Definition
An impression is the ad shown; a click is the visitor acting on it. CTR relates the two. A banner shown 100,000 times and clicked 150 times has a CTR of 0.15%. CTR says nothing about what happened after the click; a creative can earn a high CTR with a misleading promise and convert nobody. It is a creative metric, read alongside conversion rate.
Formula and a worked example
CTR (%) = clicks ÷ impressions × 100
Clicks = impressions × CTRTwo push creatives run on the same traffic. Creative A: 400,000 notifications, 2,800 clicks, CTR 0.70%. Creative B: 400,000 notifications, 1,600 clicks, CTR 0.40%. On a CPC platform that ranks by bid × CTR, A will win more impressions at the same bid. Whether A is better overall depends on the conversion rate of its clicks, which is why the two are read together as cost per conversion.
CTR by format
| Format | What a click means | Where CTR is read |
|---|---|---|
| Push, in-page push | The notification was tapped | Platform statistics, per creative and per source |
| Native | The card headline was clicked | Per headline; drives rotation |
| Banner, video | The creative was clicked | Low by nature; read with viewability |
| Popunder, redirects | Not applicable: the landing page is the ad | Read landing-page conversion rate instead |
Published benchmarks vary widely by network, GEO and vertical; the useful comparison is between your own creatives on the same traffic, not against an industry average.
What moves CTR
For push and native: a specific headline with a number, a place or a question, an icon or image that reads at small size, and freshness, since CTR decays as the same subscribers see the same creative. For banners: position and size, with the medium rectangle inside content outperforming a leaderboard above the fold. For all formats: matching the creative to the GEO and language of the audience.
Related terms
| Term | Relation | Where defined |
|---|---|---|
| CPC | CTR decides how much CPC traffic a creative gets | Term page |
| Push notification ads | The format where CTR matters most | Term page |
| eCPM | CPC × CTR × 1,000 | Term page |
| ROAS | Outcome metric to read alongside CTR | Term page |
FAQ
What is a good CTR?
There is no universal number: push notifications in fresh subscriber lists can run above one percent, banners well below it. Compare creatives against each other on the same traffic.
Does a high CTR mean a successful campaign?
Not by itself. CTR measures clicks, not results; a creative that over-promises can earn clicks that never convert. Read CTR together with conversion rate and cost per conversion.
Why do popunder campaigns have no CTR?
Because no ad is clicked: the visitor's click on the publisher page opens the landing page directly. The equivalent quality metric is the landing page's conversion rate.