Reporting & Analytics

smcvarno
Participant

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

SOLVE

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?

 

 

2 Accepted solutions
Phil_Vallender
Solution
Most Valuable Member | Diamond Partner
Most Valuable Member | Diamond Partner

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

SOLVE

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.

Phil Vallender | HubSpot Website Agency

View solution in original post

Aakar
Solution
Key Advisor

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

SOLVE

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.

 

Screen Shot 2019-02-12 at 11.56.42 AM.png

 

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

 

Aakar Anil
Marketing Technologist
aakar.me | @aakarpost | in/aakarpost

View solution in original post

22 Replies 22
filipg
Contributor

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

SOLVE

I don't know why you'd ever want click rate if you have open rate readily available to find out if the subject worked, other than it's more accurate since it counts only delivered emails? But like for trend reasons, either works, no?

0 Upvotes
JeremiahRunser
Member

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

SOLVE

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
Participant | Partner
Participant | Partner

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

SOLVE

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

Aakar
Solution
Key Advisor

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

SOLVE

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.

 

Screen Shot 2019-02-12 at 11.56.42 AM.png

 

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

 

Aakar Anil
Marketing Technologist
aakar.me | @aakarpost | in/aakarpost
TFree
Member | Platinum Partner
Member | Platinum Partner

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

SOLVE

Hi Aakar, 

When setting up an AB test, the winning metric explanations seem to contradict your answer: 

TFree_0-1659716655187.png

If Click rate is the measure of  people who clicked a link in your email out of the people who were delivered your email surely this would be affected by all of the factors that the description, in the above image, for Click through rate (Subject line, From name, preview text, from address and email content - Copy, placement and styling).


Meanwhile if Click through rate is the measure people who clicked a link in your email out of the people who opened your email, then surely this would only be affected by the parameters used to describe click rate in the above image (Email Content - copy placement and styling)
Is this an error in the explanations used by HS in this instance - i.e. they have been swapped arround? Or somewhere else. 

 

All the best,

Tristan 

KateElizabeth
Contributor

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

SOLVE

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

0 Upvotes
KateElizabeth
Contributor

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

SOLVE

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!

sfouty1
Participant

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

SOLVE

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).

raelindenberg
Member

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

SOLVE

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. 

0 Upvotes
dsdewhir
Participant | Partner
Participant | Partner

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

SOLVE

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 🙂

letstacoboutit
Member

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

SOLVE

I have a high click rate but a low clickthrough rate. What could this indicate?

0 Upvotes
ELeahy
Member

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

SOLVE

This is still super confusing to me.

 

So one metric will measure how many people clicked the link in the email but ONLY if they OPENED the email. 

 

The other metric will measure how many people clicked the link but didn't necessarily open the whole email to click the link, just saw the email in the preview pane and clicked the link? 

 

0 Upvotes
dsdewhir
Participant | Partner
Participant | Partner

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

SOLVE

No, that's not quite it, @ELeahy  -- it can be confusing, for sure! Maybe a practical example: 

 

Let's say I have a list of 100 people that I send an email to. 30 people open that email. 10 of those 30 people click a link in that email.

 

The Click rate would be 10 clicks / 100 sends,  or 10%.

The Clickthrough rate would be 10 clicks / 30 opens, or ~ 33%.

 

So I could say, then, that of the list I sent it to, 10% of the people clicked something. I could also say that of the people who opened my email, 33% of them clicked something. 

 

Now, suppose you had similar results across all your email sends. An interesting way of looking at it would be to say "Well, I know that when I send an email, only 10% of my list are going to click something.  But I know that of the people who open my email, more than a third will click something. So, I'm going to focus on improving my subject lines to see if I can get more people to open my emails."

 

Hope this is helpful!

 

KateElizabeth
Contributor

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

SOLVE

thanks!!

0 Upvotes
cmilerick
Contributor

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

SOLVE

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.  

JAmdur
Member

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

SOLVE

The number of people clicking in both instances is the same (they ALL opened the email), what makes the difference is what it is measured against. In click rate, it's being measured against the delivered emails, in click through rate, it's measured against the number of opens. For example:

1000 people got delivered an email
100 people opened an email 

10 people clicked in the email

 

 

Click rate: 10 ÷ 1000 = 1%
Click through rate: 10 ÷ 100 = 10%

 

Hope that makes sense!

0 Upvotes
Phil_Vallender
Solution
Most Valuable Member | Diamond Partner
Most Valuable Member | Diamond Partner

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

SOLVE

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.

Phil Vallender | HubSpot Website Agency
mjpanarella
Participant

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

SOLVE

I guess I've always wondered, how could someone click but not open? 

0 Upvotes
brendonboren7
Participant

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

SOLVE

I'd like to believe this, but your own blog post contradicts this answer. Straight from the HubSpot blog: "CTR = Number of People Who Clicked A Link / Number of Emails Delivered Successfully x 100"


https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/34132/how-to-improve-email-clickthrough-rate-by-583.asp...

0 Upvotes
leakarimmasihi
Member

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

SOLVE

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!