20Apr

Clicks vs. Impressions?

Web terminology can be confusing, sometimes even to an experienced internet marketing professional. Most individuals that manage a dealership’s web presence are familiar with the difference between an Organic Optimization campaign and a Pay-Per-Click campaign. A smaller majority of those individuals are familiar with the difference between an ad impression and an ad click.

An ad impression is simply the number of times your ad, whether it’s a banner, button, or text link, has been (or will be) exposed to a potential viewer. In simple terms, this is the number of times that image appeared on any computer screen anywhere in the world. As an advertiser this is the least advantageous way to purchase advertising. Yes your ad is being viewed, but what is it really doing for you?

A click-through is the actual number of times someone has taken their cursor, placed it on your advertising image and used their mouse to click on that image and be taken to your website. This is the most advantageous way to purchase advertising for the advertiser, because it really takes all the guess work out of the equation. You’ll know exactly how many visitors will visit your site relative to the ad purchase. Once the end-user is on your website, it should be engaging and interactive enough to generate some sort of emotion to make contact with you.

It’s important to know the difference between these terms because it will make a difference when perusing a Pay-Per-Click campaign.

If you are hiring a third party or reseller to manage a campaign for you, remember, you have the right to know exactly how many clicks and impressions your site received as well as how much money was spent. You can get more information about Google’s best practices policies regarding third party resellers from their AdWords Advertiser Guide.

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COMMENT (13)
Sharon Reynolds / April 9, 2015

Great post! Thanks for the information.

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George Iovchev / January 26, 2016

At the end, I understand what means “impression” and “click-through”. Thanks!

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William Stancil / February 18, 2016

Great post. You define the actual meaning of impression and click through. I will look forward to your next post.

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William Stancil / February 18, 2016

Great post!!
Your defined the actual meaning of impression and click through. Thanks for the post and I will look forward to your next post.

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kim power / March 6, 2016

Very helpful to me too,

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kim power / March 6, 2016

Your comment was most helpful, thank you

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Brian / May 26, 2016

Being in and out of IT fields for the last 20 years and still really need to check the exact meaning and implications of the jargon. Thanks for keeping it simple.

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raj shekhar sharma / July 2, 2016

Good post. I was not aware of this difference between impression and clicks. Thanks for sharing.

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Noelia Momin / May 31, 2017

Nice Post

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Hobert Toefield / June 11, 2017

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Tariq Babar / November 1, 2017

Very good clear easy explained.

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Getting to Know SEM Terminology – OptiSearch Professionals / January 2, 2019

[…] CTR is usually presented as a percentage.  The click-through rate is a metric of people visiting a web or landing page who clicked on a link or button for some specific offer.  It’s a clear measure of an SEM campaign, especially a pay-per-click campaign.  CTR is calculated by ‘clicks’ divided by ‘impressions‘. […]

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Bhartipay / July 19, 2019

Great post.
You describe it in a effective way the meaning of Clicks and Impressions.I will look forward to your next post.

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