Today we will see what CTR is in digital marketing and how it is calculated. We will talk about CTR in Google Ads and, although we are not going to sell you magic formulas to go from CTR 0 to 100 , we will give you advice to improve your click to rate.
CTR in marketing
One of the most exciting things about digital marketing is the immediacy and ease of measuring actions, interactions and everything that happens in the environment through metrics. We have talked about the most important KPIs on other occasions , but today we will focus on the CTR.
We have seen the relevance of the marketing plan for a company and that we cannot separate chinese overseas africa phone number data marketing by department (digital/analogue), since there is only one marketing. Within the actions carried out by the marketing division of a company or business, those carried out in digital media are known as digital marketing actions.
The evolution that marketing has undergone over the years has led it to improve communication and the search to generate experiences and commitment over time with its clients, but all of this always understood with a predominant immediacy.
We can launch an advertising campaign in digital media quickly and easily, and immediately begin to measure the results and reach and intervene to optimize it based on our objectives. For this reason, one of the metrics we use most is the CTR.
What is CTR in digital marketing and how is it calculated?
When we talk about CTR (click through rate) in SEM, we are referring to a metric that measures the number of clicks that a link, banner or any type of advertisement has had or is having in relation to the number of times it is displayed (impressions).
We also use CTR when we talk about the chances of a link in Google's SERP, that is, depending on the position you occupy in the search engine, you will have one number or another. For example, in a study carried out by Sistrix1 , 28.5% of users browsing Google click on the first result offered by the search engine. According to the study, it reveals that the CTR for the first page would be 28.5% , 15.7% for the second and 11% for the third.
How to improve organic CTR
We have already seen how important this metric is and how closely it is linked to our bottom line. Now we will discuss some actions or considerations that, if put into practice, can help improve our CTR.
Meta descriptions
Blog articles, for example, have a specific space where the writer can briefly explain what the article is about and what the user who clicks on it will find.
It is clear that when we browse the web we want to reach our goal quickly and efficiently. We do not want to waste time going around in circles until we reach the information that interests us. That is why Google, in its desire to provide us with the best experience, offers us those results that it considers will be in line with what we are looking for. As editors, we have to describe the meta description in the best possible way and in this way make it more attractive in terms of SEO and more effective in climbing positions against the competition.
-The URL
This is much more important than you might think. For example, if you work with a CMS where you share and distribute content, it is essential that you optimize the URLs and not leave them as default. A URL with an extension of less than 70 characters and well oriented towards SEO will improve our position and our CTR will be positively affected.
-The title
Having a well-optimized title for our content is another factor that is linked to SEO. Once again, Google rewards content that is presumably more focused on what the user is specifically looking for with more visibility. We cannot overlook these aspects and it is a good idea to dedicate the necessary time to taking care of these simple details.
-Keywords
An element of vital importance, but often misunderstood. Are we speaking to machines or are we speaking to human beings?
This absurd question is often confused. You should always focus your content on people. You should speak to your consumers with respect and offer them what they need from you, but do not question their intelligence by continually resorting to keywords in a repetitive manner.
Include your words in the content in a fair and balanced way and not only will Google reward you, but your users will thank you with their visits.
How to improve CTR in Google Ads
It is clear that behind an advertising campaign we are looking for a good return, whether it is brand awareness, downloading content or an app, purchasing a product, etc. The initial premise is to recover the investment and generate benefits in the short, medium or long term, right?
Well, one of the first metrics we will analyse is the CTR. With it we will see how suggestive, attractive and interesting our link, banner or advert is. If our advert is shown a large number of times, but does not generate clicks, that is, we have a very low CTR, we will have to intervene to optimise the different elements involved in the campaign.
-The copy
The message, the way of addressing and the words used are often not given the importance they deserve, but they are a key factor in advertisements. Provoking the reader by touching on their needs and weaknesses in a skillful and direct way will increase the chances of them clicking on our link.
- The CTA
It is linked to the copy. It would be the call to action and if the copy is good, the CTA must be up to par. For example, a button that tells us “download” is not the same as one that tells us “download for free” or it is always better to say “get it now” than “buy”.
-Negative keywords .
Just as we use keywords to be found when writing articles, here we use them in two ways: keywords and negative keywords. We will simply tell them which ones we want to be found by and which ones we do not want our ad to be shown by.
-Segmentation
It is very important to be clear about who we want to impact before starting a campaign. Generating buyer personas , identifying the target audience and their demographic area are crucial points that will improve our CTR. If we are shown an ad that does not interest us, we will probably not click on it, but if we are shown an ad about a product or service that interests us, we will most likely go to the source to obtain more information.
-The CPC
The maximum value we are willing to bid is another relevant factor. Depending on how high our maximum bid is, we will achieve greater reach and if our ads gain in views and are relevant to users, we will increase the CTR. On the other hand, we must take into account that the increase in CPC will be linked to the costs of the campaign. For this reason, we always talk about real-time optimization .
As we have seen throughout the article, it is very important to take CTR into account.
