What is CTR?
Click-Through-Rate simply put is the total number of times that people click on your Facebook Ad divided by the number of times that your ad is shown.
So clicks divided by impressions equals CTR
Well in this case, since we’re talking about Facebook Ads, just ask yourself “What percentage of internet users visit your website from your Facebook Ads?
There, you’ve got your answer...
You might have one thousand views on your page and that’s a great thing. But how many of these page viewers actually clicked on your Ad?
Those who clicked are genuinely interested in your product or service. How can you be so sure?
Because when you click on an ad, the main thing you have in mind is to learn more about the product and why would you want to learn more about a product if you don’t plan to buy it?
It’s rare that you would do such a thing right?
You don’t have to buy it at that particular moment. When you click, it simply means you consider that product and you might take action in a few minutes, hours, days, or months.
Now as a digital marketer those are the people you should focus on because the probability that they’ll buy is 90%.
You can either have a high or low CTR. Definitely a low CTR is not a good sign. However, before you jump into any conclusions, and start panicking because you are experiencing a low CTR, do me a favour and look at the average CTR for your sector/niche.
When you know what the average CTR for your industry is, you can then assess your own click-through-rate from there.
Did you know that the automotive niche has a CTR of 4% but the technology sector is struggling with a CTR of 2.09%??
That’s a wake up call for you.So if you’re in the tech sector which is a sub of automotive, don’t judge your CTR based on your niche in general. Focus on your specific sector_tech.
Now that you’re clear on what CTR is, let’s talk about why you need it. Most especially, why you need a high CTR...
Why is CTR Important?
You might not exactly see the importance of Click-Through-rate now, but by the time you finish reading this section, you’ll understand why it is vital in digital marketing.
- High CTR gives you hope that you’ll sell more and make more money. When it’s high it means more people are clicking on your Ad and you know what that means.
- CTR is one of the best ways for you to better understand your customers. Through CTR, you can know what type of content appeals to them, the images they prefer and many more.
- CTR equally plays a role in your PPC campaign (pay-per-click) because it impacts your quality score and cost per click (CPC).
- It is important to monitor your CTR because it helps you to evaluate your business strategies and fix issues that will uplift your brand.
How to Improve CTR for your Facebook Ad
Before you think about improving your CTR, you should find out why you’re getting low CTR in the first place. When you know what your problem is, you can easily fix it.
Here are the possible causes for your low CTR on Facebook ad:
- -Wrong audience
- -Low-quality content
- -Weak CTA (call to action)
- -No A/B Testing
Now crosscheck this list with your Facebook Ad again. Where did you go wrong?
Okay let’s ride through the measures you can implement in order to achieve a high CTR.
1. Revise your target audience
Are you absolutely certain that you are targeting the right people with your product? Your target audience has to be people who are likely to need your product in their lives.
And for that you’ll need information about them such as age, gender, profession, hobbies, location etc.
This is why I highly recommend that you create a customer avatar for your product. It’ll help you to easily navigate Facebook Ads manager when it comes to giving details about the audience to whom your Ads should be shown.
Why am I saying this? Because, if the right people do not see your Ads, you won’t get any clicks (low CTR), and that means fewer conversions. Consequently, no return on ROI and then no profit for you.
When you’re not making profit you can’t say that you are in business. Can you??
2. Be Specific
Secondly, be specific with your audience. Don’t just say ‘women’ be specific about what type of women (teenagers, young women, older women, corporate women, female entrepreneurs, new moms, female doctors,married women, etc)
Try as much as possible to be specific about your target audience so that your Ads will be shown to the right people who need it, and in return you’ll get your CTR along with all its delicacies.
Let’s look at this example of a failed CTR for a marketer’s Facebook Ad.
Let’s say that you’re selling bikinis and you set your location for the U.A.E or the Middle East. How will that work out?
You’re shaking your head no because women hardly go to the beach wearing bikinis in those countries.
Check the age group of the people who are more likely to be interested in your product. Don’t go advertising heated throw blankets to women in their 20s.
How many of them suffer from cold intolerance, chronic aches and pains? So you see, they don’t need heated throw blankets (it’s ideal for women in their 60s+).
How about you advertising fur coats in the heat of summer. Does that sound right to you?
Definitely not. It’s crazy...
The point is, if you make these types of tiny but huge errors, your Facebook Ads are bound to get a low click-Through-rate.
So take it out!
3. Create Quality Ad copy
Surely you don’t expect people to click on rubbish content. How fast would you click on a Facebook ad that reads 1 or 2?
- “New bathing gel in the market for you. It’s super good and solves your skin problems. Blue gel is your solution. Order now and enjoy it”.
- “The fastest and easiest way for you to get smooth and fresh skin when you bathe, is blue gel. Order now whilst supply lasts”
I’m pretty sure you’ll waste no time clicking on the second ad. The copy is refreshing, states a problem, presents the solution, and urges you to buy now.
So when you’re writing the copy for your Facebook ad, make sure that you tap into your best copywriting skills. Make it desirable to your target audience and speak their language, else they won’t click on it.
It’s got to match their needs and interests. Make it irresistible, descriptive, and full of curiosity.
You must be wondering, ‘how do I identify the language of my target audience?’
Well, it’s simple, just follow this advice...
“If you want to create messages that resonate with your audience, you need to know what they care about”_Nate Elliot, Marketing Technology Advisor.
In order to know what they care about, you’ll have to put on your detective badge and go into the field to get the following details
Their gender, age, social status, occupation, income, hobbies etc
This information helps you to understand who you’re talking to and therefore, how to talk to that person (your audience) in a way that they’ll understand.
4. Keyword targeting
Are you sure that you’re using the right keywords in your Facebook ad copy?
Only use keywords that are relevant to your product or service on your website. Because those are the words your clients would type in the search box.
First step you need to take to remedy this situation is to research the high-ranking keywords in your niche. You can buy a keyword research tool to help you tackle it faster.
And you know what? There are even free keyword research tools that are really good too such as Ubersuggest,Bulk Keyword generator, and Keyworddit for Reddit.
Here is a concrete scenario you can adopt; Let’s say that you’re running Facebook ads for your clothing store and of course you have a website for that.
What are the keywords that you think would blend perfectly with that??
- -Best kids clothing store online
- -Kids wear near me
- -baby clothes near me
- -Baby store near me
- -Children’s boutique
- -cheap kids clothing online
Keep in mind that it’s always important to find out how competitive your niche keyword phrases are. This way, you’ll perfectly blend those that have a high competition with those that are experiencing low competition.
Don’t just stash only high competitive keywords in your copy. Want to know why?
When you fill your ad copy with highly competitive keywords, there’s an 80% possibility that your ad will get lost in the pile of other Facebook ads.
What happens when it gets lost? You miss clicks that reflect in a low CTR for your Facebook ads. Then you get high with frustration and bile in your heart.
Therefore, always use a melange of high and medium competitive keywords.
5. Your ad landing page
Many digital marketers make the jaw-breaking mistake of not paying attention to their ad’s landing page.
A landing page is like your home. Your ad is the door. So when the client opens (clicks) the door what do you want him to see?
Usually when your client clicks on your ad, he wants to see more information about the product or service that you are offering. So don’t you think it’s worth investing your time and energy into creating an attractive home?
Okay how do you increase your CTR using your Landing page then? It’s simple. Do this when you're creating your ad:
Once you reach the ad set level and you have to choose what optimization you want your ad to take, go for the option ‘Landing page views’.
This option means your ad will be shown only to people who will click on a link in your ad and wait for the ad’s landing page to load.
Impressive right!
6. Use a catchy Call to action (CTA)
This is a tricky one because no matter how lovely and tempting your ad is, if you don’t compel your audience to click then it’s worthless.
The best way to compel them is with a catchy call to action. Be careful not to fall into the trap of using generic CTA. People are sick of hearing that.
Instead be creative and come up with a unique CTA for your ad. New is fresh and most people want to try new things.
Which is why your audience is more likely to click on an ad that ends with “download your free ebook now!” than one that says “ click here”.
You’ve got to use your head and your creative inner you to generate special CTAs.
7. Use quality images and colours
I know it sounds bizarre but believe me_the appearance of your ad affects your CTR more than you think.
No one wants a beautiful gift wrapped in rags. In fact they won’t even know that what you’re offering is great because immediately they see a poor looking presentation and low-quality photos, with derailed colour mixtures, they won’t click on it.
It becomes repulsive and must be pushed to the side. So your audience does just that_scroll past your ad.
Always use colours that pop off the page such as yellow, sky blue, and red, instead of the dull ones that are not attractive (black and white ad).
Secondly, don’t overcrowd your design. When it’s loaded like an obessed teen, your client feels like ‘this is just impenetrable, I can’t read all of that, I can’t get through…’ Leave some room for fresh air and sea breeze to flow into your ad design.
The point is, display your product in a simple and unique design. That! Is what graps attention.
What is a good CTR for Facebook Ads?
Before you go scaling the fence, you are advised to look at what Facebook considers to be a good CTR rate for Facebook ads. I do realize that I’ve talked about this before.
Generally, the average Click-Through-Rate for Facebook ads is 9.21% for all niches.
The results of this survey by Wordstreams’s Facebook Ad benchmarks show that a good CTR for Facebook ads falls between 10% and more. You better be in that range.
If you’re not, then you’ve got work to do in order to get your Facebook ads back on their feet and yielding results.
How To Calculate your Facebook CTR
You need 2 distinct information
- The number of people that see your ad
- The number of clicks that your ad gets
The first and most reasonable option is to use a CTR calculator because you don’t want to mix up the numbers with percentages and end up getting the math wrong.
It automatically completes the CTR equation for you. That’s,
CTR=(Number of clicks)/ (Number of impressions)
You see that? a CTR calculator facilitates the task for you. It’s faster, and it saves you time and energy by giving you immediate results.
Thank you for taking your precious time to read this article. It’s been a wonderful journey with you and I admire your courage to want to improve your Click-Through-Rate for your Facebook ad.
Please leave a comment and let me know what you liked and disliked about the knowledge you found here.
