Can someone explain CTR please?

1. 87

   Marisa Wrightposted 15 years ago

   Could someone explain what CTR means on the Adsense reports please?
   
   Nearly half my Hubs have no CTR at all which I assume means no one is clicking on the ads?
   
   My other Hubs range all the way from about 1% to over 20% but there's very little difference in what they're actually earning. So what is it telling me?

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2. 72

   Inspirepubposted 15 years ago

   Click through rate is number of clicks divided by number of impressions.
   
   A CTR of zero means no clicks.
   
   If during a given day just one person visits your Hub, but they click on an ad, you will suddenly see a CTR of 100% for the day.
   
   A CTR of 20% might mean five visitors and one click, or 500 visitors and 100 clicks. The latter will obviously pay you more than the former.
   
   Even if you are getting the same number of visitors to Hubs on two different topics, clicks are worth different amounts of money. Some clicks pay you 5c, and some clicks pay you a dollar.
   
   100 one dollar clicks is worth more than 100 5c clicks.
   
   So if you are making the same money, it could be low traffic plus high CTR vs high traffic plus low CTR, or the traffic might be similar and it might be the price per click that is varying.
   
   The next column across, eCPM, is you expected earnings if 1000 people visited your Hub (or Hubs) and did exactly what your handful of visitors actually did.
   
   When you are getting low traffic the CTR and eCPM will wobble around wildly.
   
   The highest eCPM I have seen in our account is $1999.95, based on one visit producing one $2 click one day. If only .... sigh. A second visitor, one who didn't click, slashed the eCPM to $999 just like that. And it was downhill from there.
   
   What you actually earned is in the right hand column.
   
   The thing to look for is high-value clicks. So if 10 clicks earned you $1 on one Hub, and two clicks earned you $1 on another Hub, then you want to be getting more traffic to the second Hub, because the clicks are worth more there.
   
   I don't have all my Hubs separated into individual channels, because my CTR on HubPages is so low that I don't go out of my way to promote my Hubs. I will do it alongside promoting other things, when it doesn't take any extra effort to do it. That means I can't identify which Hubs have better-priced clicks or better CTRs - because I don't have the Hubs listed separately.
   
   It is possible to make a channel for each individual Hub so you can make those comparisons, if you choose to do so.
   
   Does that help?
   
   Jenny

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3. 63

   Eileen Hughesposted 15 years ago

   Great I appreciate that explanation too.  Its incredible what a difference the clicks make on different articles.

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4. 87

   Marisa Wrightposted 15 years ago

   Excellent explanation Jenny, thanks!
   
   I knew what the letters stood for - I was struggling to understand how to make use of the information it was providing.  You've explained that very well!

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