What is CTR, how to calculate and optimize it?

The CTR (Click Through Rate) refers to the number of clicks on a link in relation to the number of impressions.

An impression in Digital Marketing is the number of times an ad is shown to the public without the need for a direct interaction, such as a click or a conversion.

The CTR is a fundamental metric for SEM, Social Ads and Display advertising, it is always calculated as a percentage and is a metric that is normally used to measure the performance of a digital or advertising campaign.

How is the CTR calculated?

As I mentioned before the CTR is calculated as a percentage . It is calculated by dividing the number of clicks a link has obtained by the number of impressions, that is, the number of times it has been seen by users and multiplied by 100

Let’s see it with an example: We have an ad on Google that has been seen 2000 times and has had 30 clicks. What will be our CTR?

• CTR= (Clicks / Impressions) X 100 = (30 / 2000) X 100=1,5%
• CTR= 1,5%

How to interpret the CTR?

Regarding the interpretation of this metric, there is no exact figure that shows a good percentage of clicks or CTR. The figures vary depending on the platforms.

For example in Google Ads we talk about a good CTR from 1%, on the other hand if it is a Banner ad it can be as low as 0.05%. In general, the higher the segmentation and specificity of a campaign, the higher the click-through rate.

On the other hand you have to take into account the competitiveness of a certain sector or the difficulty to position a keyword, the more advertisers are fighting for a space or keyword, the more difficult it is to increase the CTR

Some ways to increase CTR

The fundamental aspects to improve your CTR are closely related to the choice of titles, descriptions and configuration of URLs

The first step is the choice of your keywords, in the title you will write the target keyword, that is, that word or phrase “Long Tail” for which you want your users to find you when they search on Google

In this way the title will consist of this Long Tail phrase and then the name of your website. In the title you can also include capital letters and icons that will help you increase your CTR

As for the descriptions, they should be striking for the user and without giving too much information about the content, they should call to action and encourage the user to click.

Finally, it is important to optimize URLs, that is, clean URLS without numbers, characters or dates, just your main domain and the name of the page or entry, the url usually appears in green below the title in Google search results.

Why is CTR so important?

• It allows you to increase your web traffic to your landing page or homepage , the higher the CTR, the more clicks we will get and consequently more users wanting to enter our website.
• It allows you to measure the effectiveness of your ads A very low CTR indicates that there is a problem for the user to click. It could be that the title and/or description are not optimized, problems in the visualization in different devices, etc.
• Monetize your advertising Ads in Google Ads as in Social Networks work with a metric called “quality score” and one of the factors that determine this score is the percentage of clicks, this means better positioning and cheaper clicks, as it rewards higher quality ads.

Conclusions

Do not forget this metric, having a good CTR and knowing how to optimize it in the right way can bring you great benefits both in terms of visibility of your website or personal blog and to improve the performance of your advertising campaigns.

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