Adsense CTR – Everything you need to know!

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In the Internet marketing world, CTR (click through rate) matters a lot, not only for advertisers but also for the publishers. The main role of an advertiser is to create an ad or copy that can get higher CTR. Similarly, publishers need to place these ads in a way that they generate highest CTR for them. From a publisher’s viewpoint, click through rate is one of those essential factors that help them generate money and retain advertisers. If you somehow fail to give adequate clicks, your advertisers are likely to flee. Therefore, let us dive into the world of click through rate and understand what exactly it is.

What is Adsense CTR?


CTR = No. of clicks / No. of exposures




What is a good Adsense CTR?



You must be wondering if you can compare your CTR with other blogs. Unless you know the blogger personally, there is no benchmarking tool to that for you. Even the Adsense Scorecard, which google calls a benchmarking tool, does not really compare you with our peers in terms of CTR.

Why is it difficult to compare CTR?



CTR varies between different Niche

CTR might vary seasonally

Relevant Ads



CTR varies on the basis of your Visitor Profile


What’s around the Ad unit?


Placement/Location of the advertisements

  • Place ads above the fold.
  • Merging them with the content.
  • Using Wider, instead of longer Ad units.


How important is CTR?


How to increase Adsense CTR


1. Epic Content


2. Advertisement Placement



3. Modifying the ads


4. Remove unwanted ads


5. Suitable Keywords

Keywords play a very important role in gaining search engine traffic. Since visitors coming from search engines contribute most to the CTR, it is vital for you understand the importance of choosing the right keywords. Here is a case study showing how you can increase your CTR and Adsense income:

Case Study

The cash you make from Adsense is controlled by quite a number of variables, such the number of visitors you get to your blog, the amount of money advertisers are paying in your particular niche and the percentage of visitors that click the advertisement. Clearly the more ads pay you, the more users you are getting and the more they are clicking on your ads the more money you will make.

We have carefully chosen two websites with similar layout. Therefore, neither of the factors is going to have any considerable effect, apart from the possibility of visitors to these websites to react differently to the content. The screenshot from Adsense Interface below shows the CTR of each site.

Adsense CTR
The very first thing you might notice between the two websites is that they have very different click-through-rates. The first site or site 1 has an average click-through-rate of 23.33 percent, while the other one has an average of 3.95 percent. When you compare the results, the first site is clearly leading in terms of clicks. It gets 6 times more clicks than the second one. This means that we can increase our revenue 6 times if we know what to do, can’t we?

If both these websites have similar layout, color scheme and design, what exactly is causing these tremendous differences? The answer is all in the suitable keywords. Site 1 targets a “buyer” keyword, while Site 2 targets an informational keyword. For instance, if we take the example of dating niche, Site 1 would be about the finest dating sites you can join, while Site 2 would be about tips and tricks on how to meet the partner of your dreams, etc…

It is possible that the same advertisers are offering the same products. However, Site 1 attracts people who are ready to make a buying decisions and all they are looking for is a little help and encouragement. On the other hand, Site 2 will convert only a few people since most of the visitors will be looking for some free advice or information. You must understand that it is not just the niche in general that has such an incredible effect on adverts; it is the relevance that counts a lot. Considering the same example of dating niche, the Site 1 offers information on dating sites, so the ads are related to those sites. This shows that the content of the website and the ads are incredibly close. On the other hand, the Site 2 might offer general information about dating, meeting people, starting a conversation, etc., but if the ads are promoting dating eBooks and websites, there is very little in common between the Adsense ads and the content of the site. This affects CTR to a great extent.

However, always test changes before incorporating them. So, what worked for you?