Google AdSense is the best Ad network to monetize any blog but you can make money only if you can increase the CTR but what is CTR in Google Adsense and how to Increase CTR?
In brief, CTR stands for the Click Through Rate, which is the percentage of users click to the Ads displayed on your website based on the total number of Ads displayed on your site.Â
The definition of CTR can be finished in two sentences but there are a lot of efforts needed to increase the CTR of any website for Google Adsense earning.
The primary source of monetization for any blogger is Google Adsense and there are two very important ways to make more money using Google Adsense.
- Driving the unlimited traffic to the website.
- Increasing the CTR of Ads on the website.
This guide will explain to you all about What is CTR in Google Adsense, how to increase CTR of the website, and how to check CTR in Google Adsense, we will also focus on differences in between impressions CTR and page CTR.
Must Read: How to start a successful blog
How much money does Google Adsense pay for the Ads and brief summary of relative terms like what is Google Adsense, What is RPM, what is page views and CPC?
We will also focus on what is the maximum CTR allowed in GoogleAdsense, how to increase the CTR of Adsense?
Let us first discuss, what is CTR in Google Adsense?
What is CTR in Google Adsense?
Google Adsense is the Google-owned Ad network, which was started back in the year 2003. If your site is approved with Google Adsense, then by placing Ads you can make money.
Google Adsense pays money to the publisher like us based on the two ways.
- Ads impression
- Ads clicks Â
Ads impression is known as the number of times Ads displayed on your website whenever any visitor visiting your site and you will be paid for that Ad impression and this will be counted as RPM which means revenue per mile or 1000 impressions.
However, Ads click is the major source of revenue, which will be counted only if any visitor clicks to the Ads displayed on your website and the revenue earned per click will be known as cost per click or CPC in Google AdsenseÂ
While comparing the earning using both ways, Ad clicks have more potential to make a minimum of $0.01 to $100 per clicks and that is why click is an important factor of Google Adsense CTR.
If your website is hosted on WordPress then don’t miss to connect or verify WordPress site with Google Adsense else you won’t receive any ads on the site.
CPC of the keywords depends on the niche and keyword selection here is the collective list of highest paying keywords or niche you can use for your references.
If you have understood the above two terms then it will be easy to understand what is CTR in Google Adsense.
CTR stands for the click-through rate or in other terms, the percentage of ads clicked based on their total number of impressions.
Let me simplify, this to you using an example.
Imagine you have a website that has daily 100 visitors, which means, you will have at least 100 page views.
Am I, right?
If your blog is approved with Google Adsense, then on an average with 1500 words content you can place at max 5 Ads at different places of the website such as:
- One Ad before the content
- One Ad after the content
- One Ad on the sidebar of the page.
- Two Ad in the middle of the content
Which means if 100 visitors, then an average there will be 100*5=500 impressions on the website, well this number can vary due to certain reasons like
- Few users might be using an Adblocker.
- Few user’s internet speed is very slow which causes, ads will be not loading properly.
- Few users visited your site but bounced back after reading the first few paragraphs, so no impressions for the lower side of the page
Like that, there could be various reasons but here in our case, we can consider all 100 page views with a total of 500 impressions.
When it comes to calculating the CTR in Google Adsense, for which we have two types.
What is Impressions CTR?
Impression CTR will be calculated based on the total number of Ad clicks divided by the total number of impressions on your website. As in the above example.
If out of 100 users, if 10 users have clicked to an average of 2 ads on the page, which means now we have 20 clicks out of total 500 impressions, then the Impression CTR will be:
CTR = (20/500)*100 = 4%
This means the Impressions CTR for the above scenario will be 4% and the impression CTR in the google AdSense dashboard is known as the CTR or click-through rate which calculates the percentage-based on the total site impression.
If we will create a mathematical formula then:
CTR = (Total number of clicks on Ads /Total number of Ads impressions)*100
If I summarize once again, then CTR in Google AdSense will define how many ad clicks have been received on the total number of ad impressions, if any reader is visiting your website.
Similarly, we have another CTR which is page-level CTR.
What is Page CTR?
Like impression CTR, page CTR will be calculated based on the average individual pages instead of taking the reference of complete site impressions.
In the above example, if we have a total of 100 page views and every page has a total of 5 ads displayed with 2 Ad clicks by 10 users then a total of 20 clicks, and the Page CTR would be.
Page CTR=(20/100) *100=20%
In the mathematical formula, we can calculate it as:
Page CTR = (Total number of clicks on Ads/total number of page views)*100
These major difference in between Impression CTR vs Page CTR is a hidden truth behind the overall concept of what is CTR in Google Adsense.
In Google Adsense, the earning will totally depend on the high Adsense CTR. But do you know how much should be the max CTR for a particular page? If not then keep reading.Â
We will discuss that later but first, focus on how to check the CTR of the Google Adsense account.
How to Check CTR in Adsense?
Click through rate is a factor to check the clicks on the ads impressions and in this case, the only way to validate is from the Google Adsense account.
If your blog or site is approved with Adsense then you can navigate through the below steps.
- Login to Google Adsense account.
- Click on the homepage of the Adsense account.
- Place the filter for the date range as here I selected for the last 7 Days.
- A matrix with different details will be shown as below.
In the above Adsense dashboard, you can see the total number of ad impressions is 25k, the total number of Page Views is 89.1K however, the number of clicks received is 2.65k.
If we put all numbers in the mathematical formula then the end results for the Page CTR will be.
Page CTR=(2650/89100)*100 =>2.97 which is approx 2.98%
But how to check the exact Impression CTR or exact page CTR, in this case, clicks to the Reports on the left-hand side below the home and it will navigate to the Default report.
- Click to Custom fields and place some additional filers in it.
- Set filter like Page views, impressions, clicks, Page CTR and CTR
A new window with exact impressions and clicks will be displayed as you can see below.
If we will use the mathematical formula to calculate the impressions CTR then we have.
Impressions CTR= (2655/24,992)*100=10.62%
Page CTR= (2655/89,137)*100=2.98%
From the above two matrices, you can see the impression CTR will be always higher as compared to page CTR because it calculates the ad clicks from the overall site impressions.
Let discuss on what is the good CTR for an Adsense which ensures your account is safe.
What is Good CTR for Adsense?
Having a higher CTR in result more earning but it should not be higher as Google will disable your account. Yes, there have been a number of cases reported by people.
Due to the higher page CTR, as a result, their AdSense account was banned and was never active even after appealing a number of times to Adsense, as it against the Google Adsense policy.
If taking the reference of the ideal Page CTR then, it ranges in between 1-3% and if your site is also having the same CTR then you are almost in the safe zone and this is what AdSense is expecting.
Click through rate of the Adsense depends on various factors such as the selection of the niche if you are in health and fitness or tech niche then the chances are higher that you may get more ad clicks as compare to any informative guide niche.
But anyhow, if you have crossed the benchmark of 10% and CTR is close to 15% then you need immediate attention for your site as in ideal scenario it looks higher then what google is expecting.
With my personal experience, I have tested my site with 8% CTR and it was perfectly fine but I am also familiar with the site which has CTR of close to 18% and was banned by Google Adsense.
Practically, it is impossible to have a CTR which is close to 20%, no user on your site is landed to click the ads but there to explore the content you have written.
Sometimes, people use shady techniques to increase CTR like:
- Placing the Google AdSense ads in parallel with images.
- Placing the page layover AdSense ads to maximize the ad clicks.
- Maybe clocking or redirecting the users from invalid site to Adsense approved site.
There could be multiple ways through which publishers try to manipulate the CTR of the AdSense and now I hope you got a good idea on what is CTR in Google Adsense.
Before ending this guide let me give you some ideas or genuine tips on how to increase the Adsense CTR?
How to increase the CTR in Google Adsense?
An increase in the CTR means placing the ads on the right places of the page, but only placing ads does not increase the CTR, as a user only clicks ad if they found relevant to their interest.
Thanks to Adsense personalized ads placement feature which, observes the cookies of the visitor and based on his past search or history will place respective ads on the site.
Now next is our job to highlight those ads to the users by placing them to the right position on the page, which I suggest as explained below.
- Place the Link ads just below the title of the page or above the first paragraph, which increases the chances of clicks as link ads look like as an anchor text and the text color would be blue.
- Place 300*250 square box display ads on the top side of the sidebar which attracts the user’s attention and grabs the highest CTR.
- Place the mixture of display or link ads two times in the middle of the content ideally after 30 and 50 paragraphs.
- Place a sidebar sky scrapper long verticle ads of 300*600 (responsive ads) to cover the half of the sidebar page.
- Place a long horizontal ad of size 720*90, just after the content of the ads to grab the user attention, if he scrolled till the end of your website
- Use the Google Auto Adsense feature, which will place the ads on different places to the middle of the content based on user engagement.
Here is the list of 10 high performing ad units shared by WpBeginner, which you can use to maximize the AdSense revenue
Above are a few 5 spots that are very well suggested to every website owner to place the Adsense ads, so they can maximize the CTR and can increase the Adsense revenue.
But the layout of every website is different, hence you can opt any one pattern as suggested below which fits best.
Make sure, do not over-optimize the post with the AdSense ads else the bounce rate or exit rate of the site will get increase and you may start losing the user engagement and the google ranking.
I hope you are clear with the concept of, What is Impression CTR and what is Page CTR in Google AdSense and how to check and increase the CTR but always try to focus that the Page CTR should not be more than 8%.
Wrap Up on What is CTR in Google Adsense
CTR is the primary factor to judge how much revenue you are making based on the number of ads impressions and pageviews on your site, if it is less than 1% then you definitely need attention to optimize ad placement.
If Adsense CTR is more than 8% then focus on minimizing the risk of disabling the Adsense account, but you can not fully control CTR as it mostly depends on the niche if you have an entertainment site then it may be higher than what you have expected.
What are your site CTR and your Adsense account is banned or disable anytime before?
Let me know in the comment box, so we can figure out up to what level you can maximize the CTR for that particular niche?
