The click-through rate (CTR) is a key figure that shows the ratio of digital advertising and advertising impressions as a percentage. This lexicon entry shows how this works and what advantages it can have in internal operations.
What is a click-through rate?
The click-through rate (CTR) is a key figure that can put the number of clicks and impressions into a ratio as a percentage. The number of impressions shows how often users have seen the ad within a period of time. Every advertising tool displays this key figure as it is useful for optimization.
How does the calculation of the click-through rate work?
Various tools can evaluate the click-through rate (CTR), but this can also be done manually: Number of clicks / number of impressions x 100. Some small affiliate platforms may not have this metric, accordingly you will have to calculate it yourself.
The calculation is simple: if an advertising banner or advertising video has been displayed 100 times and only clicked once, then it is a CTR of 1 %. How high a click-through rate should be also depends on the industry.
Interesting to know: The first page on Google has an average click-through rate of 18 to 27 percent, whereas the CTR for a banner ad is only 0.09 to three percent.
What is the importance of CTR in online marketing?
The click-through rate (CTR) is an important key figure in performance marketing. It can be used to determine the performance of an advertisement, which may require further changes. It may also be the placement that is detrimental to the advertising element. All these scenarios need to be tested, like everything in online marketing.
There are areas in which the CTR is of greater importance. This is the case in affiliate marketing, for example. The metric indicates the relevance and efficiency of an advertising medium. The value of a click can be calculated via the clicks. To do this, the relationship between sales and clicks is considered.
However, the CTR is also very important in all areas, such as Facebook and Google Ads.
High click rate does not necessarily lead to success
The click-through rate is only part of the success of a campaign. Although a high click-through rate is an accolade for the advertiser, it is also meaningless if the click does not convert to a purchase. The aim should be to increase the click-through rate and at the same time adapt the respective landing page.
