Update 1-28-09: Compare Twitter’s average 4% CTR to the .03%-.11% CTR on FaceBook. It’s becoming increasingly clear that ads don’t get it done on social networks.
I’ve been running an experiment with four twitter profiles to find out what a good click through rate (CTR) is on Twitter. What I found out was kind of shocking and amazing: Twitter seems to have a 4% clickthrough rate. No wonder the affiliate marketers, spammers and get rich quick crowd are flocking to it. 4% CTR is outstanding in any internet advertising program:
Indymike –- 4.17 % average clickthrough rate, >800 followers
Profile “N” — 4.05 % clickthrough rate, >300 followers
Profile “M” – 4.2 % clickthrough rate, >200 followers
Profile “L” — 3.8 % clickthrough rate, > 50 followers
Methodology
I set up unique short URL trackers on seperate domains and then conversed and posted links and retweets though the shorty tracker for four different profiles. After on month, I tabulated the results to find the aggregate click through rate.
What’s it Mean?
1. People click on twitter links more than pay per click ads and banner ads.
2. CTR on Twitter seems to scale with larger groups of followers.
3. The larger your follower base is the more people will click on links your post.
What’s Next
I’ll do the same experiment on Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, MySpace and Xing. It will be interesting to see if traditional social networks can outperform a microblog like Twitter.
@Chris – I really like your CTR tool – it has great promise. Which shortners does it get data from?
There’s now a tool that will calculate Twitter CTR for any user. Just go to http://140ctr.com and try your Twitter username.
A very interesting and useful information for internet marketers like us Have you done any research on which keywords/domains are attracting most twitterers? It will be a very useful info.
Ah, thanks! This settled up some contradictions I’ve heard.
A high CTR means nothing if the traffic isn’t converting. Show some conversion stats, because to me it sounds like junk traffic from people who just click things out of curiosity.
@Jonathan – I’d love to see why you think this information is invalid. I’d also like to why you named your company after a homemade marijuana cigarette.
Mike Seidle´s last blog ..Get A Brain When it Comes to the Flag
You cant make statement like this based on 4 accounts. There is no validity to the manner in which you came up with a 4% CTR.
@Maggie, we’re looking at exploring just that relationship. Click-through rates are important, but it’s the conversion rate that is most important. When I used to work in the direct mail business, we would talk about the difference between open rates and sales to our customers. OUR biggest concern was to get the open rates up, and figured it was their responsibility to make sure they handled the conversions.
Twitter traffic CAN be bad traffic, but only if a person has got a lot of Internet spammers following them. Joining those “get 2,000 followers in a single day” sites can boost a person’s Twitter footprint, but it wreaks havoc on click-through rates and conversion rates. I’d rather have 500 followers that I have some sort of relationship with rather than 50,000 Twitter spambots who keep trying to sell me stuff.
Really wondering how significant these stats are. I too was shocked by the amount of click-throughs I got from Twitter… but then they didn’t convert. Articles that had a 20% conversion rate (opt-in) plummeted to 1% or less from the Twitter traffic who as a general rule, never opted in.
Any thoughts? My conclusion was simply that Twitter traffic is bad traffic.
[...] Twitter click through rates are 4%. That’s about 800% higher than a banner ad average of [...]
[...] Yes indeed. Especially when we consider that the recall rates for social media are 95% and the conversion rates around 4%. A pretty high ROI for something that people are avoiding like the [...]
Will be interesting to see if these rates change as the number of followers dramatically increases; over 2K, over 10K, etc.
Matches Malone’s last blog post..Yet Another Watchmaker Update…
[...] Twitter click through rates are 4%. That’s about 800% higher than a banner ad average of [...]
[...] Yes indeed. Especially when we consider that the recall rates for social media are 95% and the conversion rates around 4%. A pretty high ROI for something that people are avoiding like the [...]
[...] say yes. Even though the average click through rates (CTR) on Twitter is 4%-54% and the average CTR for email is 2%-12% (for B2C) leads us all to [...]
Twitter generates pretty amazing clickthru rates… according to this, tests are showing over 4% CTR: http://is.gd/hsEy
Nicolas – I’d like to say we used some double-secret method, but what we did is divide number of followers by number of clicks. If you are getting 1%, it could be cause by following a lot of broadcasters (people who just talk and don’t listen).
Hi,
What is the formula you used to define Twitter CTR?
On my side I have 1% :-( ,TechCrunch published a post yesterday on their twitter traffic and their CTR is 2%.
I try to compare Twitter to RSS Feed (RSS feed CTR can be up to 50%).
what do you think? RSS versus Twitter?
#twitter Twitter’s average CTR (Click Through Rate) at 4% http://tinyurl.com/d6jxc6
[...] key advantages over other social platforms- 1) Due to the conversational medium, consumers pay much more attention on Twitter (4% CTR) than ads on Facebook. 2) Due to the openness, it is also very easy to monitor [...]
Hi Mike, great article. Ming Yeow from MrTweet here. Would love to chat. Ping me via email if you are interested too!
mingyeow’s last blog post..Twitter To Go: How one local coffee shop used Twitter to double their clientele. What’s YOUR story?
Chad – Yes, we’ve explored that. It’s pretty interesting, and there’s more blog posts coming on that, but any way you slice it 4% is on the high end of awesome. It’s also fair because advertising has a specific cost, and Twitter is $cheap – so you start to see the picture on the value of Social Media when viewed through the marketing lens.
Great information Mike. Have you explored CTR as compared to the nature of the link? In other words, the Facebook/Google/LinkedIn links are obvious advertisements and thus they are receiving a lower CTR because we as “potential consumers” recognize they are advertisements. This compared to Twitter links (or blog links), which we as “follower” see as potential information sources.
So, is it fair to evaluate the CTR of information base links to advertisement based links?
Chad J Myers’s last blog post..The Geico Money Stack vs The Bass Fisherman
Your dummy accounts have more followers than I do.
I think I need to start making some more friends.