What is click-through rate (CTR)?
Also spelled clickthrough rate, click-through rate (CTR) refers to the percentage of users who view a marketing email, website, or ad and proceed to click on a call-to-action (CTA) link contained in it.
If you wish to find out more about this topic, check out the FAQ section below:
Question #1: What does click-through rate (CTR) mean in email marketing?
Click-through rate (CTR) in email marketing measures the total number of recipients who click on a link in a marketing email you sent out against the total number of recipients.
For example, if you send a marketing email to 10,000 people and 1,000 of them click on the link it contains, then your click-through rate (CTR) is 10%. You get this number using the following formula:
(total number of recipients who clicked on the link) / (total number of recipients) x 100 = CTR
So, in the example above, the numbers are as follows:
1,000 / 10,000 x 100 = 10%
The click-through rate (CTR) is not the sole measure of the effectiveness of an email marketing campaign, however. Marketers also use the open rate and click to open rate (CTOR), which we will take a look at in the following sections.
Question #2: What is the difference between click to open rate (CTOR) and click-through rate (CTR)?
The primary difference between click to open rate (CTOR) and click-through rate (CTR) is the thing they measure.
As we have seen in the previous section, your CTR is concerned with how many of the people who receive your marketing emails actually click on the links they contain.
In contrast, click to open rate (CTOR) measures the total number of your recipients who click on the links in your marketing emails after opening it. For instance, if 5,000 of your recipients opened a marketing email you sent out and 2,500 of them clicked on the link in it, then your CTOR would be 50%. You get this number using the following formula:
(total number of recipients who clicked on the link) / (total number of recipients who opened the email) x 100 = CTOR
So, in the example above, the numbers are as follows:
2,500 / 5,000 x 100 = 50%
If you look closer, your CTOR is designed to provide you with a more accurate picture of the performance of your email marketing campaigns than your CTR. The main reason for this is that the former disregards any recipient who has not opened your email (and has therefore not seen the link it contains) and focuses solely on those who did and actually saw the link.
Question #3: What is the difference between click-through rate (CTR) and open rate?
Just like click-through rate (CTR) and click to open rate (CTOR), the primary difference between click-through rate (CTR) and open rate is what they measure.
The former, again, takes note of how many of your total recipients end up clicking on the links in your marketing emails.
In contrast, your open rate measures how many unique opens your marketing emails get against how many recipients you send them to. For instance, if you sent a marketing email to 5,000 people and 4,000 of them ended up opening it, then your open rate would be 80%.
You get this number using the following formula:
(total number of recipients who opened the email) / (total number of recipients who received the email) x 100 = Open Rate
So, in the example above, the numbers are as follows:
4,000 / 5,000 x 100 = 80%
Question #4: Where is click-through rate (CTR) used?
As we have seen earlier, click-through rate (CTR) can be used for email marketing campaigns, websites, and even ads. But it is also one of the metrics used to gauge the performance of videos on YouTube.
A high click-through rate (CTR) on YouTube means a video has a catchy title, an intriguing thumbnail, or a combination of the two. Of course, the popularity of the creator who posted it also plays a significant role in whether or not people would want to click on it.
Question #5: What is the difference between click-through rate (CTR) and clicks?
The main difference between click-through rate (CTR) and clicks is that the former takes the total number of clicks and divides it by the total number of times a link was viewed, while the latter simply takes note of how many times a link was clicked.
For example, if the CTA button on your website has been viewed 200,000 times and clicked 100,000 times, it would have:
- 100,000 total clicks
- A click-through rate (CTR) of 50% (i.e., 100,000 / 200,000 x 100)