In this blog post, we will cover what Click Through Rate is and how to improve your Click Through Rate on Amazon. We will cover why Click Through Rate is an important metric for your Amazon business and how to increase it. Click Through Rate is important because it reflects how effective your main image, title, and other listing factors are. This is crucial for capturing attention and increasing the number of customers who click on your listing. A high Click Through Rate shows that your product listing is highly optimized and your customers are clicking onto the detail page. A low Click Through Rate means that your listing isn't appealing enough for your customers to click on. For Amazon, a higher Click Through Rate indicates that customers are finding more relevant products in their searches. For Amazon customers, this translates to a faster and more satisfying shopping experience. Whether your goal is to increase sales through advertising or optimizing for profitability, improving your Click Through Rate can be one of the most important metrics to fully capitalize on your Amazon business.
What is Click Through Rate?
Click Through Rate on Amazon measures the percentage of customers who, after seeing your product in search results decide to click on it. In other words, Click Through Rate is the ratio of the number of clicks your listing or ad receives to the total number of times it was shown. Right now, Click Through Rate can only be tracked within the Amazon Advertising Campaign Manager since impressions data is only available in the campaign manager and not in business reports. To view your Click Through Rate, navigate to the "Columns" dropdown within your ad group settings and select to see your current performance. The formula for calculating Click Through Rate is: Click Through Rate = Total Clicks/Total Impressions. Times this by 100 to format as a percentage.
Why is your Click Through Rate Important?
Your Click Through Rate on Amazon is important because it signals whether your product is relevant and highly optimized for your customers. A high Click Through Rate indicates that customers find your product appealing and that it matches what they are searching for. On the other hand, if your Click Through Rate is low, it suggests that your product isn't attractive enough to prompt customers to click through to the listing, or you are showing up to the wrong customers. Click Through Rate is important because it increases the likelihood of customers choosing your listing over your competitors, which ultimately helps grow sales.
What Impacts your Click Through Rate?
There are two main factors that can impact your Click Through Rate:
Listing Content: The biggest factors influencing your Click Through Rate are your main image, price, title, shipping speed, and review count. These are the 5 things that customers see first when they search a keyword on Amazon and are shown products in the search results. Optimizing these core items can be the difference between a high and a low Click Through Rate.
Advertising Targeting: Advertising targeting is the other factor that can influence your Click Through Rate. For this example, imagine you're selling a Grill Brush. In your campaigns you are targeting the keywords "Grill Equipment" and "Black Grill Brush". Your Click Through Rate will be higher on the 2nd keyword "Black Grill Brush" because it's highly relevant to what the customer is looking for vs the 1st search term which is broad since there are 100s of products that can fall under "Grill Equipment". This is what we mean when we say your Click Through Rate could be low if you are showing up for the wrong customers.
How to Improve your CTR?
Improving your Click Through Rate isn’t something you do once and forget about. It’s an ongoing process that requires continual improvement over time. Below, we will go through different ways you can increase your Click Through Rate.
Main Image
The main image may be the most important factor in improving your Click-Through Rate. Since shoppers are visual and you only have seconds to grab their attention before they move on, it’s crucial to have a sharp, colorful main image that stands out against your competition. When improving your main image, take a look at your category to see if there are any listings that stand out from the rest. If there is, consider mimicking that style. From there, ensure your images are at least 1,000 x 1,000 pixels to make them zoomable. Use a white background and crop your product to take up as much of the space as possible, which is especially helpful for shoppers on mobile devices. Make sure your image is professionally done, not taken with a phone. The image needs to be of the highest quality so the customer can clearly understand what your product is. Also, be sure to reference Amazon's Image Guidelines to avoid any issues.
Title
The title is an important factor when considering Click Through Rate. Amazon allows up to 200 characters for titles in most categories, but they only show around 107 characters of the title on mobile. For titles, we need to include all the most important product specifications within those 107 characters. If we’re selling a product that might be a bundle, we should include that at the beginning of the title, along with the quantity included. If we’re selling clothing or furniture, we need to include size information, color variation and other important product details. Including as much information as possible in the title can make the difference between a shopper clicking through to your listing because they know this product fits their needs, or moving on.
Reviews
Reviews are a big factor for Click Through Rate because they help increase social proof of your product. But it's not just about having a high review count, you also want a high review rating. Reviews can be a bit harder to control, but there are a few things we can do to increase review counts for our products. One option is to enroll in the Vine program if you're launching a new product. The Vine program allows you to give away up to 30 units of your ASIN in exchange for an honest review. You can learn more about the Vine program here. You can also combine standalone products into a variation, which will merge their reviews, depending on the category. We only recommend doing this if your products are truly similar. For example, if you're selling a white and black version of the same shoe, you could combine them using a "Color" variation theme. This will merge the reviews of both products making the number of reviews on your listing larger.
Price
Your price is a big factor when considering click through rate. You want to make sure that your price reflects the value your product provides to the customer and that it's competitive within your category. You can always test running a sale or other promotions to see if your click through rate improves. If you also have room marginally you can try lowering your price for 30 days, and then increasing it and reviewing your advertising metrics to see what effect that had on your click through rate.
Shipping Speed
Improving your Click-Through Rate by optimizing your shipping speed is something that's easy to forget but makes a big difference. You want to make sure you utilize the Amazon FBA program so your product qualifies for 2-day Prime shipping, rather than fulfilling the product yourself, which typically shows a longer delivery window. Customers nowadays prefer to purchase products that ship with Prime due to the fast shipping, no shipping charges, and easy returns—compared to dealing with sellers who fulfill themselves. If you're not currently offering your products through FBA, make sure you sign up for Amazon FBA.
Advertising Targeting
The last thing we want to cover that affects your Click-Through Rate on Amazon is what keywords you are targeting with your advertising. To improve your overall account Click Through Rate, you need to make sure you are targeting highly relevant keywords related to your product, rather than broad keywords where we don’t know exactly what product the customer is looking for. For example, if you’re selling Men's Workout/Running Shoes, you will have a higher click through rate if you target "Men's running shoes" or "Men's gym shoes," rather than targeting "Shoes size 11" or "Running and gym accessories." While your product might still be relevant to the other two keywords, they are too broad, and we can’t pinpoint exactly what the customer is looking for, which will typically lower your click-through rate, and likely your ad efficiency as well. It is important to include these terms in a variety of campaign types, as showing up in multiple placements can also improve CTR.
Frequently Asked Questions about How to Improve CTR on Amazon
What is Amazon Click Through Rate?
Amazon Click Through Rate is a metric that measures the percentage of customers who click through to your listing after seeing it in the search results.
How do you calculate Click Through Rate?
To calculate Click Through Rate you divide the total Impressions/Click.
Where can I see my current Click Through Rate?
You can see your Click Through Rate in your campaign manager dashboard.
Why is Click Through Rate important?
Your Click-Through Rate is important because it signals whether your product is relevant and highly optimized for your customers.
What part of your listing affects your Click Through Rate the most?
Main Image, Title, Price, Review Count, and shipping speed.
How to Improve Your Click Through Rate?
You can improve your click through rate by optimizing your Main Image, Title, Pricing, increasing reviews, and targeting relevant search terms in advertising.
Why is the main image so important for Click Through Rate?
The main image is important because that’s typically what shoppers look at first. Since today’s shoppers are very visual and scroll fast we want to make sure our main image captures their attention.
How to improve my Click Through Rate with Advertising?
To improve your click-through rate with advertising, make sure you target highly relevant search terms that specifically describe your product, rather than broad terms that can apply to multiple products.
What is the difference between Click Through Rate and Conversion Rate?
Click-Through Rate measures the percentage of potential customers who clicked on your listing after seeing it in search results, while Conversion Rate measures how many of those clicks lead to a purchase.
Conclusion
Increasing your Click Through Rate on Amazon is important to the success of your listings. By testing and optimizing key elements like your main image, title, reviews, price, shipping speed, and advertising targeting, you can create an appealing and relevant listing that resonates with customers making their shopping experience more enjoyable. Optimizing your Click Through Rate that requires continual attention and testing. With the strategies outlined in this blog you will be able to increase your click through rate and ultimately grow your sales on Amazon. If you need help with increasing your click through rate, please contact us below.
About the Author
This post was written by Albert Podshivaylov, an Account Manager at Goat Consulting. Albert helps his clients sell on Amazon by increasing sales, mitigating risk, reducing costs, and solving problems. Albert has experience and expertise in increasing click through rate on Amazon that align with the overall Amazon selling strategy and goals for his Goat Consulting clients. If you want help increasing your click through rate, or assist with other aspects of selling on Amazon, Albert is happy to lead your account.