2%, 34%, 7% - What CTR is Good?

This is the third article in the CTR Wednesdays series. You can find all the articles in this series here: CTR Wednesdays

This is a common question in the adsense forums today. It has been the same, almost since adsense was launched. So let me try to add my own two cents to it.

CTR highly varies between sites. A CTR that is considered high in a vertical may be close to nothing in another. So we can’t say what CTR is good and what CTR is bad. So what should be the benchmark for comparing your CTR?

You may not be well aware of the CTR that other similar sites have. The web masters are not always ready to share it. And it’s against the Google ToS to discuss CTR too. So the only CTR that you will ideally know is your own.

Compare your present CTR with the past CTR as the bench mark. How is your present Click Thru when compared to the past? Is it high, low or the same?

You should continuously do this comparison. Say every month or every quarter. Watch it closely, experiment with your ad formats, colours, positions etc. Use channel to evaluate their performance and select the best one for your site. Do educated selection rather than making wild guesses.

Say you have a CTR of 1% and you do all tweaking and manage to increase it to 2%. This small increase will effectively double your income!
So keep trying – it’s worth spending time on!