Hello, community! Many metrics in affiliate marketing can be overwhelming for beginners. That’s why we always explain all the counters encountered by affiliates in simple Ukrainian. Today, we’ll talk about CTR and CRO. Although the latter is not a metric, it fits well into the subject. So it will be interesting!

But before we start, we recommend familiarizing yourself with our review of the CLV metric, especially if you plan to join the iGaming vertical.

What is CTR?

CTR (full name – Click-Through Rate) is a key metric in affiliate marketing that shows the number of clicks on an advertisement or creative. The higher the CTR, the more attention your advertisement has attracted.

However, it’s important to consider the calculation method. It’s not just a click counter; it’s also the ratio of ad impressions to clicks. Example: you placed an ad, the banner was seen 20,000 times, and there were 200 clicks, resulting in a CTR of 1%. The formula is: divide the number of clicks by the number of impressions and multiply everything by 100 to get a percentage.

  1. Every affiliate pays maximum attention to this indicator, as it directly reflects whether your campaign is working. If you observe an extremely low CTR, it’s a reason to review:
  2. Creatives. Choose higher quality ones that will attract more attention;
  3. The text of the advertisement. Perhaps the lead does not understand why they should click the link;
  4. Even the placement of your link. Here you can apply A/B testing if you suspect that people simply do not see the ad, and therefore do not click on it.

Thus, CTR gives us an understanding of whether we need to optimize the campaign or “let it be” and everything is working fine as it is.

What Should the CTR Be?

Hopefully, we’ve clarified what CTR is. But what should it be? High. And the higher – the better. Because every click on the advertisement is a potential conversion, accordingly – potential profit, which we lose when the user ignores our ad.

But if you think that your CTR is below 50%, and everything is lost, that’s also not the case. In fact, a CTR of 9% is already considered very good. On average, it is around 3-5%, which is generally considered normal.

It’s also important to emphasize that understanding “good CTR” greatly depends on the niche you are working with. In some verticals, even 1% can be considered normal, and somewhere else, even 10% might not be enough to make a profit. Therefore, any discussions about high CTR can be somewhat manipulative, as there is no standard.

What is CRO?

Now let’s talk about CRO, or Conversion Rate Optimization. It comes into play when the CTR is quite high, but conversions are almost absent. CRO is precisely the optimization of conversions, i.e., continuing the work we get from CTR.

Although a high CTR should theoretically lead to increased sales, thereby increasing the conversion level, sometimes this does not happen.

CRO involves a set of solutions aimed at increasing the conversion rate. The specialist, who can also be the affiliate, must analyze the sales funnel, pay attention to traffic reviews, its relationship to individual campaign elements (for example, the landing page), and the brand as a whole. Even the product name can deter a person from buying.

Also, to improve CRO, A/B testing is conducted, which we have already mentioned. Sometimes minor changes to the landing page can lead to an increase in the number of conversions.

All these methods combine to study UX and CX. That is, UX – user experience, the experience of a person as a user interacting with our product through creatives, websites, landings, and CX – customer experience, the experience directly of the client, more about how traffic perceives the brand itself. And this includes product quality, its image, and even subsequent product support.

In general, entire teams are responsible for CRO. A lot of work needs to be done: from defining the goal of optimization, with subsequent analysis of the current situation, to conducting tests and creating reports that will provide a ready-made plan to improve the conversion level.

Conclusion

If your campaign has a high CTR, it’s already a big success because you have managed to attract traffic to your product. But don’t forget to monitor other indicators, especially conversions. If they are extremely low for your CTR, you need to perform conversion optimization, or CRO.

In the meantime, we hope this material was useful for you, and you learned something new. You can find even more interesting and important information about affiliate marketing in our Telegram community. We look forward to seeing you!

Respectfully, Your Geek!

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