Improving your Click-Through Rate

There are a couple of ways to know if your campaign is working. One of them is looking at your click-through rate. This statistic is a key indicator of how your campaign is performing. By looking at your click-through rate, you can find out how you’re doing AND plan your steps for improvement.

What is CTR?

CTR is short for click-through rate. Depending on the campaign and industry, there are different ways to understand the rate in which users are clicking on your ads.

CTR can be calculated by dividing the number of campaign clicks by impressions followed by multiplying by 100 in order to get a percentage. CTR can always be adjusted mid-campaign by following a few simple steps but first, let’s discuss what defines a good CTR.

What Makes A Good CTR?

There are different studies for marketers to determine if they have a healthy CTR. Usually, running a more conversion-based campaign can likely generate a lower click-through rate, while running an awareness campaign, can typically lead to a higher one.

In a conversion-based campaign, you might be measuring the number of forms that your prospects complete. In an awareness campaign, you might simply want to see how many people clicked into your website.

A high CTR indicates that your ad or web page is engaging and highly relevant. A lower one could possibly be due to poor copy or creative.

The national average click-through-rate is .01%, meaning that for every 100,000 impressions delivered, there should be 100 clicks on the ad.

Improve your CTR for Display Advertising

There are different ways to improve your campaign’s CTR. For display advertising, make sure your creative catches the intended audience’s attention. All the copy, creative and offer is relevant to what you’re marketing to consumers.  If your goal is to make sure people fill out your lead forms, then you need to make sure you are giving them an offer that entices them to complete the form.

Creating a more targeted audience can help as well.  For example, there are different audiences for digital display advertising – basic geo-fencing, competitive geo-fencing, and using specialized lists, such as new homeowners, for addressable geo-fencing.

Another adjustment to make is by adding site links to every ad.

According to Google, adding several site links that are related to your initial ad can vastly improve your CTR by about 10-20%. A simple, fine-tune can rapidly increase your CTR.

Making display advertising more specific may also help your click-through rate. This is especially crucial if you are selling a product or service where there is a more saturated market. It may be that a simple creative refresh can improve your campaign’s performance.

Use a Dedicated Landing Page

Make sure your landing page is ready. While you can get away with sending all your traffic to your home page, you will do better with a dedicated landing page. This means that you are customizing your landing page with content that is specifically designed to work for your campaign. This will also increase the performance of your campaign.