What’s The Difference Between Click Rate And Click-Through Rate

In this blog post, we’ll explain what click rate and click-through rate are, how to calculate them, and what they mean for your business. We’ll also give you some tips on how to improve each rate. 

Click Rate (CR) vs Click-Through Rate (CTR)

What is Click Rate?

Click rate is a metric that measures the percentage of people who see your email and click on it. Unlike click-through rate, which is a term that is used in several areas of SEO outside email marketing campaigns, click rate is a metric often used by email marketers in describing how many users opened their emails. 

 

To calculate the click rate, simply count how many people opened your email after being delivered and divide it by how many people you sent the mail to. For example, if you sent an email to 1,000 people and 100 people clicked to open it, your click rate would be 10%. Simply put, it’s the click-to-open rate that you’re looking for. Also, the same user opening the same email content doesn’t count toward the click rate.

What is Click-Through Rate?

Click-through rate is the percentage of people who click on a link or ad after they’ve seen it.  To calculate your click-through rate, simply take the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions. So, if you have a banner ad that was seen 1000 times and was clicked on 100 times, but only 50 people visited the linked page, your click-through rate would be 5%. 

 

CTR is also the percentage of people who click on your listing after seeing it on the SERP. For example, if your listing appears 100 times and gets clicked on 10 times, your CTR would be 10%. 

What Do These Rates Mean For Your Business

A high CTR means that people are interested in what you’re selling and are more likely to buy from you. They’re more likely to click through to your website or landing page.  A low CTR could mean that your ad isn’t relevant to your target audience or that it’s not well-designed. 

 

If you have a low CTR, don’t panic! There are a few simple things you can do to improve it! Methods such as using strong call-to-actions, targeting a specific audience, and creating relevant, targeted ads are some of the ways you can improve user engagement.

 

Also, CTR is believed to be a ranking factor in the SERPs. It can be a useful metric for measuring the performance of your website and your SEO efforts. 

 

A high CTR means that people are finding your listing on the SERP and are interested in what you have to offer. This can be used as an indicator of how well your site is optimized and how relevant your keywords are. However, just because you have a high CTR doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll get a good ranking. In fact, there may not be any correlation between the two at all. 

 

Which One Should You Focus On More? 

Most businesses should focus on improving their CTR more than their click rate. This is because a high CTR usually leads to more conversions (sales, leads, etc.), while a high click rate does not necessarily mean that people are interested in what you’re selling. 

 

For example, someone might see an ad for a new pair of shoes and click on it just because they’re curious about what the shoes look like. But if they don’t like what they see when they get to your website, they’re not going to buy them. On the other hand, someone who clicks on an ad because they’re interested in buying a new pair of shoes is much more likely to convert into a paying customer. 

 

Therefore, businesses should focus on driving relevant traffic to their website with a high CTR rather than just getting lots of clicks with a low CTR.  However, there are some exceptions to this rule. 

 

For example, if you’re running a brand awareness campaign or if you have a very small budget, you might want to focus on increasing your click rate since getting more impressions can still be beneficial even if those impressions don’t result in clicks. And if you have a very high CTR but low click rates, then you might want to focus on improving your click rates rather than your CTR since you’re already doing a good job of driving relevant traffic to your website. 

 

Still, you shouldn’t disregard the power of click rate, especially if you’re doubling down on email campaigns. If you want to maximize your email marketing, create effective subject lines that won’t be flagged by spam filters so more people will open, read the content, and click on the link provided in the email.

How CTR Affects SEO 

 

There are a few ways that CTR affects SEO. First, CTR is one of the signals that Google uses to determine the quality of your site. If you have a high CTR, that tells Google that people like what they see when your site comes up in search results. As a result, Google will be more likely to rank your site higher in future searches. 

 

Second, a high CTR can help you get more website visitors without having to spend money on advertising. If your site appears in the top search results and has a high CTR, you’ll get more organic traffic than if your site was lower down on the page with a low CTR. More traffic means more opportunities to convert leads into customers, so a high CTR can indirectly lead to more sales and revenue for your business. 

 

Finally, a high CTR can help improve the overall user experience of your website. If people are regularly clicking through to your site but then immediately bouncing back to the search results page, that’s an indication that they’re not finding what they’re looking for on your site. A low CTR can be a warning sign that you need to make some changes to your website so that it’s more relevant and user-friendly.

How Can You Improve Both Click Rate And CTR?

 

Now that we’ve established that both click rate and CTR are important metrics that you should be paying attention to, let’s take a look at some ways in which you can improve both rates. 

 

1. Make sure your ads are well-targeted. If they’re not relevant to what users are searching for, they’re not going to get clicked on—no matter how often they’re seen. The more targeted your audience, the better chance you have of getting them to actually care about what you’re saying/selling. 
2. Use strong call-to-actions. Your ad should tell users exactly what they need to do in order to take advantage of your offer. For email marketing, you should work on strong CTAs aside from an inviting subject line to increase the chances of capturing the interest of your customers.
3. Use compelling visuals. Studies have shown that ads with images or videos are more likely to be clicked on than those without. People are visual creatures so using strong imagery in your ads can go a long way toward getting them to take notice. 
4. Keep your text short and sweet. Users have short attention spans—the shorter and simpler your text, the better chance you have of getting them to actually read (and click) it. Your copy should be clear, concise, and persuasive. It should also be relevant to your target audience and reflective of the product or service that you’re trying to sell. 
5. Improve the quality of your leads. If you’re targeting low-quality leads with your ads then chances are they won’t convert even if they do click on your ad. So make sure that you’re only targeting high-quality leads who are likely to be interested in what you have to offer. 
6. Write interesting ad copy. Even if people see your headline and image, they might not bother reading the rest of your ad unless it’s actually interesting. Write a compelling copy that tells people why they should care about what you have to say/sell. 
7. Test, test, test! Try out different versions of your ad until you find one that outperforms the rest in terms of clicks. Then focus on making slight changes/improvements to that version until you’ve perfected it. 
8. Test different headlines. Creating an attention-grabbing headline is crucial for getting people to actually read your ad copy. Try testing different headlines to see which ones grab people’s attention and get them to click. 

Running a successful business requires continuous optimization and improvement across all aspects of marketing—and that includes understanding key metrics such as click rate and CTR. By understanding these concepts and using them correctly, you can make sure that every dollar you spend on marketing is working hard to grow your business. 

Measure Your CTR Success with ProRankTracker

Click-through rates, alone, give you an incomplete picture of your website rankings. You need to have a complete and in-depth understanding of how your website is performing in the SERPs. So, for your future campaigns for SEO, you need ProRankTracker – the most advanced rank-tracking and reporting tool today.

 

We’re here to help you rank higher and stay on top of things. We provide accurate, up-to-date data for all aspects including tracking rankings in Google SERPs and other major search engines. With our revolutionary reporting solutions, take a deep dive into the SEO progress of your website and team. Our solution is highly specialized for rank tracking so you can get reliable data. Plus, you have the power to generate customizable SERP reports that you can send to your team or clients in seconds!

 

Try ProRankTracker today! It’s FREE!