Click-through rate Facts for Kids

This article is about CTR (disambiguation)|CTR. For other uses, see Click-through rate (disambiguation).

A Click-through rate (often called CTR) is a way to measure how many people click on a link compared to how many people see it. Imagine you see an ad or an email. If you click on it, that's one "click-through." The CTR tells us what percentage of people who saw it actually clicked.

CTR is super important for checking how well an online advertising campaign or an email campaign is doing. For example, the very first online ad for AT&T in 1994 had a huge 44% CTR! That means almost half the people who saw it clicked on it. Nowadays, people click on ads less often.

What is CTR For?
How is CTR Calculated?
See also

What is CTR For?

CTR helps us understand how many people click on an online ad or an email. It compares the number of clicks to the number of times the ad or email was shown (these are called "impressions").

Generally, a higher CTR means the ad or email campaign is doing a better job. It shows that more people are interested enough to visit the website. Most websites want you to do something, like buy a book, read an article, or watch a video. People usually don't visit websites just to see ads.

It's hard to know how people feel about a website. But it's easy to count how many people click on an ad that takes them to another page. CTR is the most common way to measure if an ad is working well.

How is CTR Calculated?

Calculating CTR is simple! It's the number of clicks an ad gets, divided by the number of times the ad was shown. Then, you multiply that by 100 to get a percentage.

Here's the formula:

\text{CTR} = {\text{Number of click-throughs} \over \text{Number of impressions}} \times 100 (\%)

For example, if an ad was shown 100 times and clicked 2 times, the CTR would be (2/100) * 100 = 2%.

CTR in Online Advertising

The CTR for banner ads has changed a lot over time. When banner ads first appeared, it was common to see CTRs higher than 5%. Today, the average is much lower, often around 0.2% or 0.3%.

A 2% CTR is usually considered very good for most ads. However, what's "good" can depend on the specific situation. In the 1990s, the average CTR was about 3%, but by 2002, it dropped to between 0.4% and 2.4%.

Advertisers usually pay more for ads with a high CTR. But getting many clicks without people buying anything isn't good for advertisers. If an ad is placed on a website that matches its topic (like a movie ad on a movie magazine site), it can get a much higher CTR.

Newer online ads are more than just banners. Popular search engines show ads right next to search results. These ads are often text-based and can include extra details like phone numbers or product pages. This makes them more helpful than annoying banner ads, leading to higher CTRs for these pay-per-click ads.

A higher CTR often means the ads are more relevant to the user's search. This can lead to a better "quality score" for the ads. A better quality score might even mean advertisers pay less per click. However, a high CTR isn't always the only goal. Sometimes, advertisers want to simply make more people aware of their brand, even if it means a slightly lower CTR.

Estimating Ad CTR

Ads on search engines are a big part of browsing the web. Choosing the right ads for a search and showing them in the best order really affects if a user will see and click them. This order also impacts how much money the search engine makes from ads.

Also, showing users ads they prefer to click on makes them happier. Because of these reasons, there's a lot of interest in guessing how likely someone is to click on an ad in a recommender system.

CTR in Email Marketing

An email CTR measures how many people click on one or more links inside an email. These clicks take them to the sender's website, blog, or another desired place. Simply put, it shows how many clicks your email generated.

Email CTR is also a percentage. You calculate it by dividing the number of clicks by the number of emails that were successfully delivered.

Most email marketers use CTR along with other measures like open rate (how many people opened the email) to see how well their email campaigns are working. There isn't one "perfect" CTR for emails. It can change based on the type of email, how often emails are sent, who the emails are sent to, and how relevant the email's content is. Even the time of day can affect CTR. For example, emails sent on Sunday often have higher CTRs than those sent on other days.

Every year, studies are done to track how effective email marketing CTRs are overall.

CTR and Search Engine Optimization

Some experts in search engine optimization (SEO) believe that CTR affects how well a website ranks in search results. They say that if more people click on your website in search results, Google might think your site is more important. This idea is sometimes linked to Google's RankBrain algorithm.

However, others disagree. They say that CTR has little or no effect on organic search rankings. For example, Barry Schwartz, a well-known expert, has said that Google has stated many times that CTR is not used in their ranking system.

Click-through rate facts for kids

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