What's a pirate's favorite metric? CT-RRRRR

    Before determining click through rate, you must define what it is. Click through rate (CTR) falls under the category of visit characterization and is defined as "the number of click throughs for a specific link divided by the number of times the link was viewed" (Reed College of Media, 2021). Measuring CTR can be applied to more than just a website, but other campaigns such as advertising or email marketing. In terms of websites and SEO, click-through rate is important for search results ranking. Optimizing your website through the use of relevant keywords and meta descriptions can help capture clicks (Lyfe Marketing, 2020). The higher your organic CTR, the better your SERP ranking can be. 

CTR for blogs

    Increasing CTR on blog posts can come from writing more quality content, i.e. making your blog more attractive and useful (Bhatia, 2021). Writing about something interesting can help to easily engage people and get them to click through to your other blog posts or parts of your website. Improving blog CTR also requires regular posting and including keywords with high search volumes because your post will appear higher on Google search pages (Bhatia, 2021). Even having more inbound links will help drive more traffic to your website and hopefully increase CTR. 

Tips to Improve CTR

    There are multiple factors that go into CTR and improving it. Some of these factors include (1) changing headline and/or copy, (2) including a CTA, (3) using images, (4) or using hashtags (Hotjar, 2020). An A/B test would come in handy here for optimizing CTR because you can test out these various factors to see which draws in more users and gets them to click on the link. 

    For headline testing, I would hope my classmates click through to read this blog post. While it may have nothing to do with Pirates of the Caribbean, the title draws you in. 

    Image use, whether for display advertising or use in a blog, is important because users can look at something interesting. Images are more attractive to visitors and are super helpful if blogs are shared on social media (W3 Lab, n.d.). Websites with images have a 42% higher CTR (W3 Lab, n.d.).  

What is a good CTR?

    Your CTR percent is reliant on a number of things such as industry and keywords. A high CTR means your advertising, email, or website content is highly relevant to users while a low CTR can indicate that you are less relevant or are targeting the wrong audience (Mackey, 2021). CTR helps a business understand its customers and whether or not you are really reaching your audience and their interests. 

(This figure shows industry CTR averages, with the highest being for travel & tourism)

In the end, there really is no 'right' CTR. However, it is a great metric to look at when analyzing success of your ad campaign or website performance. CTR isn't the only metric to use for measuring performance, but when used in relation to others, it can be eye opening. Advertising or blog posting can be successful without measuring CTR, but it can be important for determining user behavior and interest. 


*If you're wondering, no I did not make up that title myself, though I wish I did. (https://www.adaptworldwide.com/insights/2016/20-spine-splittingly-hillarious-ppc-jokes-really)


References

Bhatia, S. (2021, March 3). How to improve ctr (click-through rate) on blog? Stan Ventures. https://www.stanventures.com/blog/ctr/

Hotjar. (2020, November 10). What is click-through rate (ctr)? A definition. Hotjar. https://www.hotjar.com/conversion-rate-optimization/glossary/click-through-rate/ 

Lyfe Marketing. (2020, August 3). What is ctr? Understanding the meaning of click through rate. Lyfe Marketing. https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/what-is-ctr-click-through-rate/

Mackey, M. (2021, February 16). What is click-through rate & why ctr is important. Search Engine Journal. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/ppc-guide/click-through-rate-ctr/#close 

Reed College of Media. (2021). Week 1 module: Introduction to web analytics, basics of web analytics and tool introduction and selection. West Virginia University. 

W3 Lab. (n.d.). How to increase ctr for your blog posts? W3 Lab. https://w3-lab.com/increase-ctr-blog-posts/

Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 2, 2021 at 6:00 PM

    I loved your creativity on this blog!

    Something I have been noticing throughout all of the metrics is "what is a good rate" the answer seems to be it depends. For this specific metric, CTR, I did learn in even more research that you want that number to be high (Click-Through rate (CTR): UNDERSTANDING click-through rate for PPC).

    Like you mentioned, looking at the industry is really going to help you figure out if your CTR is good or bad.

    Also just something else to note:
    "Achieving strong click-through rates in PPC, then, depends on:
    Targeted keywords to bid on.
    Cost-efficient clicks.
    Tools and methodology for closely integrating keywords with ad text and landing pages.
    The ability to quickly and efficiently segment keyword groups to generate closer targeting" (Click-Through rate (CTR): UNDERSTANDING click-through rate for PPC).

    References:
    Click-Through rate (CTR): UNDERSTANDING click-through rate for PPC. (n.d.). Retrieved April 02, 2021, from https://www.wordstream.com/click-through-rate

    ReplyDelete

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