Glossary · Compter

Click-through rate

The click-through rate is the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions, expressed as a percentage. It is also called *CTR*: both refer to the same ratio.

Ce qui s’est réellement passé, humains d’un côté, robots de l’autre. The forty terms of the trade

What it is for

It judges a hook, and strictly that: the visual, the headline, the first line. It is the right indicator for comparing two wordings of the same ad. It is not an indicator of commercial results — a high click-through rate on a promise that is not kept produces traffic that leaves again.

How it is calculated

Clicks divided by impressions. The trap is in the denominator: the number of impressions lives with the ad platform, and every platform has its own definition of what counts as one. Two click-through rates from two ad networks are therefore not directly comparable.

The classic mistake

Optimising a campaign on click-through rate because it is the figure available straight away. You gain curious clicks and lose buyers — the hook that intrigues is not the one that qualifies.

Conversion rate

What click-through rate will never tell you

A good click-through rate proves the hook works. It does not prove the offer sells.

Both can be measured, but not at the same point in the journey — and almost never in the same tool.

The rate that does speak of results

What Subtraq does with it

Subtraq does not calculate the click-through rate, and it cannot: it does not see impressions, which do not happen at its end. It provides the numerator — the number of human clicks — and the denominator is read in the ad platform that served them.