I am regularly asked what the “industry standard” is for click-through-rate (CTR) for online advertising. The answer is more complicated than one might think as there are multiple variables including the type of advertising, the quality of the venue, and whether the creative is compelling. That said, integrated marketers know the importance of selling in an idea, and industry standards are one way of forecasting success for a certain tactic. Here are some great resources for determining a benchmark for your campaign.
SilverPop
SilverPop offers a variety of marketing analytics White Papers for free download. One of them, “Ultimate Guide to Assessing Your Digital Marketing Program” is a must read for any integrated marketer looking to take their campaign to the next level.
Exact Target – eBlast Benchmarks
Kyle Lacy has some great tips in his blog, “50 Email Marketing Tips and Stats for 2014”
Here is a snippet of his email marketing stats:
- On average, subscribers receive 416 commercial messages a month. (Return Path)
- There are more than 3.2 billion email accounts.
- Email ad revenue reached $156 million in 2012. (Interactive Advertising Bureau via Salesforce.com)
- 95% of online consumers use email.
- Subject lines fewer than 10 characters long had an open rate of 58%
- 7 in 10 people say they made use of a coupon or discount from a marketing email in the prior week. (2012 Blue Kangaroo Study)
- 43% of all emails are now being opend via a mobile device. (Return Path)
DoubleClick/Google – Banner Ad Benchmarks
There is a great interactive tool called Display Benchmarks. Want to understand how your display campaigns compare to the rest of the industry? Or how different ad formats and sizes perform compared to each other? This tool lets you pull up-to-date industry benchmarks to help you better plan and measure the success of your display campaigns.
Wordstream – Search Engine Media Benchmarks
Wordstream offers on-demand Pay-Per-Click Ad benchmarks plus they put together this interesting infographic.
