Click-Through Rates: Why High CTRs Can Help Your Business Get Noticed

A click-through rate (CTR) is the number of clicks received divided by the number of impressions generated. CTRs can be an indicator of how relevant an ad is to the searcher or to the audience targeted (Rahsler, 2012).

The click-through rate is an important Web metric because it can be used to gauge how well keywords and ads are performing on your company site (Support.Google.com). According to Google, CTRs contribute to your keyword’s Quality Score, which can affect your costs and ad position (Support.Google.com). CTRs can ultimately determine the success of paid search advertisements, e-mail links, social media ads, Web banner ads, and more. 

What is a Good CTR?

Some businesses tend to ask, “What is a good CTR?” This is not an easy question to answer. Google says that a good CTR is “relative to what you’re advertising and on which networks” (Support.Google.com). Here’s Yahoo’s answer to a “good click rate”:

“The honest answer to the question is, ‘It depends.’ Click-through rates are naturally going to vary from campaign to campaign, and even from keyword to keyword. Everything involved in the way your ad is displayed plays a part, from your ad copy to the ad’s ranking on the results page” (Wordstream.com) 

Benefits of Increased Click-Through Rates

While high click-through rates are not always beneficial to businesses and advertisers, they are generally essential to well performing campaigns. CTRs allow for an overall lower cost-per-click at the campaign level because they create a higher quality score, which reduces cost-per-click overtime. Another benefit of high CTRs is that you will have a higher likelihood of outperforming your competition that is advertising alongside your ads (Croxton, 2014). 

When Higher Click-Through Rates Are Bad for Business

Sometimes higher CTRs are not helpful to businesses. For example, “if a keyword isn’t pertinent to your business or isn’t going to generate sales, leads, branding gains, etc. then a high click-through rate for that term is actually bad for business” (Wordstream.com). Companies should avoid paying for every click. They should also avoid having irrelevant keywords and clicks that just spend money without bringing in any profit (Wordstream.com). 

How to Achieve Strong Click-Through Rates

There are several ways companies can achieve strong and effective CTRs. First, they need to make sure their keywords are relevant and affordable (Wordstream.com). There are a lot of resources that can track down the most effective keywords, including The Google AdWords Keyword Tool.

MarketingProfs.com

According to MarketingProfs, the time of day is also a factor when it comes to high click through rates. Here are the key findings from the site:

• Visitors tend to interact more with Web ads during the day, and clicks drop as the evening wears on. 

• The peak in clicks occurs between 11 AM and 2 PM, when visitors interact with ads 14% more than Infolink's average CTR. 

• Later at night, between 11 PM and 2 AM, there is a significant drop in CTR. 

• Click-through rates hit their lowest on Wednesdays, when they dip to -1.86% below Infolink's average.

• The peak comes on Fridays, when CTRs are nearly 4% higher than most weekdays and more than 6% higher than on Wednesdays. 

 (Nanji, 2013) 

Conclusion

Click through rates are an important Web metric for businesses today to analyze. CTRs can show just how relevant an ad is to the searcher or online audience. It is important to make sure each ad placement has the right keywords and is optimized correctly.

What have you done to make your click-through rates effective? Share your tips by leaving a comment below! 

References

Croxton, J. (2014, January 17). 50 strategies to increase click-through rate via PPC advertising. Retrieved January 19, 2014 fromn http://www.searchenginejournal.com/50-strategies-increase-click-rate-via-ppc-advertising/85019/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PronetAdvertising+%28Pronet+Advertising%29

Raehsler, L. (2012, December 26). What is a good click-through rate for PPC? Retrieved January 19, 2014 from http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2186867/click-rate-ppc

Nanji, A. (2013, June 17). Days and times with the highest online ad click-through rates. Retrieved January 19, 2013 from http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2013/10981/the-best-days-and-times-for-high-ad-ctrs

Support.google.com. Clickthrough rate (CTR). Retrieved January 19, 2014 from https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2615875?hl=en

Wordstream.com. Click-through rate (CTR): Understanding click-through rate for PPC. Retrieved January 19, 2014 from http://www.wordstream.com/click-through-rate