Click-through Rate

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Click-through rate (CTR) is the ratio of users who click on a specific link to the number of total users who view a page, email, or advertisement. It is commonly used to measure the success of an online advertising campaign for a particular website as well as the effectiveness of email campaigns. Click-through rates for ad campaigns vary tremendously. The very first online display ad shown for AT&T on the website HotWired in 1994, had a 44% click-through rate.Over time the overall rate users click on webpage banner ads has decreased.

The purpose of click-through rates is to measure the ratio of clicks to impressions of an online ad or email marketing campaign. Generally the higher the CTR the more effective the marketing campaign has been at bringing people to a website. Most commercial websites are designed to elicit some sort of action, whether it be to buy a book, read a news article, watch a music video, or search for a flight. People rarely visit websites with the intention of viewing advertisements, in the same way that few people watch television to view the commercials.

While marketers want to know ...
... the reaction of the web visitor, with current technology it is nearly impossible to quantify the emotional reaction to the site and the effect of that site on the firm's brand. However, click-through rate is an easy piece of data to acquire. The click-through rate measures the proportion of visitors who initiated an advertisement that redirected them to another page where they might purchase an item or learn more about a product or service. Forms of interaction with advertisements other than clicking is possible, but rare; "click-through rate" is the most commonly used term to describe the efficacy of an advert.

The click-through rate is the number of times a click is made on the advertisement divided by the total impressions (the number of times an advertisement was served):Click-through rate = Click-throughs (#) / Impressions (#)The click-through rate of an advertisement is defined as the number of clicks on an ad divided by the number of times the ad is shown (impressions), expressed as a percentage. For example, if a banner ad is delivered 100 times (100 impressions) and receives one click, then the click-through rate for the advertisement would be 1%.

Click-through rates for banner ads have decreased over time. When banner ads first started to appear, it was not uncommon to have rates above five percent. They have fallen since then, currently averaging closer to 0.2 or 0.3 percent. In most cases, a 2% click-through rate would be considered very successful, though the exact number is hotly debated and would vary depending on the situation. The average click-through rate of 3% in the 1990s declined to 2.4%–0.4% by 2002. Since advertisers typically pay more for a high click-through rate, getting many click-throughs with few purchases is undesirable to advertisers. Similarly, by selecting an appropriate advertising site with high affinity (e.g., a movie magazine for a movie advertisement), the same banner can achieve a substantially higher CTR. Though personalized ads, unusual formats, and more obtrusive ads typically result in higher click-through rates than standard banner ads, overly intrusive ads are often avoided by viewers.