If the campaign is already underway, the budget is melting, and there is almost no traffic, CTR analysis will help to correct the situation. We will tell you how clickability affects the effectiveness of advertising, how to calculate it and increase it.
What is CTR
What does CTR show?
CTR calculation formula
Calculation examples
What influences click-through rate
What CTR is considered good?
How to Increase CTR
Expert Advice
What is CTR
Table of Contents
An internet marketer launches ads on several platforms with different settings. To find out which campaigns and ads attract the audience more, he analyzes the CTR (click-through rate).
CTR is the percentage of those who saw the ad to those who clicked on the ad. The higher the percentage, the more interesting the ad is to users.
You can calculate the clickability of any advertisement with a link: a banner on a website, a letter with a promotion, or a post on VKontakte. CTR is used when you need to bring in potential clients and get applications or sales. If the goal of the campaign is to increase brand awareness, impressions and reach are more important.
In marketing, CTR is also called conversion rate. It shows how advertising works at the beginning of the sales funnel when it attracts traffic to the site.
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What does CTR show?
The CTR metric is calculated to find out:
● Which ads are clicked on more often
This is how you can save money: launch creatives that will bring more traffic to the site.
● How precisely are your targeting settings set
gender, age, interests or geographic location. If they do not match the target audience, there will be few clicks.
● What platforms to place on
If the advertisement is interesting to users of the site or social network, the click-through rate will be higher. But in addition to CTR, conversion and other media plan indicators are taken into account .
CTR is a high-level indicator, and it cannot be used to judge the campaign’s payback. The goal of advertising is to convince people not only to go to the site, but also to perform a certain action: buy a product, leave a request, or download an application. When evaluating a campaign or ad, they also look at conversion. Sometimes the CTR is high, but the conversion is low; scaling such a result means losing money.
Let’s say a yoga instructor posted two ads on VKontakte. Out of 100,000 impressions of the first creative, it received 1,000 clicks. And 10 people bought a subscription to classes, which is 1% of the clicks. The other creative received 500 clicks out of 100,000 impressions. Of these, 15 people bought a subscription, the conversion will be 3%. Obviously, the second ad works better, despite the fact that its clickability is lower.
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CTR calculation formula
On all platforms, the CTR of creative is calculated in the same way according to the formula.
When there are many creatives, they focus on the average click-through rate of the advertising campaign. It is calculated using the same formula: the number of clicks on all ads in the advertising campaign is divided by the number of impressions within this campaign and multiplied by 100%.
The average click-through rate is used to compare several advertising campaigns, while the CTR of ads is used to compare creatives within a single campaign.
Calculation examples
Let’s look at examples of how to calculate CTR for one ad and an advertising campaign as a whole.
1. CTR for the ad.
A home appliance store launched an ad in Yandex Direct. The ad was seen by 1,000 people, 60 of whom went to the site.
CTR = 60/1000 * 100% = 6%
2. Average CTR for an advertising campaign.
The English language school launched an ad on VKontakte. Users were shown 3 creatives, each 2000 times. The first ad received 80 clicks, the second — 60, the third — 40.
CTR = (80 + 60 + 40) / 6,000 * 100% = 3%
According to this principle, the CTR of the creative and the campaign is automatically calculated by the advertising system. The data is stored in the personal account.
What influences click-through rate
If you know what the CTR of ads depends on, you can plan the results of the campaign and save the budget. There are two groups of factors, let’s consider them in detail.
❌ Factors that cannot be influenced
Level of competition in the industry
The more similar products there are, the more difficult it is to attract customers’ attention and the more expensive the advertising. For example, plastic windows are a niche with an expensive click and high competition, while selling industrial geomembranes for the B2B segment is not.
Platform features
Advertisements are placed in mobile applications, on websites, in social networks. If the audience is suitable for the product, there are more clicks. Advertising bread makers will work on a forum for housewives, parquet – on a website about apartment renovation.
Ad format
The appearance and settings of the creative affect clickability. For example, smart banners in Yandex Direct have a higher CTR than text and graphic ads, they are animated and take up more space, and retargeting can be used for them .
✅ Factors that depend on the advertiser
Campaign settings
In contextual advertising, the bid strategy, quantity and relevance of keywords matter. In targeted advertising, creatives matter. In any type of advertising, targeting settings matter. The more precisely the audience is specified, the higher the click-through rate.
Landing page quality
It should be user-friendly, load quickly, and match the creative text. If a children’s bicycle is advertised, and the link leads to a page with tents, the user may leave. Bounces lower the ad rating, the CTR drops.
Ad quality
If there is a good image of the product, a clear offer, the offer matches the interests and needs of the user, then the CTR will most likely be high. Such creative is also promoted by the advertising system: it is shown more often, and the cost per click is reduced.
What CTR is considered good?
There is no exact figure for what CTR is considered good. Everyone’s click-through rate is different. They rely on data from past campaigns and approximate standards.
To estimate CTR, you can use industry statistics as a guide .
Even if the CTR is “bad,” the advertising campaign can be profitable. And vice versa, it happens that the click-through rate is high, but the conversion is low. The ad often leads to the site, but almost no one performs the target action, for example, does not buy the product. This happens when the ad attracts too wide an audience or unscrupulous site owners use bots. When placing ads in mobile applications, users can accidentally click on the creative, affecting the CTR.
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How to Increase CTR
If the CTR is high, advertising works more efficiently: you can get more sales at a lower cost. This is also beneficial for the sites – when paying for clicks, they earn more. Therefore, many advertising systems reward ads with high clickability, reduce the cost per click and show them more often.
To increase CTR, you can work on two levels: change the settings of the advertising campaign and the creative itself. Let’s consider both options for influencing clickability .
1. Change advertising campaign settings:
● Divide campaigns
by region, user intent, age groups, keywords. The narrower the audience segments, the easier it is to influence CTR. Let’s say the campaign results show that men aged 40-50 are less likely to click on links than men aged 30-40. If you turn off advertising for the first segment and increase the budget for the second, the click-through rate will increase.
● Raise the cost of the target action or the bid
The higher the bid per click, the more likely it is that the ad will be shown more often. It is better to raise the bid with a reserve of 20-30%, and then gradually lower it down – this way the system algorithms will learn faster and choose the optimal settings. The method works if the ad is of high quality and there is a budget.
● Test platforms
Keep those that show good click-through rates, cost per click, and conversion rates in combination, and try new ones. For example, if advertising design courses on Odnoklassniki brought few sales, place it on VKontakte. This way, you can find the most responsive audience and meet KPIs .
2. Develop strong creatives:
● Write a unique offer
This is what solves the client’s problems and shows advantages that competitors do not have. For example, if delivery is often late and people are worried that they will gain weight from ready-made food, the offer “Delivery of low-calorie lunches in the center of Moscow in 15 minutes” will work better than “Lunches to order.”
● Add magnet words and a call to action
The link is clicked more often if it contains the words: “free”, “discount”, “sale”, and specific numbers attract attention. The effect of a time limit and a call to action will be enhanced : “Take a free lesson on layout from June 1 to June 14 and get a 15% discount on the course.”
● Choose a “catchy” image
Users are accustomed to pictures from photo stocks and large images of products. In addition, it is difficult to understand how one product differs from another. Pictures should be bright, unusual and evoke emotions. When choosing a style, colors, they are guided by the guideline , if there is none, everything depends on the imagination of the designer.
