Is 5% CTR normal for adsense publishers?

[ideavirus]

Hi,

I would be interested to know, if 5% CTR is normal CTR irrespective of the category/theme of the site?

Also, is 5% CTR good enough or bad for a site with adsense?

What is the highest CTR publishers have got so far?

Thanks & Cheers

[Hobbs]

on few channels I see +25% on others I have 0.9%
5% is no big deal
YMWV

[mike73]

I would be so happy if I got 5%.

[Cileka]

Hi.

For me, Initial stage I got high CTR.
Like I referred to my friends.

I got about 50-60%

After that, I start post in forum.
Until now I got CTR only 2-3 %. Crying..

But I am willin to learn more to have a good website in near future, after that I will tried to make good content, and I am sure I will get high % CTR. ^_^

[wyweb]

If I get half that I am very, very happy.

[jhood]

5% is very good.

[incrediBILL]

Define normal.

What normal for your site could be extraordinary for other sites, and abysmal for others.

[BigDave]

if 5% CTR is normal CTR irrespective of the category/theme of the site?

It isn't possible to answer this question because the category/theme of the site is a major determining factor when it comes to CTR.

With 2 sites, I would be extremely disappointed if the CTR dropped that low. On my other sites, that would be a VERY good month.

[greatstart]

Five percent is not bad, but most importantly is how much you get paid per click. I have seen channels where my CTR was great, but the eCPM was way low, and others that had low CTR but high eCPM.

[pbmadman]

I find that the type of traffic has a strong affect on CTR and CPM. On one of my sites that is informational and not sticky, 80% of the traffic is search engine traffic. I get 5% CTR and $8 CPM.

On another community site I have where 80% of the traffic is repeat visitors and a lot of it is forum activity, I get 1.5% CTR and $1.50 CPM.

It makes sense when you think that repeat visitors will get used to your ads and will generally not click on them repeatedly.

BTW, posting ads on forums is technically against adsense terms and conditions. However, I've seen many break that rule for years and haven't heard of Google terminating anyone for that reason. I'd be interested if anyone has heard otherwise.

[joelgreen]

BTW, posting ads on forums is technically against adsense terms and conditions. However, I've seen many break that rule for years and haven't heard of Google terminating anyone for that reason. I'd be interested if anyone has heard otherwise.

I disagree. Look at the adsense optimization tips page from Google. They provide separate tips for forums, so forums are ok.

[google.com...]

[jomaxx]

I think the point is that you're not allowed to spam OTHER forums with your ad code.

[pbmadman]

I guess you're right... I went to re-read the ad placement policies and didn't see anything prohibiting the use in forums. I thought I read that somewhere, so either they changed it or I misread something. Good, so I'm not breaking the rules afterall :-)

[MyNewPC]

There are some ad serving networks that do not allow their ads on forums but that has never been the case with AdSense.

[Huntster]

5% is actually very low for me, but I'm in nichy industries with lower impression volume, but with high click rates and high % ctr.

"Good or Bad" really depends on what your industry is, I would think.

[thegreatpretender]

I have this one channel that produces 60% ctr. At the start of the day it has a nice epc but declines at the later part of the day, though. This is running for over 2 years now without any problem. So 5% ctr is pretty normal to me and you don't have to worry about it, no matter what ctr you have, as long as you are abiding by the google tos.

[jetteroheller]

It depends on the theme of the site.

With exactly the same layout, I have channels with more and less.

[daveo99]

5 percent is pretty average.

I have pages that range from 1.xx % to around 15 to 20 percent.
So there's nothing wrog with 5%.

I guess what you wnat to know is whether you should do anything about your 5% CTR. You should just optimize your ads as much as possible, integrate them and then just leave as it is.

Once done, whatever the CTR is, just accept it.

Some pages will get higher CTR and some lower. No point pullng your hair out over it.

Cheers

[dailypress]

my CTR ranges from 0.5% - 35%

[Pengi]

Virtually any CTR you can name is normal for some publisher somewhere.

The only sensible basis for normality is what you see for your own site for a perios of time.

[JBrown]

5% seems high to me.

Honestly, how can you have pages getting ad CTR's of 60%? Do those pages have any content or are they just basically MFA pages solely existing to get people to click on AdSense ads?

If you have a site with great content and are getting astronomical ad CTRs, I'd love to take a look at the design. My curiosity is peaked.

[Pengi]

Good content, well presented and with traffic from appropriate AdWords Ads can achieve > 50% CTR.

The key is the traffic being from AdWords - it preselects those who are prepared to click on Ads.

[edited by: Pengi at 10:17 pm (utc) on Mar. 5, 2007]

[ideavirus]

Hi,

Noticed a strange thing today...

Have no clicks for today, but I see positive dollar earnings. is this possible?

[Erick_L]

Have no clicks for today, but I see positive dollar earnings. is this possible?

CPM ads. You get paid by the impression.

[trannack]

5 % CTR - is it good? That depends on the goalof your site. If you have a genuine product or service to offer - 5% of your potential clients left your site via an advert. Depending on your niche this could be good or bad.

If you have an mfa site - only 5% of visitors did what you wanted them to.

There is no answer to this - it all depends on what your site is for and what you would like your visitors to do.

[James M Omakovich]

As incrediBill said: "Define normal."

Exactly. For some sites CTR would presumably be higher, for others lower.

I am surprised that some people have such a high CTR, but again - what's normal is up to Google to define.

If Google thinks that's unusually high CTR, they will investigate.