Click-through rate
Also called CTR.
Clicks divided by impressions, expressed as a percentage.
CTR is a diagnostic, not a goal. A high CTR on a badly targeted placement fills a funnel with people who will not buy; a low CTR on a newsletter whose readers went and searched the brand instead can be the better campaign.
CTR is only comparable within a format. Newsletter link CTR, display banner CTR and podcast promo-code redemption are three unrelated numbers, and putting them in one column of a spreadsheet has misled more media plans than any other single habit.
Beware CTR quoted without a denominator. A 12% CTR on 300 impressions is 36 clicks and tells you nothing.
How LinkBourse handles it
CTR shown on a listing is measured by our tracker across that placement's completed campaigns, with the sample size beside it. Below four campaigns we show nothing rather than a percentage drawn from an anecdote.
Terms it depends on
- Impression
- One instance of an ad being served — not necessarily seen, and not necessarily by a person.
- CPC
- A price paid per click rather than per view, shifting delivery risk to the publisher.
- Invalid traffic
- Clicks and impressions that did not come from a real person acting on the ad — bots, prefetchers, repeat automation, and traffic from somewhere other than the booked property.