My LP has more than 100% CTR, how is that possible? (14)
My LP has more than 100% CTR, how is that possible?
This question is popping up over and over again, so I decided to write a short article about this topic and use it as a reference for future use.
So here we go :
MORE THAN 100% CTR ON A LANDING PAGE, HOW CAN THAT BE?
The theory is clear, if I send 100 clicks to a landing page, I expect only a part of them to actually click on the CTA button and get to the offer – not everyone is interested into what we are offering, and that's perfectly fine.
50% CTR already sounds like a dream in most cases, 100% is virtually impossible … but still, we see it over and over here on STM – users report 150%, 200% or even 1000% LP Click Through Rates. So how is that possible?
There are 2 main reasons for this:
1. SOME SCRIPT:
Back-button redirect, auto-redirect, extra popunder or exit pop … affiliates love to use all kinds of scripts to get “one more shot” at monetizing a click before it's lost for good. I'm not going into whether it is a good idea or not, I'm using some scripts almost always too, but we need to address how to handle this properly.
When using these scripts, you have two options : send the traffic to the “click” url of the same campaign, which effectively works as if someone has clicked on the CTA button. Or you can create a new campaign for this traffic and send the traffic there.
In my opinion, it's the best to treat this traffic as some kind of BONUS, I'm not using it to judge the performance of your placements or creatives. That's why I do not attempt to track this extra conversions down to the placement/creative level – I simply send this traffic to a completely separate campaign.
One more reason for sending this “script” traffic to a separate campaign : If you send these visits to the click url, they will become part of the traffic rotation of the whole campaign and your tracker will distribute these clicks as a mix with the real LP clicks – this is not something that you want.
But back to the 100%+ CTR issue – when you configure the scripts to use the original campaigns “click url” as the destination to redirect the clicks to, it will inflate your CTR. Part of the clicks will be natural, then a large chunk will originate from a backbutton, if you have a popunder on the LP, it will add extra clicks again.
A special situation happens, when you configure your backbutton redirect to open another LP that also has a backbutton redirect installed. In this case, the scripts will chain into an infinite loop and your CTRs will reach 100s if not 1000% CTR 
2. BOTS :
Traffic networks often sell us bots, or it can be some kind of crawler or spider that landed on your LPs from one reason or another. Whatever the case, some of these BOTs keep on simulating clicks on the CTA … over and over. It could be because of a poor coded BOT, or it's trying to collect some data and running into some issue.
It doesn't really matter why it's happening, but it's royally screwing up our stats. The good thing is, these BOT clicks are usually quite easy to detect, because they generate a large amount of clicks from the same IP.
Some trackers will let you analyze the traffic by IPs – in case you see some that show extraordinary high CTR, you might want to block them – if the tracker or traffic source allows it.
If you can't block the IPs, you can still block the placements that are sending you such traffic. It's usually also quite easy to spot in the reports – you will see placements that have literally retarded CTRs like 500%-2000% - just block them.
WHAT IF IT'S NOT BOTS OR SCRIPTS?
The already mentioned 2 reasons are almost always the cause of a super high CTR of your LPs. But there is still a small chance it might be something else.
First of all, some GEOs are known for higher engagement, especially when talking about mobile traffic. This can result in higher CTRs – but not more than 100% still.
As soon as you get close to 100% and you are certain that it's not caused by some redirecting script or BOTs, there will be some technical problem – there might be some script error, clash with certain device, hosting problem …
One way or another, 100% CTR is the absolute max you can achieve with real traffic – IN THEORY! In real life, it's always lower. The highest CTR I ever had that was legit and without any scripts, was around 80% and that was just some kind of an entry alert. As soon as there is some reading and action required, the CTR will be lower.
Thanks for reading.
Could you do one on extremely low CTR? I find some of my landers doing around 1% CTR in some geos, I suspect the loading speed plays a big role in this. I'm currently testing different things to understand why it happens but if anyone could chime in and give some ideas, it'd be greatly appreciated!
EDIT: Sorry for asking this here, as Matuloo suggested, I made a new thread with this question, for those of you who are interested, see here => https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...1-in-some-geos
Originally Posted by jelz03
Hi matuloo, thanks for the article. I agree scripting bugs and bots are the usually culprit. In case they aren't and assuming click reporting is accurate (it's always good to verify), I would also suggest looking at unique clicks vs. non-unique clicks against whatever available dimensions are available (e.g. IP, OS, browser, traffic source, site, etc.). There might be patterns in the data that point to another cause.
Originally Posted by ohgosu
We find that Unique clicks vs Non-Unique clicks is largely the culprit here. You should know how each reporting platform in your flow records clicks. For example I have seen where affiliates work with a network like ours that only counts unique clicks, and compare it to there landing page click count, and see a discrepancy. Personally, we go off of unique clicks because if a customer clicks your tracking link 50 times for whatever thats really not pertinent data to your key metrics, and would skew it.
Originally Posted by expressrevenueinc
Good post Matej.
This is a common problem that everyone of us encounters all the time.
I wrote about a high / low CTR problem a while ago as well.
HIGH and LOW CTRs are good indicators if something in the campaign is wrong, but one should not be too concerned about only CTR.
PROFIT is the metric that is most important at the end of the day
If a LP has say 50% CTR on one traffic source, and then >100 on the next, is it a fair assumption to say that this is the result of increased bots on this traffic source?
I usually take the CTR I have for a profitable camp, and when going to a new traffic source, I look at the CTRs for various placements. If the placement has a crazy CTR relative to the spread I observed on the profitable source, that source gets blacklisted.
Originally Posted by thedav
As always, focus on CV and don't panic with certain CTR numbers
Even if the same visitor clicks multiple CTA button across your lander, it doesn't affect the CTR?
Originally Posted by kelvonroy
Thank you very much for writing this up. We have had several LP and zones with 100%+ CTR and I was wondering about it. Your article has helped clear up a few things. So thank you for taking the time to write this. :-)
Originally Posted by 2hostu
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