What is the distinction between Click Rate and Click Through Rate (CTR)

[smcvarno]

I was looking at the Top Emails report on my HubSpot dashboard.

I noticed on this report there were two similar-sounding metrics.

Click Rate and Clikc Through Rate.

To me, these both sound like one and the same thing - but the values being reported are very different so clearly they are not.

Can someone point me towards (or provide) the definition of Click Rate vs Click Through Rate as used by this HubSpot report?

[Phil_Vallender · Accepted solution]

Hi @smcvarno 

Click rate is the percentage of people who were delivered your email that clicked through. 

Click through rate is the percentage of people who opened your email that clicked through. 

So the numbers will be very different. 

Hope this helps.

[smcvarno]

Thank you for the quick (and concise) reply.

[Phil_Vallender]

My pleasure @smcvarno - please mark as solved 

[leakarimmasihi]

Hello,

I'm having trouble understanding the differences between these two. Reading these definitions, the click rate sounds like the open rate.

Can you please define all three and highlight their differences? 

Thank you!

[Aakar · Accepted solution]

Hi @smcvarno 

As @Phil_Vallender mentioned, these are two different metrics.

If you hover over the (i) icon on your email dashboard next to click rate & click through rate, you'll find the HubSpot's definition.

Click Rate: This is the percentage of people who clicked a link in your email out of the people who were delivered your email. 

Click Through Rate: This is the percentage of people who clicked a link in your email out of the people who opened your email.

For Example:

Total Delivered: 500
Total Opened: 300
Total Link Click: 200

Click Rate: (200/500)*100 = 40%
Click Through Rate: (200/300)*100 = 66%

Hope it helps.

Thanks

Aakar

[KateElizabeth]

Hello, in these definitions

Click Rate: This is the percentage of people who clicked a link in your email out of the people who were delivered your email. 

Click Through Rate: This is the percentage of people who clicked a link in your email out of the people who opened your email.

I highlighted the font in red where I found the difference in the definitions, however it still isn't clicking for me. How can someone click a link on an email delivered, but not opened? that's one in the same to me. 

Can anyone hlep clarify?

Sorry if I missed some explaination... thank you!

[cmilerick]

Kate - I have the exact same blip in understanding the difference.  How can someone that was delivered an email, click on the link?  They would have had to have opened it, no?    I also don't understand.  

[sfouty1]

I know this is a little older than your last reply, but if someone else sees this, hopefully it will help them understand.

The number of clicks does not change. If 5 people clicked a link, 5 people clicked a link. They would also have opened the email.

The number that those clicks are being divided by is changing (total number of emails vs total number of opened emails).

[KateElizabeth]

thanks!!

[raelindenberg]

I think I understand this now thanks to your explanation, but this seems almost intentionally confusing...

It's sort of like CTR's are under the umbrella of click-rates. So, why not just talk about the CTR number since that has includes both people to whom the email was delivered, they opened, and they clicked...but, that's sort of describing the click-rate too.

Ugh. They need to pick one and stick with it. 

[dsdewhir]

They're actually providing you different metrics to let you take different actions. You might be interested in click rate to know, for example, how many people out of your ENTIRE email send clicked a link: "Oh, I emailed my whole customer list, and 10% of my customers clicked a link." You might not care at all what the clickthrough rate is, in this example -- just that 10% of your customers clicked something.

Clickthrough rate, on the other hand, tells you how many people clicked the link *only* out of those that opened it. Thus, if your click rate was low but your clickthrough rate was high, you would know that not many people opened the email (and check the open rate to validate that knowledge), but for those who did, it was very effective in getting them to click -- so you would know for future campaigns that your body copy was effective in driving clicks, but maybe your subject line (for example) needed work to get more people to open. 

These are just examples of why these two metrics exist, and why they might be important to different people for different reasons. Hope it's helpful to someone, either now or to someone who might find this thread in the future 🙂

[KateElizabeth]

YES! THANK YOU! @Aakar  THIS is the explanation I needed. Thanks for taking the time!

[JeremiahRunser]

Yes, thank you @dsdewhir. That helps a lot. I understand what they each do, but using them for targeted marketing didn't really make much sense. 👍

[dsdewhir]

Glad you found it helpful -- All the best to you in 2021!