What is click through rate?

Click Through Rate (CTR) is a key performance metric most advertisers ultimately use to measure the success of a campaign. The Industry benchmark for click through rates across standard IAB sizes (300×250, 160×600, 728×90) is around 0.1%, whereas high impact units like background skins, video interstitials and over-the-page placements will see CTRs from 0.1% to 1%

Click through rate (CTR) is calculated by:

Dividing the total served impressions by the number of clicks for a given period

Publishers with an overall CPM less than 0.1% should consider making changes to their site.

A low click through rate will reduce your earnings!

Gourmet Ads’ campaign optimization algorithm automatically removes individual ad placements from campaigns where the CTR rate for that placement is below 0.1%, thus reducing the number of campaigns running and reducing Publisher revenue.

We find that Publishers with viewability scores of 65% or less at the domain level will typically also have a low click through rate.

How to increase your click through rate

  • Reduce the number of ads on a page (take the “less is more” approach)
  • Maximum of 3 ads on a page
  • Ensure 2 ad placements are above-the-fold
  • Try larger units (ie: use a 300×600 instead of 300×250)
  • Position ads within or alongside engaging content
  • Lock the ad units upon scroll