Definition

Click through rate (CTR) may be defined as a technique used to measure effectiveness of an online advertising campaign which may include posting link to a website or an email marketing campaign. It basically measures how many clicks a specific advertising link has. The number of clicks is important for the company in order to know how its online marketing campaign is going.

Importance

Calculating click rate is crucial for knowing the performance of a certain ad or list. It can help company improve its marketing strategy, invest money into more effective ads and not waste it on those without significant effect.

Click through rate is shown in percents. If its percent is high, it means that the marketing content is relevant to the targeted market. If it’s low, the number of people clicking on the ad is probably not satisfying and it requires some changes (in targeting the market, in placing the ad, in email structure).

In the world of pay-per-click marketing, higher click through rate means better ad position and lower costs, which is the goal that all the modern-day companies share.

Improving click through rate

If click through rate is lower than expected, there are certain steps that can be taken in order to improve it. The most important thing that can be done is creating more useful content. Potential visitors want interesting content that will attract them to click on the link.

Some of the other improvements which can be made in order to achieve higher click through rate are the following:

  1. Creating more effective links – instead of making the “click here” phrase clickable, it’s better to create a link within a more relevant word or phrase; “click here” may be misleading in some cases and people won’t click on it because they’re not sure where exactly is it leading them.
  2. Embedding more links – having more than one word or phrase which will lead to the same link can be good idea. If readers keep scrolling and reading, they won’t need to go back in order to click on a link. Instead, they will be offered to visit the same page several times, whenever they decide.
  3. Testing – one of the most often used testing strategy is splitting the campaign into two campaigns with different tactics and seeing which one has better results. It pays off in the long run because it shows which way is more cost-effective.