Sometimes, marketing feels like shooting in the dark. You send emails, create blog posts, or run ads, measuring things like impressions or views. You may know how many people saw your marketing campaign, but were they really interested in it?
Luckily, click-through rates help tell the bigger picture. Click-through rate, often referred to as CTR, is a ratio of people who click on a specific link to the number of total people who view the page, email, blog post, or advertisement. In other words, click-through rates tell you how many people engaged with your content.
It’s important to note that click-through rates measure the immediate response of marketing assets, but not the overall effect. CTR measures the number of people who clicked on a link to arrive at the destination, but does not include people who failed to click the link, but also arrived at the same destination later, as a result of seeing your marketing assets.
While the actual percentage will vary depending on channel, medium, and content, the click-through rate formula always stays the same: the number of total clicks your content received divided by the total number of impressions.
Prior to doing this math, however, you need to keep two things in mind:
Once you have determined your strategy for counting the number of clicks and have the total number of impressions, you can plug your numbers into the equation:
CTR = (Number of clicks / Impressions) X 100
The final number will be the percentage of clicks you are generating, also known as your click-through rate.
When calculating your CTR, keep the following in mind:
Click-through rates are not the be-all, end-all metric of success, however they do offer a powerful window into what your customers are interested in and the likelihood of moving them through the sales funnel.
While a high click-through rate doesn’t necessarily correlate to a high conversion rate, the more customers who consume your content, the better!
Here are three ways to improve your click-through rate:
Interested in boosting CTR for mobile ads specifically? Read our seven tips for increasing clicks on mobile ads.
Unlike generic impressions, click-through rates show you exactly what your customers are interested in and engaged with. Make sure to listen to that. When you listen, learn, and respond to what your audience is already telling you, you can generate more clicks, more revenue, and a better customer experience.
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