Click Through Rate (CTR)

The Click Through Rate shows you what percentage of viewers saw your ad and then clicked on it, taking them to your landing page. The Click Through Rate (CTR) is calculated by dividing the number of impressions (each time an ad is displayed it's called an "impression"), by the number of Clickthroughs (each time a viewer clicked on your ad and went to your landing page).

So, as an example, if three of the viewers of your ad click on your particular ad for every 100 times your ad was displayed on a computer screen, your Click Through Rate will be 3 percent. In the past, the overall success of a company's online ad campaign was often defined exclusively by the Click Through Rate.

However, Click Through Rate doesn't measure how many viewers stayed on a website long enough to make a purchase, request information, or make a phone call. Currently, the emphasis in the online business world is less about increasing Click Through Rate and more about increasing Customer Conversion Rate. While Click Through Rate does reveal customer trends and interest, many of the clicks are just "curiosity clicks" that may or may not actually impact sales and profit.