Gathering click-through-rate
data is an often-debated metric of importance. While some analysts believe in
the relevancy of the data, others may deem it as unreliable. This is
supported by an article that evaluates the importance of the click-through rate
as its author claims, “Click-Through-Rate
(CTR) is one of the metrics which some advertisers swear by, while others
discredit,” (Hadden, n.d.)
The click-through-rate is simply the
number of click-throughs for that specific link calculated through a division
of the number of times that link was actually viewed. Marketers often use this
metric for tracking email marketing campaigns where the rate is typically
presented as a percentage of the total number of customers that opened the
campaign email. For example, “a 40% email click-through rate would mean
that for every 10 people that opened your campaign, 4 people went on to click a
link in that campaign,” (“Reporting on your email marketing campaigns,” n.d.) A
graphic example of the click-through-rate from an email marketing campaign is
presented below.
Click-through-rate
data gathered from email marketing campaigns can also be described as a key
metric. Key metrics are, “…the high-level data points that show the
overall success of your email marketing campaigns. These include open rate,
click-through rate and unsubscribe rate among others.” (“Reporting on your
email marketing campaigns,” n.d.) This key metric data can help businesses to
understand their ROI efforts, as well as show marketers what content is
engaging to the customers and what can be improved upon in future marketing
campaigns.
The click-through-rate metric is
also important for internet marketing and advertising campaigns, in which the
metric can show advertisers the number of clicks they have received on their
ads per number of impressions. A pay per click or PPC click-through-rate is a
form of internet marketing where advertisers pay a fee when one of their
advertisements is clicked on. In most cases, a high click-through-rate is a
great insight for advertisers to see as it shows that a high percentage of
potential customers who see the advertisement are intrigued enough to click it.
However, it is important to note
that this metric can vary by industry and there is no magic number that can
determine what a good click-through-rate is. According to a definition by Yahoo
found within the following article by author Larry Kim, “Click-through rates are naturally going to vary
from campaign to campaign, and even from keyword to keyword. Everything
involved in the way your ad is displayed plays a part, from your ad copy to the
ad’s ranking on the results page.” (Kim, n.d.) A distinction Kim also makes is
that a high click-through-rate is not always a good metric for businesses in
the case of having irrelevant keywords. Therefore it is important to have a
good “high” click-through-rate on keywords in advertisements that are relevant
and also affordable, “cost-effective clicks,” (Kim, n.d.)
A graphic example also
found within author Larry Kim’s article on PPC and CTR shows below an
insightful benchmark of click-through-rates in AdWords across 20 different industries. 
