What is CTR? How to improve the CTR?

Click Through Rate or CTR is the primary indicator for understanding the campaign performance. So, optimizing the campaign towards good CTR is very important for every ad campaign’s success.

The first interaction between the user and the advertisement is Click. By clicking the advertisement, the user can visit the landing page and take the desired actions on the client’s website page. So, clicks for the ad campaign should be higher to receive more leads. Not all campaigns receive the expected clicks. So, campaign managers should optimize the campaign to increase the CTR. If you are looking for a help article to increase the CTR of your programmatic ad campaign then this is the right article. 

Topics Covered : 

What is CTR? 

How to improve the CTR?

Conclusion

What is CTR?

Click Through Rate is the percentage that how many clicks your ad receives divided by how many impressions your ad receives. Formula for CTR is, CTR = Sum(Clicks)/Sum(Impressions). CTR should be measured in percentage. For example, if your campaign delivered 1000 impressions and received 10 clicks means your campaign’s CTR is 1%

Many advertisers measure the campaign performance by CTR. For Search 1.90% is a good CTR and for display 0.30% – 0.35% is a good CTR.

CTR is the primary indicator for understanding the ad campaign. So, it should be higher than the expected level. Many elements align in one line to get a good performance. So, campaign managers should investigate their ad campaign properly and take action to increase the CTR. In my experience, I have shared a few effective ideas to increase the CTR for a programmatic ad campaign.

How to improve the CTR?

We can’t optimize the ad campaign blindly. We need to know the expected CTR goal for our campaign. Normally, clients mention the expected CTR goal in the media plan per the sales discussion. So, we try to achieve the given CTR goal. Meanwhile, you should analyze the campaign and find the possible CTR goal for the ad campaign. 

The campaign nature is a very important factor for finding the possible CTR goal. For example, you can get a higher CTR goal for the offer based ad campaign. But, you can’t get a higher CTR goal for the “business expansion” related ad campaigns. So, you should have an idea about the possible CTR of your campaign. Here, I have shared a few good suggestions that will help you to improve the CTR. 

1. Find and exclude the low performing inventories
2. Try different data provider’s audience 
3. Use whitelist/blacklist effectively 
4. Try new creative formats 
5. Run on Mobile App Environment
6. Try different frequency caps
7. Re-allocate the budget 
8. Try different bidding strategies 

1.  Find and exclude the low performing inventories

Normally, we used to run our ads on multiple inventory sources (exchanges) on programmatic platforms. If you are experiencing low performance for your ad campaign then run an inventory breakdown performance report. Analyze the inventory performance report and identify the poor performing exchanges. Discuss with the client and remove the poorly performing inventory sources. [NOTE: If you are facing any under delivery problem after you excluded the inventory sources then include that inventory source back and run the site or app level report. Identify the poor performing sites and apps and black list them. So that you can avoid under delivery problems]

2. Try different data provider’s audience

Almost every ad campaign uses third party data to target the audience. During the setup we check the audience availability for the particular category and target the audience category from any one of the third party providers that have a large number of audiences. But, we can’t know whether the category will perform well or not for our ad campaign. We should understand this reality. 

When you face an under performing problem you must list out the poor performing audience ad groups or line items. Go to the audience segments and choose the same category from another data provider and monitor the performance a few days later. [NOTE : Few campaign managers, create audience segments from different data providers and run multiple line items from the start. Later they check the performance and pause the poorly performed line items. This method is a time effective method.]

3. Use whitelist/blacklist effectively 

You can increase the budget allocation for the best performing sites using the whitelist feature. If you have the whitelist already you can create a separate ad group or line item for the whitelist and allocate a certain amount of budget to this line item to increase the performance. Otherwise, run a site or app level performance report and prepare the whitelist and allocate more budget towards this lineitem.

Based on your previous campaign’s performance or current campaign performance, prepare the poor performing sites and apps and blacklist them to avoid impression wastage.

4. Try new creative formats / variants

The creative format that includes size, and content is very important for getting good performance results. In display ad campaigns, you may run your ads in different environments. So, when you associate the ad sizes, don’t forget to note the environment. For example, associate desktop size creatives (728×90, 300×250, 160×600, etc) to the desktop environment ad groups or lineitems. 

Also, request the client to provide more variants. Rotate them equally and analyze performance and continue to run the best performing creatives.

5. Run on Mobile App Environment

Mobile App Environment always gives you a higher CTR compared with desktop or mobile web environments. So, allocate more budget towards the mobile app environment. To increase the CTR further, black list the poor performing mobile apps regularly.

6. Try different frequency caps

I already wrote a detailed article about frequency capping and its importance for campaign success. Based on your goal and brand you have to set the right frequency cap to gain higher CTR. Initially, you can’t identify the suitable frequency capping for your ad campaign. In this situation, you must test different frequency cappings and find the suitable one.

7. Re-allocate the budget

Budget allocation is very important for gaining higher performance. Do monitor your campaign regularly and reduce the budget on the poor performing lines and allocate more budget towards the best performing lines to increase the CTR.

[NOTE : Display campaigns always receive higher performance results from Mobile App environment lines. So, allocate more budget towards mobile app lines]

8. Try different bidding strategies

Choosing the right bidding strategy is very important for gaining better performance. I already wrote an article about bidding strategy: Dynamic Bidding (dCPM) vs Flat Bidding (CPM). 

NOTE : When your ad group or package or line item has a large audience availability & budget then choose Flat Bidding. Otherwise, choose Dynamic Bidding. Based on the analysis you can switch the bidding strategy.

Conclusion

Good CTR is very important for every ad campaign. Like you many of your competitors trying to get higher CTR. So, you should try different strategies to get a higher CTR. I have shared effective methods to increase the CTR from my own experience and I will add additional tips regularly. If you follow any additional strategies for improving the CTR then please share your idea in the comment section.