What is Click Through Rate?

In Google adsense lingo or jargon, the click through rate means the number of clicks you get divided by the number of page impressions.

CTR = No. of clicks / No. of page impressions. (Cool formula eh?)

So the CTR (or click through rate) is dependent on two variables. The number of clicks that you get on a particular site and the no. page impressions. The number of page impressions are simply the no. of pages that have been viewed by visitors.

It is widely agreed amongst various expert bloggers that the CTR for most sites should be around 1.5% though this figure can vary on certain days. But in the long run, you can expect a click through rate of 1.5%.

What this means is that out of every 100 page impressions, you can expect 1.5 clicks. (Of course, there is no such thing as 0.5 or half a click)

If you detect that your CTR is very low (i.e. lower than 1.5%), it means that you might need to remedy certain things in terms of ad placement, color or even size of the ads. Changing these might help to improve your CTR.

On the other hand, if you have a very high CTR, do not be happy too soon. What it means is that people are actually leaving your site before they have read all your marvelous content. Do you really want that to happen?

The desired click through rate for most sites should be at 1.5% . Any lower and you should do carry out some modifications to your ads. Any higher, be happy but also monitor it closely to ensure that no click fraud is taking place.