Click through rate(CTR)

Click through rate or CTR is a way of measuring the success of an online advertising campaign. A CTR is obtained by dividing the "number of users who clicked on an ad" on a web page by the "number of times the ad was delivered" (impressions). For example, if a banner ad was delivered 100 times (impressions delivered) and 1 person clicked on it (clicks recorded), then the resulting CTR would be 1 percent.

Banner ad click-through rates have fallen over time; when they 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 0.28% by 2003. Since advertisers typically pay more for a high click-through rate, getting many click-through with few purchases is actively 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. Personalized ads, Google Ads/Google Adsense unusual formats, and more obtrusive ads typically have higher click-through rates than standard banner ads, however overly intrusive ads are often avoided by viewers on our web pages.

CTR is most commonly defined as "number of clicks" divided by "number of impressions" and generally not in terms of the "number of persons" who clicked divided by the "number of impressions". This is an important distinction. As a person clicks a single advertisement multiple times, the CTR increases using the former definition, whereas the CTR doesn't change using the latter definition.

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