Basic ad serving metrics: impressions, clicks and click-thru rate
                     Basic ad serving metrics: impressions, clicks and click-
thru rate
John Z
Writes on ad server, involved with ad server platform & 
Adspeed Ad serving software
Ad serving metrics are essential for measuring the performance of your 
digital advertising campaigns and understanding your audience's 
behavior. Impressions, clicks, click-thru rate, conversions and events are 
some of the most common ad serving metrics that every marketer 
should know and understand. In this article, we will provide an overview 
of these metrics and explain how they can be used to evaluate the 
success of your advertising campaigns.
Impressions
Impressions refer to the number of times an ad has been displayed on a webpage. 
There are different types of impressions, depending on the ad server. A served 
impression, or delivered impression, is counted each time an ad is loaded on a 
webpage. A viewable impression is counted when at least 50% of the ad is visible on 
screen for at least one second. Impressions are sold using CPM rate, or cost per 
thousand impressions. For example, $5 CPM means that it costs $5 per 1000 
impressions. Impressions are an important metric for measuring the reach of your ad 
campaign. The higher the number of impressions, the more people your ad has been 
exposed to.
Clicks
Clicks refer to the number of times users have clicked on an ad. The ad server 
places a click tracker in the ad tag, records the click data when a viewer clicks 
on the ad and then redirects the viewer to the advertiser's landing page. A click 
leads the ad viewer to the advertiser's landing page, which could ultimately 
result in a purchase order. Clicks are sold using CPC rate, or cost per click. For 
example, $5 CPC means that it costs $5 per click. Clicks are an important metric 
for measuring the engagement of your audience with your ad. The higher the 
number of clicks, the more interested your audience is in your ad.
Click-thru rate (CTR)
CTR is the ratio of clicks to impressions. It is calculated by dividing the 
number of clicks by the number of impressions. For example, a 1% CTR 
means that there is 1 click per 100 impressions. CTR is an important 
metric for measuring the effectiveness of your ad. A high CTR indicates 
that your ad is engaging and relevant to your audience.
However, an abnormally high CTR could mean click fraud because you have too many 
clicks, some of them are fake clicks. In this case, you need to dig deeper to determine 
if fraudulent activities are happening or if it is typical for your industry or for a 
particular season. A low CTR means there are very few clicks given a number of 
impressions. This could mean the ad is ineffective and you need to make changes to it 
or it could mean that you have many fake impressions. Again, CTR is a very useful 
indicator but it needs other data in order to determine if it is within a normal range or 
something is off. CTRs vary by industry, by season and even by campaign so it is 
important to compare apple-to-apple.
About Adspeed
AdSpeed ad server is a reliable & powerful ad serving and ad 
management solution that serves your ads, tracks impressions & clicks 
and reports ad statistics in real-time. Driven by the latest ad serving 
technologies, the goal of Adspeed adserver is to provide a reliable 
platform that can help in executing online advertising strategy more 
efficiently. 
Thank you for spending your precious time in reading this article.