What does CTR mean? How to read it? How the CTR influences the performance of your campaigns.
The Clickthrough-rate is a ratio showing how many clicks your ad received divided by how often the ad has been shown. CTR = clicks ÷ impressions. Let's assume your ad gets 1.000.000 impressions and 5.000 clicks, the CTR would be 0.50%.
Note that the clickthrough rate doesn't include the number of users who clicked on your ads but failed to arrive to your website.
For Google, the Clickthrough-rate is the indicator of how well your keywords and ads are performing, specifically a high CTR might tell you that your customers find your ad relevant and helpful. Search engines reward good CTR. This is not surprise: in the pay-per-click model, the search engine gets more money if the ads are clicked more.
A good CTR is also important for the advertisers: when users go on Google and type something, they are expressing a need, they are telling you what they want. That's wonderful: users already understood they need something and now they are trying to find it. Be findable by users searching for the product you market! The CTR is essential for your Google account because it impacts the Quality Score. High CTR -> high Quality Score, Low CTR -> low Quality Score. High Quality Scores help you to gain and/or maintain your ad position with low costs. The CTR plays a big role in the calculation of the Quality Score.
If you are wondering what is a good CTR, the answer is "it depends". You should benchmark your CTR with the one of companies in the same sector. Moreover CTRs might vary from keywords to keywords, from campaigns to campaigns. Having saying that, if you are experiencing a low CTR, you can try to improve the copy of your ads and/or write content that better fits your target audience.
Simply getting users on your website can't be seen anymore as a success of your campaigns, high CTRs don't necessarily imply high conversion rates. Remember: you want to optimize towards profitability (conversions) and not towards number of visitors. The ultimate goal you have to achieve is to get qualified users on your site and have them to complete the desired action.
Comments