Many web publishers focus too heavily on CTR because it is simply lucrative. If we could just increase our earnings from the existing traffic and visitors, why shouldn’t we do it?

Moreover, getting more traffic after optimization usually means even more revenue. Better still, it squeezes the most out of available resources.

There are many factors that contribute to click-through rate (CTR). We don’t have control to some of them. Others can be decided up front. But the good news is, we can change the rest of them to impact CTR.

Without further ado, here are things that contribute to the percentage of people who click on ads. While I write this with Google AdSense in mind, they really are independent of advertising networks. It applies as well to Yahoo! Publishers Network, Chitika and others.

• Topics. People are more likely to click on advertisement in some niche topics. For instance, if the ads are related to some specific products where the audience are responsive, they will get better CTR.
• Time. In some industry, higher CTR usually happens during weekdays. Others experience better CTR on weekends. Some publishers see lower impressions in different months in a year, but better CTR. Still, there are variations from site / blog to another.
• Readers. More tech savvy readers don’t click on ads as much as casual readers. You should expect different CTR depending upon referring sites. Search engine visitors are also more likely to click on ads compared to repeat readers. The latter have developed ad blindness because they are familiar with the layout of your blog/site.
• Relevancy. If the ad network you participate in has the technology to allow maximum relevancy and owns rich varieties in ad inventories, you will get relevant ads on your pages. Relevant ads tend to generate more clicks.
• Ad formats and colors. Large rectangle ads are known to get more clicks than others. Different color schemes can impact CTR too.
• Ad placement. Positioning ad units in the location where they usually attract eyeballs will result in better CTR if the ads are relevant and of interest to readers.
• Average pageviews. High quality sites usually have many of their readers stay and read a lot of pages before deciding to leave via a link to other site or by clicking on the ads. While CTR may be low in this case, it is not bad since it could mean more visitors will come back and again click for the ads.
• Click options. Given many options to click, some users are going to click one or another. The right positioning and limited options convert to more clicks.

I’ve had one site which constantly generates CTR in the 15-40 percent (and sometimes more) range. Yet one blog only results in 1-2 percent CTR no matter how I optimize.

Comparing CTR between sites could be an unproductive task if done incorrectly. Still, the numbers matter if you know how to use it.

Paul Needham, Accipiter’s VP of product strategy lists ways publishers can maximize profits while serving small and medium-sized businesses.

When a publisher relies on a self-serve ad network to reach an entire market segment of advertisers, that publishers hands over those valuable advertiser relationships and in the process, helps that ad network build its business.

Although small publisher might be satisfied by having ad network manages the whole thing, for large publishers they want to take back control.

The problem is, most large publishers have not yet found effective ways to finding prospective advertisers, negotiating contracts as well as providing support and reporting for campaigns.

The cost can be significant.

But, on the other hand, publishers don’t want to give up on small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) because they are the fastest-growing segment of advertisers in today’s online marketplace.

According to Needham, you need to consider the following when analyzing the tools available on the market:

• Ownership — The flexibility to manage your own inventory, set your own pricing, receive payment, manage relationships, etc.
• Percentage of revenue share — The larger the share of revenue, the better. If you go with a technology solution rather than an ad network, make sure you can book 100 percent of the revenue.
• Brand leverage — Don’t miss the value of your brand in the ad network. Make sure you can create ad units of any size of design.
• Cost of sales — Don’t waste too much time on negotiations and other work with smaller advertising clients.
• Competition for ad inventory — A bid-for-placement and real-time auction system for your advertisers to compete for access to ad inventory.
• Level of control — Offer different access levels, calculate commissions based on sales, etc.

[iMedia Connection]

While doing testing of your AdSense ad units/formats, we tend to compare performances among fellow online publishers, across multiple industries or niches.

One of the most interesting numbers besides earnings is of course CTR or click-through rate — the percentage of people who click on the ads per page views.

CTR basically describes how your visitors are interested in the AdSense ad blocks and click on them. It can also measure how well you optimize AdSense for your site — be it the locations, formats, or other options.

As a publisher, we surely are interested in getting the most bucks from our effort. One way to do it to compare CTR. If there is a number we can compare to determine how far we go, that should be no problem — and no post of this kind.

The problem with it is, there is no secret number that shows if CTR is good or otherwise. You have to decide at the gut level if you have optimized enough and switch to other demanding tasks.

Comparing CTR between publishers of different sites or blogs can not prove a thing — if one or another is doing better. Besides, there are too many factors that could contribute to the differences.

Perhaps the only valid comparison is to measure your own numbers over time. If you do a few percent better than before, you know that you are cashing in more from the existing traffic.

While I can’t show you exactly which number is good and which is otherwise because revealing it is against AdSense TOS, from the next few articles I hope it will become obvious how you should approach CTR.

Chitika has release ShopCloud$, what they claim as the holiday shopping weapon for website publisher and blogger.

The feature allows you to display popular products in an interactive tag cloud format, where each product is linked to paid (CPC) search results featuring listings (i.e. deals, promotions, and offers) from brand merchants.

Some of the highlighted features:

• Display hot products from 44 categories or create your own
• Amaze your visitors with an interactive (AJAX) product search
• Generate CPC $$$

Chitika ShopCloud$ are available to all Chitika members. You can access it by clicking on the ShopCloud tab and customize your tag clouds.

[Chitika | ShopCloud$]