Vertical – Your industry is also responsible for determining click-through rate. This is especially when looking at the competition. Remember to ascertain the search volume for your keywords in order to decide how much money you’re willing to put behind them.

Click-through rates are an essential part of PPC advertising as the success of your ads is measured by this.

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