Monitoring the effectiveness of digital marketing campaigns is done through various metrics that enable businesses to further improve their marketing efforts. One such metric is known as CTR or Click-Through rate which – despite its reliability – is often overshadowed by other methods such as the number of purchases customers make and cost-per-clicks.

In this blog, we’ll attempt to understand what CTR is, how it’s calculated, and its relation to PPC, SEO, and Facebook advertisement.

What is CTR?

CTR, or click through rate, is an advertisement metric that’s used to determine the number of people that click on a link, call to action, or advertisement and actually visit the website or landing page.

While click through rates takes into account the number of people who saw the ad and clicked on it, doesn’t take into consideration the people who saw the ad, didn’t click the link, but visited the website anyway.

The importance of this particular metric lies in its ability to inform marketers how well an ad campaign is performing based on the number of clicks it receives. A high CTR indicates that the content is resonating with the target audience whereas a low number of clicks call for a change in strategy. The higher the numbers of clicks, the more your costs go down and your quality score rises.

Monitoring ads, content, and emails via metrics allows businesses to rectify mistakes early on in the campaigns and saves them from wasting precious resources!

How is CTR Calculated?

Click through rate is calculated by taking the number of unique ad clicks and dividing it by the number of impressions i.e. how many times the ad was shown. For example, your ad was seen around 1,400 times and received a thousand clicks. That would mean the click through rate would be 1,000/1,400*100 or 71%.

CTRs and PPC

PPC, or Pay-Per-Click, is a business model in which companies create ads and then pay Google every time the ad was clicked. Click through rates are used in PPC campaigns to gauge the effectiveness of ads. Both Google and Facebook assign ads with quality scores that determine how successful they are in relation to a business’s objectives and landing page.

A high-quality score guarantee lower spending costs and better ad positions. A low score translates to a lack of relevance for users and forces Google and Facebook to stop displaying the ad to potential customers. If your ad continually scores low on both platforms, you should reassess your strategy and determine where the problem lies. Are you targeting the wrong audience? Is the ad not attractive enough? Perhaps the ad just doesn’t resonate with the audience?

CTR and Facebook Ads

According to Statista, Facebook has nearly 2.32 billion users. Advertising on the platform allows you to reach out to a larger audience at relatively lower costs. It enables businesses to target customers based on demographics, interests, and locations. Using the Facebook ad manager, you can create new ads, view analytics, and check your ad spending.

When you decide to advertise on Facebook, you’ll be able to select different objectives including page likes, app installations, boosting posts, conversions, and increasing user engagement. So how does CTR fit into Facebook advertising? Well, it’s similar to PPC in the sense that both platforms require payments.

CTR on Facebook is of two types: CTR for link clicks and CTR for all. Link clicks are limited to the number of clicks on specific locations such as an image or the CTA button within the ad. On the other hand, CTR clicks for all include clicks received on any part of the ad including those on a business’s Instagram profile or Facebook page. It’s necessary to differentiate between the two otherwise choosing the wrong option can be pretty costly!

CTR and SEO

Google Analytics helps businesses recognize the amount of organic traffic generated on their website. Websites are optimized by ranking specific keywords, adjusting meta descriptions, and coming up with appropriate titles. However, the real success behind any SEO campaign is to develop relevant content for the users. So how does CTR impact Google’s search rankings?

Great content leads to more clicks and high click rates are a key factor Google takes into account when deciding where to rank a webpage. If your website is able to generate high amounts of organic traffic via click rates then Google can decide to boost up your rankings since people are displaying genuine interest for your offerings.

Click through rate can also end up harming your SEO efforts. How? If your webpage appears in Google search for a query that isn’t related to your business and users end up clicking on the page, your website will experience a high bounce rate. Possible reasons include optimizing a webpage for a wrong target keyword or not linking to the right page on the website. If you continually notice a number of clicks coupled with low conversations rates, then it’s time to take corrective measures immediately.

When discussing search engine optimization it’s important to note that click through rate – despite its usefulness – isn’t everything. Websites should be optimized for popular search engines and contain relevant and quality content that appeals to the customers. Figuring out the right SEO mix takes time and requires expertise.

Fortunately for you, we know just the company that provide the SEO skills you’ve been looking for. Devebyte is a digital marketing agency in Edmonton, Alberta that provides a host of services including content creation, search engine optimization, web development, Facebook advertisement, and Google AdWords. Contact us today for more information.